[Updated 02/26/2019] The blog is a section of your site that should not be neglected. Most of the time, it is used to distribute articles – although other forms of content can be exploited – in order to educate readers on a more or less specific subject.
And that's not all. A blog post can bring you many other benefits, starting with better visibility on the web. If it is well constructed and well written , you can even convert your readers and encourage them to buy your products or use your services. But before arriving there, it will be necessary to make some editorial efforts.
The writing of your article must be neat to reflect a professional image of your brand and bring positive signals to Google.
In this article, we will give you our best tips for writing a good article .
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1. Take care of your titles
The title of your article is the first thing that will grab the reader's attention. It must therefore be treated well and kept short, ideally between 4 to 10 words .
Our advice
In short, remove all adverbs, adjective and preposition.
Your title should also be:
Visible : use a font size larger than the body text and avoid writing in italics, capital letters, or underlining.
Catchy : invite reading while remaining explicit.
Well referenced : add keywords so that search engines take your title into account when indexing your pages.
Let's dwell on the optimization of your titles for natural referencing.
This is a very important criterion that should be taken into account when writing your blog post. It must be catchy for the Internet user and attractive for search engines.
The title: the key element of SEO
If you are a web editor , you know how important it is to write good titles to attract the Internet user, hold his attention and invite him to click to read an article. If you are an SEO writer or web referrer , you also know that the title of a web page corresponds to the Title tag established in the HTML standard.
Where is the Title tag?
The Title tag is found at the beginning of the code of each page of your site, in the HTML header.
In code, this is what your title looks like:
Note that the title tag does not appear in the body of the article text but in the browser bar, at the very top of the window. The Title is therefore not really the title of the article but rather the title of the web page you are looking at.
Here in this example, you distinguish the title (at the very top in the browser bar) which corresponds to the Title tag, and the title of the article, which corresponds to the H1 tag in the HTML standard.
Pay attention to the length of your title. If it is too long and your user has several tabs open then your title will not display entirely on the tab in question.
Did you know ?
The Title tag is also the one that appears in Google results pages. To this end, it must make people want to read and click on the link.
Your page title can be the same (or not) as the article title.
How to write a good title?
As we have just seen, the title of the Title tag will be displayed in the results of the SERPs. It must therefore make Internet users want to read your article and taking care of its page title is a priority in terms of editorial referencing .
Also, all the art of writing a title is not limited to having a style of writing. In addition to making Internet users want to read your article, the title must be coherent, fair, relevant and include the keywords on which you want to position yourself. Obviously, it must not contain any spelling mistakes.
To recap and see more clearly, here are the components of a good title:
It is quite short (maximum 70 characters, so that the title is displayed in full in the search results)
It has one or more keywords , the most important at the beginning
It reflects well the content of the article of the page
He delivers a message
There is no spelling mistake
It is unique and does not appear on other pages
It makes the user want to click when the title appears in Google results
It is explicit : a detailed title is better than a title that is too vague
Do you think that's a lot? Don't worry, with a little practice you'll almost automatically come up with catchy titles for your blog posts.
They will produce texts and titles optimized for your SEO.
2. Hook from the intro
Even if you have succeeded in convincing the Internet user to visit your article, all is not won. It will now decide whether or not to continue reading based on your introduction.
The introduction summarizes your article and should be seen as a "brief" because on its own, it constitutes the basis of the information. We must therefore go straight to the point, it is the principle of the inverted pyramid in web writing.
To help you identify the essential content and then summarize it, use the 5W rule:
Who ?
What ?
When ?
Where ?
Why ?
In other words, and in French, it gives: “ who is concerned? what's the news? what is it about? when did this happen or when will it happen? or ? Why ? »
Here again, it is necessary to manage to capture the attention, without saying too much. So try to limit the hook to a single, short paragraph.
3. Adapt your content to the web
Don't forget that your blog article will be read on the Internet, from different media: computer, tablet or smartphone. This may seem obvious today, but it is important to be aware of the uses of Internet users.
On the web, users do not read in the same way as when they are faced with a physical book. They don't have that much patience either.
The content of your blog article should therefore be adapted to the web format in order to encourage your visitors to read your content to the end . In this regard, here are some tips to follow:
Break the information into several paragraphs
Use headings , especially in long texts that are over 2,000 characters
Put the keywords in bold , without overdoing it, at the risk of hindering the reading
Use short sentences around 15-20 words with simple, concrete, direct, and concise vocabulary and style
Avoid jargon , whether legal, administrative, commercial, etc.
Adapt the tone of your article to your target
4. Optimize your links and images
It is important to add images (or any other media such as videos or infographics) to illustrate your article. You thus avoid your reader having to find themselves in front of a long text, energize their reading and bring concrete examples to your remarks.
By combining the useful with the aesthetic, you must not forget the SEO. Your images must also be optimized for natural referencing and this notably involves the ALT attribute. It allows you to associate an alternative text to your image and is visible when the Internet user passes his mouse over your visual. You can also include a concise caption to give more meaning to your image.
Concerning the links, avoid putting too many so as not to interfere with the reading (“too many links kills the link”). They must also give a precise idea of the target page, so avoid terms such as "click here" or "it's this way" or even "next page".
Finally, links should not be too short or too long, ideally 3 to 8 words .
Our advice
To make them more visible, choose a standard color such as red or blue.
5. Place key information at the beginning of the paragraph
The Internet user is fickle, in a hurry and very often, he will only read the beginning of your paragraphs. This type of reading is called F-reading .
Present the essential information at the beginning of each paragraph. Your reader will quickly know if what follows will interest him or not.
6. Keep it short and build reading levels
This sixth point is somewhat similar to the previous one. The Internet user being in a hurry and not very patient, he must know quickly if the content of your blog article meets his expectations and if he will be able to find the information he is looking for.
We therefore advise you to make short paragraphs and prioritize your information.
On this last point, you must create parts and subparts using <h> tags. This structure will make it easier for the Internet user to read and will indicate to Google that you are taking care of the presentation of information: a very positive signal for SEO.
7. Tailor information to your target audiences
Do you want to retain your visitors? So contact them!
To achieve this, you need to know your audience , what they are looking for and even the keywords they are using. You will thus be able to deal with the right subjects in your blog articles and respond precisely to the needs of your targets.
The most successful sites play on the personalization of content, even if it means creating distinct universes for each target audience (eg general public/professionals, etc.). Besides, creating subdomains by public can be interesting.
8. Animate your blog regularly, yourself or with
Unlike a showcase site which can go on for several months or even years without being updated, your blog must be alive. You must be active by posting articles regularly.
Our advice
For example, offer a “news” section, new files, interviews , the possibility of receiving a weekly newsletter, etc.
As you can see, your content requires constant work in terms of creation and promotion.
9. Watch out for spelling mistakes
The presence of spelling mistakes is penalizing for your image and distracts the visitor from your messages.
To avoid losing your credibility, proofread or have proofread your content several times before publishing it.
Our advice
For your most important or large-volume texts, you can also call on a professional correction service which guarantees you a text with zero errors.
10. Write, edit, proofread
Whenever you have to write an article, start by writing a first draft, then do a rewrite to make sure your ideas are clearly stated. If not, correct your article by deleting certain parts, changing the order of paragraphs or adapting the style to your target audience.
Proofreading an article means above all paying particular attention to the details: misspelled words or grammar and punctuation errors.
For this task, you can use a spell checker which will point out misspelled words, but beware: they are not infallible. A word may appear incorrect simply because it is not in your software's dictionary. And remember, if a word is spelled correctly but used in the wrong context, it will slip through the net.
To overcome this kind of problem, you can trust the Redacteur.com correction service . Professionals make sure to correct all spelling, grammatical and syntactic errors.
To perfect your blog post, here are our latest tips:
Read slowly and aloud : when you read aloud, pronounce each word and check that those put end to end "sound" well. If you read in your head or too quickly, you do a sort of systematic self-correction without it actually being written down.
Avoid using a specific gender (M/F): when referring to people who may be male or female, try not to use pronouns (he or she in French) or adjectives (him/her ) male or female.
Use a dictionary or a textbook : there are many very useful resources for writers, including for people of foreign languages, in particular the work. Always have this kind of tool on hand because, whatever your writing skills, you can always improve them!
You now have all the keys in hand to successfully write your blog article. But before you go, remember that a blog is not just made up of articles. Other types of content deserve to be developed.