User experience is an important part of running a successful blog. 

It can also be overwhelming, as so many different parts make up the whole.

From the content you present, to the design, to the speed of your loading, there is a ton to take into account.

Start by Defining Your Brand

These days of content overproduction, it seems online readers have seen everything. It is getting harder and harder to create a piece of content that would interest your target audience well enough for them to keep engaging with your site or following your conversion funnel.

People love brands, they skim content.

Maxwell Hertan of Megaphone Marketing said it best:

Way back in 2008, at-the-time Google CEO Eric Schmidt hit the nail on the head when he said “brands are the solution, not the problem.” What he meant was, in the vast, murky ocean of information and disinformation that is the internet, a strong brand represents trust.

Branding is the first thing you need to start working on. Define your brand’s visual identity (your logo and your color palette) and create a consistent visual identity everywhere – from your site to your social media channels and guest columns.

If you haven’t yet found your brand name, spend some time brainstorming something memorable. Your brand name is what will help your readers recognize you from the crowd of your competitors and associate you with what it is you are doing or writing about. 

I love using this brand name generator to get some ideas on how to name my next project. It generates really awesome ideas and even helps with creating your brand visual identity. Plus it is completely free:

Don’t Underestimate The Power Of Good Content

Nothing quite beats the power of amazing content. It can inform, inspire, and draw in a lot of attention. It can boost your site through a single viral hit, or cause controversy that can be hard to recover from.

Whatever the result, you should be focusing plenty of effort on making sure yours is the very best it can be. Failing that will quickly render the need for other tricks useless.

To create more in-depth content, use Text Optimizer, a semantic analysis tool that gives you a deeper understanding of any topic:

Stop Thinking Numbers, Start Thinking Value

“Each post has to be exactly 750 words, and have a 3% keyword density based on these keywords that we found in this marketing study, and it has to be posted every week on Wednesday at precisely 7:32 AM EST, and have this many images featuring these elements, as found effective by this case study on the most heavily pinned blog posts on Pinterest in 2013!” 

Look, data is useful. But there is no perfect number combination that will ensure your website’s success.

Calm down, take a deep breath, and write naturally and enjoyably. Aim to offer something of value, not something that reaches a certain value. While a post of 350 words without any major keyword saturation might not have the SEO oomph of a 1,000 word article, it could be more useful and have a higher rate of sharing on social media, for example.

Get Rid Of The Clutter

One of the most annoying common sights on blogs these days is the sale popup. You are trying to read a post, and a box shows up over that post telling you about the latest ebook available for free, or a seminar with spots left for eager learners. Meanwhile, that same information is right in the sidebar, where I can see it at my leisure.

These little extras clutter your layout, annoy users, and don’t offer much by way of conversion anymore. There is a reason that minimalism has remained the only consistent design and UI trend, every year. Your readers want simplicity, and don’t want to have to fight through popups and invasive ads to see what you have posted.

Using tools like Finteza to identify on-page elements that seems to scare people away or otherwise encourage them to follow your conversion channel:

Formatting Is Everything

How is it possible that we have gotten this far into the blogging revolution, and yet are still seeing so many formatting mistakes? It boggles my mind, every time you witness a post that is an endless blog of text with minimal spacing. 

Do you see how this particular post is formatted? It is made to be easy to read on a screen, whether that is mobile or desktop. Never write a blog post in the way a book would be. 

You want plenty of headers, bullet points and numbers when necessary, a clear font, and anything needed to make viewing easier on the eyes. Structure your content well using <h2> and <h3> headers and providing useful and clear answers underneath each one:

There’s a helpful writing checklist which would help you format your content well.

Images Ain’t Just For The Header

If you have ever read Cracked, you will know a big part of their gimmick is images through the text with witty captions. 

You don’t have to do the same (it may not fit your particular site), but you can spare a couple more visuals in your blog posts. 

It breaks up the text, adds context, and redraws the reader’s attention. It also stops skimmers long enough to focus on the next bit of text, so they don’t miss anything.

Here’s a cool tool for you to generate memes to make your content more shareable.

There’s also a nice collection of free photos over at Smart Photostock that gives away pictures to bloggers.

Diversify Your Lead Generating Tactics

There are some brands lately that have been using in depth questionnaires as an alternative to payment for their premium services. Some blogs have been asking for surveys in order to get free copies of books, or special content for VIP readers only.

This is such a great tactic, as it provides a feeling of exclusivity, maintains a free business model, or provides marketing data that can be crucial for growth. There are many plugins that allow you to create forms of any kind, long or short, thorough or basic, for whatever reason you may have. That includes multi-page layout forms, and a whole lot more.

You may want to try conversational forms that help generate more engagement by providing interactive form layout.

Another content engagement strategy that is quickly making its way into the marketing world is using web push notifications. Once enabled, your readers will receive browser alerts whenever you have an update. You can even segment your audience to better target those notifications:

Speed Up Your Site!

Living in a digital age, we are pretty impatient nowadays. So when a website won’t load quickly, or properly, we are prone to just forgetting about it and finding another one to replace it. You don’t want this to happen with your readers. 

So get this plugin, which optimizes performance and makes your site run smoothly. This is great for people who are hosting media that requires downloads, as well. It is also a good idea to pick a fast-loading theme as this would minimize the speed issues you will have to fix.

Do you have any tips or plugins for improving user experience on your blog? Let us know in the comments!

The post How to Improve Your Blog Readers’ Experience appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

All too often, we think of the blog that we write for as “our” blog. And, it is. We, as the website owner, have control of the blog. We created it, we operate it, we publish posts on the blog. It is, in fact, ours.

In reality, however, “our” blog shouldn’t be entirely about us. It’s more like a partnership where we have the controlling interest, but our readers have an almost-equal say. After all, if they don’t want to read the posts we add to our blogs, we’ll quickly find ourselves in a deserted area of the Internet filled with virtual tumbleweeds.

The trick? Writing blog posts with your readers in mind. Yes, you absolutely need to incorporate your unique personality and charm into each post you write. But including your target audience (readers) in every step goes a long way to creating the best posts possible and ensuring continued engagement.

Get the scoop >>> 4 Ways You Can Start Writing Better Blog Posts Immediately Click to Tweet

Create and Read Your Audience Persona

Do you have a target audience persona (profile)? You really should! This is essentially an outline/synopsis of those who regularly read the posts on your blog. It includes information such as:

• Age
• Income level
• Education level
• Gender
• Interests
• Hobbies
• Profession
• Stage of life
• Biggest concerns (related to the topic(s) you blog about)
• And much more.

How do these seemingly boring details impact your writing? Think about it like this.

Let’s say you operate a pet blog. You regularly write posts about dog-related topics, which is awesome! And you get some likes, shares, and comments. However, after you do a bit of research and ask some questions, you realize (much to your surprise) that 46% of your readers have only cats or have dogs and cats as companions. What’s more, 25% have ferrets in addition to a cat or dog!

Also, 58% of people have income under $35,000 per year and state that their biggest pet-related concerns are linked to the expenses of owning their pets.

Now, what do you do? You begin cranking out posts about not only dogs but also cats and ferrets. Your topics might shift from always writing about dog exercise, eating habits, and travel to also including tips for affordable health care for all of these (and other) pets.

A profile/persona can be as detailed or as simplistic as you want. Obviously, the more useful information you include, the better you’ll understand your target audience.

Start by asking some basic questions like the ones listed above to get a foundational knowledge of who you are writing to. Then add to the persona regularly as you discover new tidbits of info.

Choose the Right Blog Post Style

While editorial (opinion) blog posts are without a doubt the most used, there are lots of other styles in which you can write to switch things up and keep your visitors interested. Try one of these:

• Interview — Just like Oprah, you can bring others to your audience to share their knowledge with your peeps. Email interviews are a breeze to conduct; much less trouble than audio or video interviews (which are also great but require much more work). Send someone 5 to 10 questions via email and ask them to answer them. Format that into a blog post and you’re done!
• Investigation — Dig deep into a current event, new government policy, or even a product recall that might affect your readers. They’ll be glad you took the time to uncover and explain the details.
• Demo — Have you heard about new software, a special process, or a clever hack that your audience would love? Outline a quick demo complete with highlights of the biggest pros and cons. And, of course, lots of pics!

Depending on the topic you’re covering, one of these might work much better than the standard editorial.

Create a Title That Makes Them Say, “Oooh!”

A lot of weight hangs on the shoulders of your blog post title. This is the most important element, without a doubt. More so than the content? Yes! That’s because, if no one is impressed with your title, the chances are minuscule that they will read the rest.

As a serious blogger, you should have an arsenal of title templates at the ready, so you can elicit the reaction “Oooh … I want to read THAT!” from your visitors.

As a serious blogger, you should have an arsenal of title templates at the ready, so you can elicit the reaction 'Oooh … I want to read THAT!' from your visitors. Click to Tweet

Here are 10 title templates to add to your list.

1. How I Earned [$x.xx] for Only [Doing This]
2. How I Increased [This Statistic] in [Amount of Time] With Only [This]
3. Why [This] Matters for [Selling More, Getting More Leads, Etc.] and How to Improve Yours
4. [#] Things to Remember When [Writing, Selling, Training] a Perfect [Book, Product, Service, Etc.]
5. Introducing a [Simpler, Easier, Better, Etc.] [Product, Service, Etc.] Just for [Whoever]
6. [#] Types of [Whatever] That are Proven to Work
7. [This Thing] vs. [This Other Thing]: Differences You Should Be Aware Of
8. [#] Steps for [Doing This] Right Every Time
9. [#] Traits of a Successful [Whatever]
10. Our/My [#] Favorite [Whatever] and Why I/We Love Them

Captivate Your Readers With An Engaging Opening Paragraph

Once you’ve mastered the title hurdle and enticed your audience to read on, you’ll need to hook them with your opening paragraph. Nothing conjures up a yawn quicker than phrases such as “You are probably already aware…” or “Today I want to tell you about….”

Instead of using these mediocre introductions to your post, try something a little more jolting, like:

• Leaving out nouns. “It” was the one thing I feared most and there it was dangling right in front of me. What is? What was scary? Readers have to continue on to find out.
• Replacing typical words with super verbs and adjectives. Which ones bring up a more powerful mental image? Break or smash? Promise or swear? Hate or detest? Choose words that help your audience envision precisely what you mean.
• Ask a question. When someone asks a question, our brains instantly and automatically engage in order to scour our minds for the answer. Asking questions is a good thing for hooking your audience!
• Shock your reader. Drinking just two sugary sodas per day increases your chances of cancer by 92%. Or, give it a one-two punch by turning that shocking factoid into a question: Did you know that drinking just two….

Learn 4 ways to engage your reader with your opening paragraph... Click to Tweet

Once you devote a bit of gray matter to your target audience, you’ll find it’s easier to create exceptional blog posts that garner praise and compliments! The problem can sometimes be that we don’t have the proper inspiration to expand our skills when it comes to blog writing.

NOTE FROM DENISE: I thought I had everything pretty well figured out when it comes to blogging until I read Karon Thackston’s ebook “Blogging Advantage: How to Create Blog Posts That Entice & Engage.” I was blown away as I clicked from page to page and saw the creative ideas and templates Karon laid out. You should give it a look for yourself. If you use the link above and coupon code DENISEBA10 you’ll save $10, too.

Blog cover image: Hannah Olinger

The post 4 Ways You Can Start Writing Better Blog Posts Immediately appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

If you are finding yourself lagging in motivation, you might want to check out these ten best TED Talks by professionals and creative minds. They can really give you that boost of inspiration you need to keep working at what you are doing.

Colin Robertson’s “A TED Speaker’s Worst Nightmare”

This is one of my all time personal favorite TED Talks. It is deceptively simple, and yet utilizes visuals in a way that generally these talks don’t. What they can teach bloggers is the importance of visual innovation in their efforts. Not everything has to be a stagnant post.

As a blogger, you have every capability to branch out into other mediums, and do something truly memorable. You already know that there are many options for you out there: infographics, podcasts, videos, Slideshares, streaming webinars, etc. This TED talk shows you the benefit of using something a little different to leave an impression.

Richard St. John’s “8 Secrets of Success”

Richard St. John found success. Then he lost it. His eight secrets about that success (and why he couldn’t hold onto it) comes down to one major point, and that was consistent quality. He was not consistent in his efforts, and in his quality, because once he made it he stopped trying.

Where he once pushed himself to be better, he stopped and started to lose it all. Which led to a crumbling of his entire life. He shows the importance of working to remain the best you can be, and always putting in the work needed to be amazing. Even when you have already made it in the big leagues.

David Pogue’s “Simplicity Sells”

This is a talk that is aimed at the technological field, and so you might not understand why it is on this list. But the general concept that it conveys is a good one to keep in mind: simplicity sells. You are trying to sell your blog to your readers. Having the most complicated posts won’t do it, because you are attempting to make a connection. Keep it simple, and that connection will occur much easier.

Mena Trott’s “How Blogs Are Building A Friendlier World”

The mother of the blogging revolution got up on stage to talk about the beginning world of this social engagement tool, and when she realized what it would mean to give the power of content sharing directly to the people online. Her argument isn’t just that it is a good way to share, but an excellent way to connect with people all over the world. Through blogging, she believes we can create a friendly, more understanding world across cultural boundaries. If she doesn’t inspire you, no one will.

Tavi Gevinson’s “Still Figuring It Out”

This is not a talk about anything to do with blogging. However, it is a talk by a very prominent teenage blogger about her passion for feminism, and changing the state of gender equality through a more measured view of women in the media. Her talk is a must see for bloggers, because you can clearly watch her expound on something she feels strongly about. This passion is directly injected into her blogging, which is what made her such a success.

Tobias Otting’s “We All Have A Voice”

Speaking of young TED presenters, Tobias Otting is only 9-years-old. He has a successful blog himself, and as he stands on that stage you can see why. He is eloquent, intelligent, and he connects with the audience immediately. He talks about how we all have a voice, and how important it is to develop it and be heard.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Your Elusive Creative Genius”

Have you ever read someone’s work, looked at your own, and thought, “Man, how can I compare to this creative genius?” It is something that happens to us all, and “Eat, Pray, Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert wants you to cut it out – because she believes we all have a creative genius inside of us!

David Kelley’s “How To Build Your Creative Confidence”

Telling an anecdote about a childhood friend, David Kelley begins his talk by pointing out how very fragile the creative ego can be. How often do we stunt our own confidence in creative endeavors? How often do we encourage one another? Learn how you can start to rebuild your confidence, and what that can do for you.

Amanda Palmer’s “The Art Of Asking”

Amanda Palmer is best known for her work with her band The Dresden Dolls. But both before and after, she has been an artist who relies entirely on her fans and other artists to help her and her bands make a name. A recent Kickstarter campaign that raised $1.2 million (on a $100,000 goal) shows the power of crowdsourcing. But it also shows the power and art of asking. [NOTE from Denise – Amanda Palmer just published a book based on the ideas she explores in this TED Talk, The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help]

Steven Johnson’s “Where Good Ideas Come From”

Good ideas aren’t so automatic as you might think. Sometimes, they are concepts that are very slowly developed, or have to evolve over time. If you have ever lamented your lack of immediate genius ideas, this is the TED Talk for you.

Further reading and resources:

• If you are a newbie blogger or know one, bookmark this guide on starting a blog. It’s one of the best organized and complete guides on blogging, so, if you feel motivated now, it will help you start acting!
• If you need more great TED talks, check out this list by GetResponse.com: 6 TED talks for email marketers.
• If you need additional (and tangible) motivation, go over these great articles from DirJournal: 10 Ways to Earn Money With an Ad-Free Blog and Bloggers: Why You Should Diversify Your Income Streams

TED Talks are a fantastic way to be inspired, and there are a lot of them out there. If you know of any you would like to share, whether about blogging or not, we would love to hear your suggestions. Post them in the comments!

The post Best TED Talks for (New) Bloggers to Get Motivated appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.