If you haven’t read the Overview, Phase 1 and Phase 2 sections yet, I highly encourage you to do so before reading further, as this page builds on top of the information shared in those pages.
The Phase 3 of Counterflow SEO Strategy is all about writing an amazing piece of content that appeals to your backlinkers.
In Phase 1, we found our backlinkers, we chose a topic to write about so that your backlinkers are highly likely to link to you and we chose the appropriate medium tail keyword.
In Phase 2, we learned
…the reasons for not jumping right into writing content
…how to get on your backlinker’s radar strategically
…how to leverage social media to reach more people interested in your content
In Phase 3, we get down to the fun stuff, writing your content that attracts social shares and backlinks.
The Common Structure
If you analyse the most successful blogs online, nearly every blog post follows a common structure.
The structure would look something like
Firstly…a title.
Secondly…an introduction
Thirdly…a body for the content with subtopics that divides the body into smaller sections
Finally, a conclusion with a definite call to action for the reader.
Unlike popular belief and perhaps as practiced in our school days, we won’t be writing the title and introduction before the body.
You see, unlike the articles or essays you were taught to write back in school days, these articles are intended to grab people’s attention and persuade them to take action.
So, the best approach that I have determined is to write the body section of the article, so that
- you have enough sweat equity in writing the article
- a concrete understanding of the topic of the article and
- how you are solving that problem for your reader.
With all this experience in the way you approach the article, you have enough knowledge and its easier to get into a state of flow to write your introduction where you explain why your reader should read the article.
That being said, let’s head to…
Step #1: Find a Problem to Solve or Choose a Topic
Most people who read content online, do not read solely for the purpose of reading.
They do so to learn about a certain subject so that they can solve a problem they are facing in their lives.
Hence, step 1 is to find a problem to address.
Specifically what we are looking for is a problem that is related to the topic we chose based on your backlinker’s interests.
Its perfectly fine to choose a topic if you prefer to write an article on a certain topic to give as much value as possible on that topic.
As long as you choose a problem to solve or a topic that is also a backlinker’s interest, you are good to go.
To reiterate what we had already covered in Phase 1, our goal is to write content that generates backlinks.
We do it by writing content that your backlinkers are also interested in.
Step #2: Breakdown Your Solution to the Problem or Topic Into Subtopics
Once you have chosen the problem to solve and formulated your own solution to the problem or chosen your topic to give as much details as possible on, you want to break them down into smaller subtopics.
Ideally, a minimum of 7 subtopics is perfect to flesh out a solution or information on a topic.
These subtopics can be
- chapters for creating a detailed guide
- or steps to follow to achieve a solution to the problem,
- or list of actionable tips on a topic.
More subtopics the better, but try not to write a “War and Peace”, it’s one of those mistakes I made in the past thinking that more words equals faster ranking.
Step #3: Make Your Subtopic Titles Seductive
Now that we have divided our content into subtopics, we are going to do a step that 99% of bloggers make online, much like me in the past.
This is a crucial step that I wasn’t aware of.
We are going to convert each of the subtopics into benefit rich subtitles.
By converting your subtopics into benefit rich subtitles, your readers get instantly hooked to read your content, because of the benefits you highlight.
If you can make these titles more emotionally driven, all the more better!
The benefit-rich subtitles listed in the table of contents section of the article increases the perceived value of your article, when a reader glances through the content before reading.
Furthermore, when you don’t convert your subtopics into benefit rich subtitles, your article ends up looking like a textbook or a learning material from school, which is bland and boring in the online space.
If your article is about sharing tips about a specific topic, one pro tip is to start and end the article with your best tips, because research has shown that when given a list of things, people often tend to remember the first and last few things on the list more, as compared to the ones in the middle.
Step #4: Write Content For Each Benefit Rich Subtitle
This is the space where you have to strategically handle the curiosity or intrigue which you have successfully achieved with your benefit rich subtitle.
In the online space, if you don’t get to the point quickly, people leave.
So its important you start each section with an overview of the section, to get people hooked on your content.
Some questions to answer, to get some creative juices flowing would include, what the section is all about? How is this section going to help them?
Once you have mentioned that, its time to include the content of the topic or the steps to follow for the solution you are proposing for the problem you chose to address for the article.
This where you include stories, anecdotes or quotes from your backlinkers, their tweets, images and videos to convey your ideas clearly.
Now, there is a downside to writing long articles, which is quite prevalent in a reader’s behavior online.
People tend to skim the article, rather than reading each word of your article.
One way to get around this problem is to sprinkle your article with bucket brigades.
Bucket brigade is a term used in the copywriting space, where you include words or phrases like “here we go…”, “thats not even the best part…”, “Let me explain…” etc.
One way you can identify a bucket brigade in an article is by looking for “…” after a phrase.
Hope it gives you a mental picture of how you can use these terms in your article.
These terms in a separate line gets a skimming reader’s attention quickly, as it makes them feel like they are missing out on something really juicy.
Bucket brigades work naturally when you share a story in your content section.
Besides, stories get people hooked all the time. It’s such an ancient hook point to our nature.
As for font selection and font size goes, feel free to experiment and find out what works best for you.
I’d also recommend dropping the sidebar, as it has become more like a blind spot for readers where they expect ads and ignore it completely.
Thanks to marketers in the past who ruined this section with lead capture forms to send spam and sold their info for a quick buck. Not cool.
If you monetize your content with ads or any other way, feel free to infuse them in between the sections of your content, as it is the closest we can get to a commercial break sort of behavior people get from mainstream media.
Besides the space where your article is written on a page is where all of your reader’s attention is.
Step #5: Writing Memorable Conclusions
Now that you have written the content for each of your subtopics, outlining a solution to the problem or sharing information about a topic…
Its time to write the conclusion section to the article.
This is where you summarize the article very briefly and get your readers to take action.
Ideally this section should only have one action for them to take, rather than giving them options, because people would have to expend neural energy to make decisions, which is less than ideal.
Most common action you would want your readers to take is to ask them to leave a comment, because it increases the length of your article organically, and it gives insight into what your readers are thinking which you can use for improving the article or perhaps in other articles you write.
Step #6: Writing Click-Worthy Titles & Descriptions
By this stage of the writing process, you have put in alot of sweat equity.
You will have a lot of passion to get this information out to as many people as possible.
So its important that we craft a click-worthy title and description to your article.
Furthermore, after Google’s RankBrain algorithm update, Google analyses the behavior of their user on the search results page to see which link gets the most click from the user for a specific keyword and includes that data in the ranking algorithm.
For this reason, its very important to use an emotionally compelling benefit driven title for your article, for the simple fact that emotions move people to take action.
Here are some things you could do to make your titles and descriptions more click-worthy,
Include a Number In Your Title
By including a number that highlights the benefit of the steps you outline in your article, increases the perceived value of the benefit they could get from reading your article.
The mindset to have here is to think, what’s in it for them.
If there is some tangible and amazing solution that would alleviate the pain in their life after reading your article, they would be interested in reading your content.
Use Brackets In Your Title
By using brackets or parentheses in your title, which mentions the nature of the article, for eg: [Ultimate Guide] or [Updated], you are giving your potential readers a teaser, what they are just a click away from!
You will see this being used in forum threads, which has (SOLVED) written in all caps to entice users to click that link.
Include Current Year (if applicable)
This works best if your article is relevant to a specific year, ideally the current year.
If you are writing car reviews or tech gadget review etc, this will definitely attract more clicks to your article.
Keep Your Title Tags Short and Sweet
There is only so much space to show your title in Google search results. Moz.com suggests keeping the title under 60 characters so it displays properly on desktop and mobile.
Keyword Injection in Titles, Descriptions and URL
This is a no-brainer, when a user searches for something and if they are able to see the keyword they entered their attention is instantly drawn to it.
Furthermore, when you inject your keyword into the description, Google will highlight this keyword to your user which grabs their attention much more.
Think of your description as your article’s “pitch” to read and get the benefits from it. On top of it, when Google highlights the search keyword, its an implicit “Click me now” to a searcher.
Step #7: Writing Introductions To Get People Hooked
Earlier in the article, I had mentioned unlike our school days, we write an introduction to an article in the end, for maximum impact to your readers.
Lets do a recap real quick…
By now you have written your article body, given it a conclusion that entices people to take one action, and prepared a click-worthy title and description.
This section is probably the most important part of the content creation.
In this section your main objective is to NOT let the reader click that back button, as it would increase your bounce rate and its bad for SEO.
Some bloggers try to block people from clicking the back button using javascript code, which is horrible for user experience.
By writing a very strong compelling introduction explaining briefly the reason to stick on and read the article, you attract people to read more.
Here is how we do it… (bucket brigade ;))
Limit Your Intro to 8 Lines Or Less
We want to get to the point quickly, without stories or any anecdotes.
Limiting your intro to 8 lines or less, is visually appealing and subconsciously nudges the user to read quickly, until you present the table of contents, thats when they get hooked!
Use VERY Short Sentences
Short sentences are more understandable.
It utilizes less cognitive energy to read and understand, especially considering how fleeting people’s attention spans have become.
Besides, we want to make our intro look as effortless as possible for the reader to read visually.
Highlight the benefits of reading the article
When a reader chooses to visit your article, they are actually giving you an implicit vote of confidence just from reading your title and description, aka your pitch for the article.
So its key for you to quickly highlight the benefit of reading the article to keep them on the page and entice them to scroll further.
The most straightforward way to do this is to use bullet points, you can’t get more simpler than this. Its short, sharp, benefit-rich and to the point.
Increase Emotional Statement
As always emotions move people. Keep this as a rule #1 in marketing. Writing emotional statements infused with the benefits of reading the article is the sweet spot to get people hooked on the page.
End the intro with a bucket brigade like “So, let’s get started”, “Sounds great? Read on.” etc….this is just a final nudge to push your reader to read the article, just in case they decide to skim right off the bat.
Step #8: Include Table of Contents
At this point, this step is a no-brainer.
By including a table of contents right after the introduction gives people a further sneak peek of the article.
If you have converted your subtopics into benefit rich emotionally driven subtitles, your article will become irresistible to your readers to ignore.
Also, if they are reading your article after a quick break, they can easily navigate back to the section where they left off, by clicking on the title.
You can easily include a table of contents with no additional coding on your part by using a table of contents plugin.
There are free plugins available for this purpose.
Conclusion
In this article, we covered how to write content that attracts backlinks and get your readers hooked to read.
We touched on the psychology behind the content writing approach. We also learned how to grab attention of readers who prefer to skim the article.
We learned how to attract clicks, keep the readers attention and what moves people into action.
If you follow this phase properly, you will have no problem in getting ranked on Google and achieving the goals you are after with launching a blog in your niche.
Serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and respected business advisor, Chris Ducker once said “Do What You Do Best. DELEGATE THE REST.”
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