Currently a lot of people try to get the community's attention with content. In this post I would like to share 7 ingredients that I think are part of every successful post on Steemit.

Content is a powerful tool in our world and steemit not only shows you how much impact readers can have on your post but it also gives you a great opportunity to get better at content creation. So what does it take to come up with a great outline for an amazing article on steemit?

1. You need a catchy title

The title and first sentence is what people see when they scroll through new posts on Steemit and that’s where you have to stand out. You headline needs to cover the following aspects:

• A fun title: Have some fun with your title and get creative. Words like “Foolproof Formula” catch people’s attention and make them find out more.
• Strong and convincing language: Use strong words to get your point across and describe what people get from reading your post.
• Add value: Why should I read your post? What do I get out of it?
• Keep it short: Titles shouldn’t consist out of more than 8-12 words. You need to convince the audience quickly.
• Search optimization: Use the correct tags and keywords to get found more easily. The content needs to match the tag.

2. Your content needs to serve a human need: Emotions, entertainment, learning, expert advice

We as a reader want to fulfill certain needs when we consume content. An article that provides me with great tips or triggers an emotion will have a much bigger impact and gets shared more easily. Take some time before you sit down and create your post to think about what problem or need you can solve for the reader. Topics can be:

• Emotional: You share some personal insights or use a emotional story to grab somebody's attention.
• Humor/Entertainment: Your post is funny and entertains the mass.
• Learnings: You can teach somebody something in your post and share valuable knowledge with your readers. These types of posts usually perform very well. Readers then feel that they can upskill and learn from other people's experiences.
• Expert advice: These types of post take the “learning” aspect to the next level because the author is identified as a thought leader and shares their advice. AMA’s or expert tips can outperform any other type of post very easily.

3. Your content has a personal touch and is authentic

People like to connect with other people and that’s just simple human nature. In the online world the connection gets less personal. That’s why it is so important to bring a personal touch across when you share content with other people. People will only relate to you when they can see a real human behind the content and get a feeling about who you are and what you do. We have seen it not only in this community, but also in many others, that the section “introduceyourself” gets a lot of traction and people upvote personal stories over other posts. Sharing something about yourself carries a lot of value for other people and that’s why your personality should shine through when you create content. You can’t be authentic if you don’t open up to the community.

4. Your body text is structured and guides people through your post

Did you ever try to read an article without any paragraphs or headlines? Yes, it’s a terrible user experience and it makes it so much harder to process the information. People usually give up straight away when they see content that hasn’t been formatted. Don’t underestimate the value of adding a heading, bold text or bullet points to your posts. Your readers will appreciate it.

5. Your post image needs to fit your headline

It seems very obvious but the image should obviously display what readers can expect the topic to be about. It will pay off if you put more time into creating a nice image that fits to your post. Tools like Canva offer a great way to create free to use, but also easy to design images.

6. Your topics appeals to your audience

When you’re creating content it all comes down to knowing your audience and their needs and challenges. That’s why it’s so important to do some research before you start writing. Search trough the community, take a look at what other people have written and see what you can contribute to it. In marketing we call this analysis: Developing a buyer persona

7. Your topic leaves room for discussion

The word community says it all. People want to share ideas and opinions and that’s why you should share yours too. Writing fact based articles can attract a certain audience but you want to reach out to the mass and capture the most readers as possible. Be bold and play around with some ideas that will inspire people to share their opinion about it. An upvote also says that people want others to be able to read the same article. So if I value something, I want to make sure that somebody else can benefit from it too. That’s why the good articles are rewarded and will end up being on top of the list.

What was you most successful post on Steemit so far?