Writing a winning blogpost
Is there a way to create content that goes through the roof? That gives you a load of followers right away? Is there a formula for it? Well.. I think there is but it is all up to you! Using my knowledge about this platform, my observations of great content (not those kitten posts that get $1500), my experience as a UX Designer and knowledge of Online Marketing, I will give you some pointers and tips for creating a great post every time.
Disclaimer I didn’t had a successful post yet that goes over $100. So this is purely based on knowledge and not experience of getting there yet. I’m using my own tips as well ;).
The Introduction of your article
The introduction of your article should be spot on. Steemit shows your title and the first line of your introduction. So if these are on point people will click your blog post more. It should capture the attention of the reader and be in sync with the article itself.
Then when the reader is actually clicking on your article you want to have the essence of the article in the introduction. What can he expect when reading this? If that is worthy, he will read on! Keep the introduction authentic and close to yourself.
Headlines are the eye catchers
The headlines of your articles are the eye catchers and grab the attention. This is also a short read on the paragraph itself. The title should explain it already and for more information they’re gonna read further.
No brainer: Quality of Quantity
With the influx of new users everyday and everyone seeing so much money going around it’s tempting to post a lot of articles everyday to maximise your income. Just don’t. You won’t get upvoted thus your income would be low. Instead focus on 1-2 articles a day that are really helpful and brings value to the platform. People will notice and they will up vote you for it after which you will get more income out of it. This should be common sense, however when I browse the feed I see 70% pure rubbish and not worthy.
Tag Tag and Tag some more!
Tags are super relevant and categorises your content accordingly. Your article will pop-up in the categories in which you will get your target audience. If it’s relevant to the categories people will up vote your post more often.
It’s so popular!
To make the most profit you will have to analyse which categories are the most popular. Which sections get a lot of attention and have the highest payout / comments / upvotes. This will give you some pointers on some content you can write! Do your own research and you will be golden!
You there! What do you think?!
Use Call to Actions (CTA’s). A CTA is a call out for the reader for a response. A good Call to Action might be to ask their opinions and start a discussion or if the article was really helpful ask for a resteem/upvote. By using a Call to Action in every post you make you are trying to up the engagement on your posts. Never heard of a CTA before? Look it up and read up! It’s really really useful!
Comments
Comments are so important, they are from your readers! They took the time to read your article and leave a comment. Leave a comment in return and engage in a conversation. Show that you know your stuff and make new friends. It’s a chance to interact with your audience and get feedback. You will improve yourself in newer posts and perhaps enlighten you with their view on the subject.
How to write quality posts
Take your time I’ll spend 2 hours doing my research on the subject and gaining knowledge after which I write my blog posts in 2-3 hours. I’ll check if it’s worthy, readable, understandable and check on spelling. After I did my own checking I show it to someone else to read it and give feedback and adjust it accordingly.
Write it out! I write everything that comes to mind and most of it won’t even makes it to go live. I write it out so I get even more inspiration. Then I will go back and read it and remove every word that is not needed.
Watch your language Your tone of voice is very important! It should be relatable to your target audience. They should understand what you are saying. Your readers wants to read your blogs comfortable and they shouldn’t struggle to understand. Because when a reader doesn’t understand 3 sentences and isn’t even finished reading there is a high chance they will stop reading.
Last but not least, criticise yourself Your writing is golden. What do you think when you read this? Are you using the correct language and are you pleased with the end result? If so, go live with the post!
I strongly believe that only creating a great post is not enough due to the fact that steemit search is not available and that posts in new section are moving so fast. The last element missing in my opinion is promotion of your post.
Once you have your audience build up, they will follow and if it's a good post resteem which can get you even more publicity and followers ... after all that's the way i found your posts. I would probably never stumbled upon you if one of your previous posts wasn't resteemed by someone i follow.
You are right. Also I highly recommend joining contests. You mix with many new people naturally creating content is even more fun and there is so much more creativity to discover.
That's true! But you need quality followers not quantity. People that really like your content will stay and will interact with you.
great tips, followed
I have received your message, and I have voted you back. Nice!:)
Good post
I haven't put that much effort into CTA's but it's a wonderful tip, that I will start implementing. Thanks :)
BTW my first couple of posts I spent about 10 hours on doing. I know, wayyy overkill, but it got me started and I learned a lot just having such a long process :)
Damn 10 hours! Well I can't judge, I had the same actually. Inspiration doesn't come when you ask for it haha! As long as you learn from it and how to use that time in a good manner, it's not overkill ;)
Excellent piece of advice. Makes me think about this meme I posted this very morning: https://steemit.com/meme/@valderrama/funny-meme-happy-speculating-fellow-steemians
;) Keep up the good work my fellow Steemian, you did put in the work for this post!
Very good post. Thanks for the pointers really makes a lot of sense
Great post! I would also ad that it is important to ad at least one good image that catches attention. Also I agree with @poss :)
One more thing that helped me to keep on steeming is trying out new things. First I started a weekly topic (in German) to see if l could keep up daily posts.
Currently I joined the challenge30days innitated by @dragosroua. I recommend to challenge oneself. Really motivating.
There are many ways of goin about it. YOU are going about it a great way. Good for you.
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Me, I might have a different style. Me, I don't make as much as I know I am worth. And I can tell, you are worth more too. But I also suggest replying to those who take the time to comment on your posts. Take the time to say hello on posts you appreciate. Steemit.chat is cool, very cool. But the rewards for engagement are here, on @Steemit.
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Me, I am not gonna mess with Paying of Competing for Votes yet. But if you want to go buy some upvotes you can: RandoWhale, WhaleShares, and there are contests. But also I think @Minnowsupport tries to help a community as well.
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Then again, there are my friends in Steemspeak that can help. Here is their discord link: https://discord.gg/DwqzJ6q
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And I appreciate what @instructor2121 has generously created in @Steemtrail. It is simply a community of curation. So feel free to check out the Steemtrail site for info on that.
Hi Jacob!
Thanks for your amazingly detailed reply! You are bringing up some interesting points for sure. I use Randowhale from time to time but never used Whaleshares before. Is it worth using? :)
The discord link is nice, I will try to be more active on that as well! About the steemtrail, I never heard of that so I will check that out! Thanks for that!
I only used RandoWhale once to SEND a vote to Steemtrail. But not for myself. I have not used Whaleshares cause it seems to ask that people show up for give aways, and compete against each other and then in the end one is buying votes. It's fine if it works for others. I see people making 10x's what I make. But it just sounds like facebook and twitter ads where they get you to pay them to be seen, and I thought @steemit was moving away from that. Guess not, it's all good. Capitalism is fine. I'm just also too busy trying to help newbies like you and others get the ball rolling. Hope it all works out for you whatever you do. Cheers!
thanks for sharing
thanks
Good idea to put tags related to contests!
#beautifulsunday e.g.