Step 1: Write an article about a topic your target audience has questions about.
Step 2: Engage your audience so they don’t fall asleep while reading.
But how?
As you know, one of the primary reasons for creating content is to provide value to your clients. To do that, you have to keep your audience’s attention throughout your article.
There are five key elements to include in every article.
Data and Statistics
Instead of throwing out ideas and opinions, provide real data, statistics, and facts that support the point you are trying to make. This helps to show authority and credibility, as it lets the audience know you’ve done your research.
When you do use data and statistics, make sure you reference the source. Mentioning the resources and including a link to where you found the information works great.
Example: A recent study by Hubspot, shows that 73% of people admit to skimming blog posts, meaning only 27% of people actually read articles thoroughly.
Visuals
Based on the example statistic above, it’s important for “skimmers” to be able to gather information about your article quickly. A great way to do this is to include some sort of visual component.
Your visuals should be a representation of something within your article, this way, the people skimming through are able to gather valuable information in a short amount of time. Visuals also cater to your audience members who learn better by seeing, instead of reading and work great for breaking up blocks of text.
Hint: Your visuals can be used as social media posts when you start promoting your article.
Internal Links
Once you’ve got a reader to your website, you want to keep them there. A great way to do this is by including internal links in your articles.
These links can direct your readers to:
- Your other articles
- Your informational guides
- Your social media platforms
- Your services page
When you link to internal content, you are helping your readers navigate between relevant pages, which again, reinforces your value.
Including internal links is also key for boosting your SEO. Search engines, like Google, rank pages with more links higher than pages with fewer links because in Google’s mind: more links = more value.
External Links
To go along with your internal links, you should also include external links. Pulling from external links draws in other ideas and proves that other people are talking about this topic too.
Including relevant, high-performing pages will also improve SEO, because again, search engines see those pages as more valuable.
You should link to good sources (not your competitors) to tell your audience that you do your research too. It builds their trust in you and shows that you care about them getting all of the information they need.
Clear Next Steps
The final, but arguably most important element of a great article is a clear next step. You need to make sure the audience knows what to do/where to go next to benefit from what you just explained. This is usually referred to as a call to action.
Here are a few examples of ways you can provide clear next steps:
- Looking for help growing your firm? Use this guide: Marketing for Accountants
- Download our free ideal client persona template to pinpoint exactly what you are looking for in an ideal client!
- Check out our Marketing Plan Cheat Sheet!
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel
- Follow us on Twitter
- Find us on LinkedIn
Need help writing a great article?
At Full Stadium Marketing, we know exactly what it takes to write a great article. We include each of the 5 elements and use your expertise and industry knowledge to drive traffic to your website.
Learn more about how we can help you by visiting our website today!
