Using the right keywords is like having a magic key that opens the door to winning over the hearts of the readers in the blogosphere.
I have written a few thousand blog articles in my career. I’m by no means a professional writer or anything close to it. But, I spend a lot of time looking at google analytics. I use Google analytics, and also try to figure out what works in the Twittersphere as well as the Blogosphere. I used to think that writing interesting articles that were akin to the interests of your audience was the secret. I was wrong! Yes, you need to understand your audience and what your audience responds to, but keywords make all the difference.
Positive Keywords
The guy at the coffee shop in my neighborhood is so interesting. I was talking to him about keywords today. We must have talked about over a hundred topics so far since I’ve known him. I said that the word “fail” doesn’t work with my crowd. He said that the under 18 crowd loves the word fail. They’re only interested in watching people screw up, or fall off their skateboard. But, my audience doesn’t respond well to this word. I won’t get retweeted, and people won’t click on my blog. If I use fail — I fail. On the other hand, if I use the tag #failure on Twitter in a blog about #success, that seems to be okay assuming it is accompanied by some more positive tags too. In short, I learned that my crowd liked words like millionaire, CEO, success, expand, grow, best, good, etc.
How To Themes
In addition to being perpetually positive, my crowd loves nothing more than how to blogs. They run businesses (or want to) and want to know how I think they should create and grow their business. If I have one hundred different marketing techniques, they will read each one if I phrase the title correctly. The minute I’m just giving “good advice” nobody wants it, but if there is a “how to” in the title — it gets read. How to motivate, fixing mistakes and finding solutions to particular problems are blog title fragments that almost guarantee success.
Interesting Content
If every blog article you wrote started with “how to,” I think that people might get bored. But, spicing up your blog with some really interesting and unusual content is great too. Not all of us can think of zany ideas, but I have thought of a few. I wrote a piece about what it would be like if classically trained musicians ran IT companies in India. I wrote another about what it would be like to have your office in the Himalayas. Ideas come when they come, but my audience eats up these interesting ideas. If you have some cool rule of thumb that is easy to remember, that will win over readers too. I wrote a piece about the 2 minute contact rule. It was easy to understand the concept, plus it was catchy.
Pairing Strategies
Using language in a fun way wins over readers too. I wrote a piece called:
The pen is mightier than the sword; But, is flogging mightier than blogging?
The title caught on right away, especially after the drama in Saudi Arabia where a blogger disrespected Islam and was going to get a whooping. I wrote another title called: Good Sign; Bad Sign — what to look for in newly hired workers. Once again another pairing strategy that caught everyone’s eyes.
Relatable Content
If you write a blog article and the readers say, “You’re preaching to the choir!” Then, you have got the right idea. People love to read about someone else having the same problem that they have. If you write about stress to an audience of stressed out maniacs, they’ll love you for it. If you write about job training where your readers are younger workers who need training, they will relate right away. Sometimes I write about my personal experience and start the article with the word “diary.” This is a strategy that works well too.
What Doesn’t Work?
Writing about negative concepts, or things the audience doesn’t care about like politics, the economy, etc. (on my blog — your audience might love those topics.) If your articles are too analytical, that narrows down the audience who care to think that intricately. Additionally, if you write about boring and nagging topics, only dentists and grammar teachers will want to read it. Sometimes ideas that are too goofy backfire too. Humor as a rule is good in writing, but if you use it in a way your audience doesn’t like, then you wasted a good joke on a bad audience!