#SEOpodcast 270 - Writing an Enjoyable Blog Post

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. I am Charles Lewis, your internet marketing specialist. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast number 270. You can see that behind us. As always, there is a tip from our previous podcast, and that tip is, website usability creates purchasing confidence. Purchasing confidence. Yeah, yeah. At the end of the day, when you have a site, and it's e-commerce, and you're looking for people to purchase from you online from your site, then they must feel comfortable going through the process. They must feel comfortable navigating the site, finding these products. That level of comfortability must ... What it will do is build trust. It'll put them over that emotional edge that it's safe to purchase from you. Yep. However, maybe they're having a bad experience. Maybe it's not responsive. Maybe it sucks on a mobile version. Maybe your nav doesn't have any breadcrumbs, and they got lost. They will not purchase from you. They will bounce, and you will not get that conversion. So make sure that you definitely take into account the usability or the user experience that the user is going to have. The usability is a confidence builder, for sure. Definitely. Please remember, we are broadcasting live from Houston, Texas, and we are your friendly, local, neighborhood ... Top Position Snatchers. Top Position Snatchers. Where our mantra is ... Don't be a douche. All right. So we have an article today. Yes. And that article is ... Man, I want to give a punch in the face to Sujan Patel, man, over at Searching the Journal. The seven-step process for writing a blog post that people will actually read. All right. Yeah. So we'll dive right in. He and Mr. Patel have some pretty good tips in there, some different steps. Cool. And so we'll take a look at that. All right. So if you are in a position to, and you can, could you please tweet now? And if

you look behind us, there is what you should be tweeting. Yeah. Hashtag SEO Podcast. This is number 270. Be sure to tag us in it, at eWebStyle, at BestSEO Podcast. That way we can follow you back and do all of our social networking stuff. Excellent. If this is the first time you've listened to this podcast, howdy. Appreciate you. Thanks for joining us. Welcome. If you've listened to this podcast before, this next section, you know we could skip. The way we skip this next section, sometimes called the potatoes of our podcast, is if we get 10 increases in any one of these platforms. So right now, our Twitter thing, our Twitter page, our Twitter account, profile, our Twitter profile has 749 people following us. It's just our Twitter. Our Twitter. Okay. On the tweet box. Exactly. It has 749 followers, and that's up eight from last time. So close. Almost, man. Instagram, 92, up two positions. Facebook, 598, down one position. Yeah, somebody unlike them. Yeah. Bye. And G+, we've got two of them. Our G+, local is still at 36. Our G+, account is at 286. Plus one. Plus one. So if any one of those jumps up 10 spots, then boom, we're going to skip this next section. This next section is, hey, you've listened to the podcast before. You could do us a small favor. And that is leave us a review on a number of different sites. One of them is our G+, local page. Yes. We've made it incredibly easy for you to get to our G+, local page. All you have to do is go to e-website.com slash Google plus. Or slash. Google plus. Or slash. G. Plus. Or slash. G. Plus. Or slash. I was messing with you. About to make up something. All of those will take you to our G+, local page. And we've got two, not three, two things that we ask you to do on that page. Yeah. When you get the first things first, put us in a circle. That way we can communicate.

You can share some content with us. We can share some content with you. More importantly, leave us a review. Make it five stars. Next, you can, three steps, go on to iTunes, create an account, write a review. Please make that review five stars. And if you want to, let us know that you wrote that review. Send us an email, podcast at. E-website.com. And we will read your review on air. Next. Error. On air. Next. Facebook, which is facebook.com slash. E-website. There are two places to leave a review there. One of them is there's an app. If you scroll down and see a little badge, you can go in there. I find some reviews there every now and then, so we're not going to get rid of the app. And next, Facebook has, in general, a place. Just click the stars and it'll take you there and you can leave a review. And we would, of course, love it if you went to our Stitcher account and left us a review. The easiest way to get there is to go to our website, e-website.com. Over there on the right, you will find a link to our Stitcher page. And then once you get to Stitcher, you do have to do that from your browser. Yeah. Yeah. It's a web deal. Can't do that from a mobile device. But just click the Stitcher logo and as soon as you get there, right at the upper right corner, there's a write-up review button. And there you go. Boom. All done. Also, make that five stars. Yes. And if you want to, in general, just share the show. Maybe write a little blog post about us. We would be much, let us know and we'll link to it from our podcast page. In general, if you want to stalk us, haunt us, harass us, please don't harass us, you can do that. Facebook.com slash eWebStyle. YouTube.com slash eWebStyle. Twitter.com slash eWebStyle. Instagram.com slash eWebStyle. All of those, follow us, haunt us, harass us. That would be great. Be social

with us. Be social. If you are a PHP expert, a WordPress expert, we're probably looking for you. Please submit an audio resume, 713-510-7846. We do have a free website analysis. Yes. And you can get that free website analysis by going to our website, e-webStyle.com. You will find a free website analysis link. I pretty much guarantee it. And now it's time for our favorite segment of the show. It's the algorithm cataclysm. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was a cataclysm of catastrophic proportions. Yes. Yeah. And rightfully so with today's cataclysm. Here we go. Definitely. So remember, a few months ago, Google released a statement that said that they would appreciate people using secure servers. Right. Now, it wasn't official, but they were just saying that they didn't mind it. Right, right. It's official now. It's official. It affects the results. Wait, let me guess. Approximately 10% of the results? 1% according to them. They said, so here's the statement. The statement from the Google Webmaster blog states of, we've seen positive results, so we're starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal. He says, for now, it's only a very lightweight signal, affecting fewer than 1% of global queries and carrying less weight than other signals, such as high-quality content, while we give Webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it because we'd like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web. Yeah. That's right from Google's Webmaster blog. And so, yeah. Secure your site. We knew it was coming. At effect, they even had an excerpt on there that said that they are even taking into account that that may actually slow down the site or have some issues there, and they're okay with it. Okay. Yeah. Wow. So, should have bought stock in SSL companies a while ago because everybody and their brother is not going to have an SSL. Exactly. Excellent. All right. So, I have a little bit of news. Two pieces of that news are related

to Tesla. Tesla, the electronic car, the battery-powered car. First, I don't know if you saw that Elon Musk, I think that's his name. I'm trying to get the name right. He tweeted that pretty soon there will be no way you can run out of charge on the Tesla. He's like, okay, whatever. What's going on? So, basically, he announced that he's tying in the navigation system. It's going to know where the actual Tesla chargers are. And actually, Jay, a guy who works here, is keen on electric cars. He's peering around the corner. So, it knows where chargers are and how busy the chargers are. And so, if you start going down a path that is going to leave you without a charge, it will go over there. Yep. And you ain't going to make it. Yep. Yep. Warning. It makes you think of Eddie Murphy, right? Turn your lights off. And you actually have to say, yes, I am sure, twice in order to continue down a path. To keep going. So, you actually have to intentionally end up without a charge. Yeah. And then it's just your fault. Yeah. It's like, I tried to tell you six exits to go that you needed to go left. Turn the car around. You need to turn the car around. Yeah. It kind of puts a little, like, we all have GPS devices. And when it says recalculating, like, if you're recalculating and you're in a Tesla, you need to know where you're going. Exactly. Yeah. Don't just swipe it away. Don't actually pay attention to what is recalculating. And do not hope that the little charger that recharges your phone works on your car. That probably takes three weeks. Next, I thought this was cool. Google settles with the Trade Commission. Remember, man, this was a year or so ago when we were talking about how Google was strong-arming Yelp and TripAdvisor. Yeah, by not displaying. Yeah. So, they kind of pilfered their content. And then when they say, hey, don't pilfer our content, they were like,

well, if you don't let us pilfer your content, then we're not going to list your site on our search engine. Period. So, they settled. And now, companies can opt out of having their content pilfered but not be strong-arming. It's a monopoly decision. Who would opt out? Why wouldn't I want my content? So, I think the ones like Yelp and TripAdvisor, again, their website shows up in the search results, but they don't want how TripAdvisor... But I agree with you. Like, the reason is because if I know that there's good content reviews at TripAdvisor, if Google shows it to me so readily, then I don't go to TripAdvisor. Yeah, I just look at it from Google. Yeah. It's kind of like knowledge graph. Yeah. And so, I think that's what's kind of driving all of that. That's ridiculous. I mean, I get it, but come on. Yeah. Yeah. Your name is getting bigger and bigger whenever they see TripAdvisor. Yeah. Like, take advantage of the branding and opportunity and the usability and the fact that these people are probably going to Google to see a TripAdvisor review because they know it's going to be readily available. Yeah. Right? Especially from a mobile device. So, yeah. Pull your... You know, get out the feelings, TripAdvisor, and allow them to show it. And move on. Yeah. All right. So, we got two reviews. No tear tattoo. You notice these are both from G+. The first one is from Justin Taylor, and it says, I love the podcast. Yeah, punch in the face, Justin. I love the podcast. I've been listening for the past couple months and have finally caught up to the present episodes. As an attorney who is launching a law practice on a budget, this podcast is invaluable. That's what's up. This podcast is invaluable. I will be taking you guys up on your... So, invaluable? We had a conversation with our client the other day about famous and infamous. So, yes. Invaluable in this one. Invaluable. I will be taking you guys up on your

free website analysis soon. Keep up the great content. Punch in the face to Justin. Mr. Attorney. Open to the new practice. Yeah. That's what's up. That's exciting. Get up with that. And then the next one, I am going to ruin his name, and the review is really good, so we're going to read it anyway. Ulf Sajimer. Yeah, that's good. We'll go with that. Ulf. It's U-L-F, Sajimer. It says, I have to warn you about the eWebStyle podcast. It is highly addictive. Highly addictive. I love that. I have listened for some time, and it is a great way of learning more during my commuting. I have been working with SEO and online marketing for 15 years, but I find good information in both the meat and potato section of this podcast. I heard some criticism against the potato section, and here's a tip. Fast forward. Yeah. If you don't like the way the podcast is structured, you could just fast forward, pass this, use YouTube, pass this section, you know, or just don't listen to the podcast in case you don't like the format. You know, why write the bad review is his point. Yeah. Being in a business where you use YouTube a lot, he's got 140 plus videos, I understand the amount of effort you put into these podcasts, and would like to give you a punch in the face for your energy, consistent format, and cheerful attitude. Snail in the eye. So this is an old Swedish expression. Snail. Snail in the eye. To all the guys who write bad reviews. Yeah. What do you mean? Yeah. Snail in your eye. Equivalent to a kick in the sea. Yeah. Yeah. Snail in your eye. We'll have to add that one. Like, that sounds irritating. Yeah. Gross, irritating, uncomfortable. Yeah. And deserving for people who write negative reviews. Exactly. Yeah. Why don't you just skip the criticism and go find another podcast? Because there is in one. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. There is in one. Oh, man. Punch in the face. Oh, there

are, but they're, like, outdated. We did no content in. And not infotainment. Yeah. So, punch in the face to Mr. Seijmer. Punch in the face to you, dude. Seijmer. Oh. And then, finally, punch in the face to Dara and, excuse me, Daryl and Erica over at Noble Mortgage. Noble Mortgage and Investments. We just launched their website this week. It's noblemoney.com. Yes. And I actually just delivered their celebration package. So, we make a little celebration package for our clients. It was well received. Had a great time meeting up with Daryl and Erica. Punch in the face to you guys. Punch in the face to you guys. So glad to be moving into the SEO phase, the internet marketing phase. Yeah, get ready. Now it shifts gears. Now it shifts gears. And that is the potatoes of our podcast. Time to get into the meat. I'm going to get back to a couple punches in the face as well. Oh, yeah. That's right. This one goes to Stuart Sampson. He hit us up on Twitter. He's at Stu Sampson. He says, at eWebStyle, been listening, catching up since I have a new digital marketing job. I'm a noob alert. Thanks for all the info. Dude, punch in the face to you. Yeah, punch in the face. Dude, appreciate you listening. Appreciate you hitting us up, man. So, that was Stu? Stuart. Stuart Sampson. Stu the noob. Stu the noob. All right. Yeah. And so, I got some news as well. So, talking AdWords, right? Right, right. So, AdWords now has Google released the first AdWords app for Android. They have one coming on iOS. It's in the making. Okay. Right now, they released it on Android. And you can literally manage your AdWords campaign. Wow. Now, you can't. It's limited. It works side by side with the desktop version. So, you can't, like, create new campaigns and things like that. You can tweak budget and bid pricing. You can tweak budget, ads, keywords. You can do all of that kind of stuff. I think that's awesome. Yes.

I think that's an awesome idea. For when that client, who we believe in transparency, so our clients actually have access to the AdWords account, when they go in and accidentally turn on, I don't know, display network, and rack up $5,000 of billing on a Sunday and call Charles and, like, help! In the middle of church. Turn it off! Turn it off! He could just pull up his phone. Yeah. And sitting in church and stop you. Stop the bleeding. Stop the bleeding. Yeah. Definitely. So, continuing on that same line of AdWords, Google also wrote out a new update. And I thought this was newsworthy as well. They changed the destination URLs. Okay. Right? So, remember, at first, when you're creating that ad, you have your title rights, like, 25 characters. Then your first line, 35 characters. Second line, 35 characters. Then you have your URL, your display URL, and then your destination URL, right? And the problem with having that destination URL was if you're like us and you're doing URL tracking, right, then I have to put my entire custom URL string within that destination URL, which was okay because that's the practice we had been using and we currently use today. The problem with that is if I want to change what I'm tracking, maybe I want to keep my ad the same. Right. But I just want to change my tracking parameters. If I edit that, it's going to force that whole ad to be edited and then up for review again. And now my ad comes down until they review. Exactly. Which is usually only a day. But my ad's down for a day. That's a day, yeah. That's a day, exactly. So, with the new URL, dynamic URL deal, now I can change the parameters of any tracking and it only affects the destination URL and the ad stays live. That makes sense. Makes perfect sense. Should have been rolled it out. But I appreciate you for doing that. Punch in the face for doing that right. Punch in the face

to Google for doing that right. Exactly. And that, sir, is our potatoes. The potatoes of the podcast are over, so now we're getting into the meat of the podcast. And this is, hey, you actually want people to read your blog? That's an interesting concept. Interesting. So, and we'll talk about that here in a moment because we're under the belief that, yeah, we do want people to read it. But if they don't read it, I don't care. Yeah, at the end of the day, we're focused on generating leads and conversions. And especially most of our clients being like service providers, plumbers, roofers, AC guys, lawyers, doctors, things like that, are more focused on getting you that conversion than actually having some users sit there and read 800 words of blog content. Exactly. However, there are the occasional users that want to read the blog post. And it still needs to be good. It still needs to be. And it needs to follow these guidelines properly. And so, punch in the face to Sujan Patel over at Search Engine Journal, he says, the seven-step process for writing a blog post that people will actually read. Step one, he says, choose a topic your audience actually cares about. This is so important. So many of them are so obvious, right? Yeah, it's so obvious yet not followed so many times. Yeah. And I think you have to understand the type of visitors you have, the type of business you offer, what are people coming to your site for? What are they looking for? What are they looking to gain? What are they researching? What are they trying to find out? More importantly, how can you help them? Matter of fact, he goes on to say, don't think about what you like to read. Think about the problems your audience is having and how your blog content can help position your business as the solution. What keeps them up at night. Exactly. I wrote down, your content should focus on the user. Yeah. What keeps them up? What is

their pain point? What is their emotion? Right? Address that in your blog content and then they will likely engage and likely convert. Boom. Number two. Two. Step two, he says, write a lot of headlines for every post. Why would somebody write a lot of headlines? Yeah. He absolutely true right here. Because understand that the headline, first off, will likely be the title. Yeah. It's probably what's going to show in the search engine results page. If they click, it's definitely maybe the only thing they read. Right. You know? And so you want to, during that blog process, during that blog writing process, come up with as many headlines as you can that are relevant to your topic, to your subject matter. And so that way you can have some titles to choose from. You have variations of subheadings you can use. More importantly, you end up with titles you may want to A and B test later. Let me try this one instead of that one. Yeah, if you want a pro tip, say you get 10 titles, throw up a little pay-per-clip campaign, throw a little money at it, and see which title gets the most clicks. And then go back and use that one. Exactly. As a matter of fact, he went on to say, one of the best ways to do this is to write 20 to 15 headlines and then choose the best one that would generate interest in your post. How do you choose it? Test it. Throw up a little pay-per-test it. Throw up a little pay-per-click ad. Put some small budget behind it, you know, and exactly. Launch all of them at the same time. Because Google runs that A-B test for you. They'll run the different ads for you. Exactly. So do that. Number three. Number three. He says, focus on the lead. L-E-D-E. What is that? Well, that's really the first, the opening sentences of a post or article or journal entry or whatever it is. It's usually those first. That's the word of the day. That's

the word of the day. L-E-D-E. And I'm not sure which one of them is lead, leddy, or led. I'm going with lead. Like some abstract French, Italian. L-E-D-E. It's L-E-D-E. But focus on the L-E-D-E because those first three sentences are extremely important. And I can attest to that. Because if your first paragraph don't captivate me, I will not read this post. I will immediately start scanning. Yeah. I will scan it because I'm already on it. Yeah. I'm like, oh, this is... Yeah, look for that keyword. Exactly. Something that catches your attention. Something that's got 10 seconds to stop me from bouncing. Yeah. You know. And so he says to focus on that. Matter of fact, he says, what you write in your first few sentences should engage the reader immediately and make them want to find out more. He's absolutely right. How do you do that? What would you put in those first three sentences? I suggest you introduce your subject matter and the benefit of that subject matter. Introduce that first. For example, maybe you're a plumbing company and you're writing a blog post about, I don't know, tankless water heaters. Punch in the face to you, Heidi. Thinking about you right now. And so maybe that first three sentences is, you know, today we're talking about tankless water heaters and here's your feature and why they can keep you with continuous hot water and lower your energy costs. That's a great first two sentences. And yeah, that's the next article. So here's a pro tip. Sometimes talking about what happens when you don't have your product is significantly more powerful than talking about what happens when you do with your product. FOMO. Yeah. Yeah. As an example, insurance. Like the benefit of having insurance isn't exactly the insurance, the selling point. The selling point is, what happens if you don't have insurance? Exactly. Oh, I don't want that to happen to me. I want insurance. I need to do this. Yeah. So definitely consider, you know, what's going to, what's going to, what's

important to them and address that immediately. As soon as the blog post starts. That way, these people will be entailed, inclined rather, to read further. Number four. Four. He said, step four, tell a story. Duh. As much as you can. I mean, you can ask. When you just think about it, and this is in presentation period, whether it's a blog content, whether it's a video, whether you're preaching a sermon, whether you're doing a, you know, I told several stories at my class yesterday. Right. In fact, punch in the face to U of H, Small Business Development Center. Um, uh, but yeah, tell a story. And their awesome teacher. Yeah. And their awesome teacher. Go Chuck. Matter of fact, he goes on to say, uh, all stories have excitement, good guys, bad guys, conflict, and resolution. And if you're able to incorporate similar elements in your blog posts, you have a better shot at getting readers involved. He's absolutely right. Everyone loves a story, even when they don't know they're reading a story. Right. So present your content in that way that they can read it. You know what stories do? Stories create engagement. Yep. That's what I added. Stories generate emotion and understand that emotion is a top driver of purchasing decisions. And so if your story creates that emotion of, of, of, I don't know, love maybe, depending on the product or service you're offering or selling, um, then include that emotion in your story to put people in that mindset to want to purchase. Maybe it's fear. Like Chris was just saying earlier, fear of missing out on something. Yeah. So therefore you need to incorporate that sort of fear in your story so your readers can have that emotion, which would push them to purchase. Stories get past your sales filter. Yes, they do. When you're telling a story, people are instantly engaged in that story. And it, it is also memory. We're actually hardwired to remember stories, not facts. So we remember the facts in the context of a story. That's

ironic. If you've got facts to tell, tell it in the story. Tell it in the story. Definitely. Number five. Five. Step five. He says, keep the text well spaced. Uh, Mr. Patel, I love that tip because I've ran across too many sites where there's just, there's not enough spacing between the lines. There's not enough images. It's hard to read. It's actually only 600 characters, but it looks like 2,000. You know what I'm saying? My brain stops. It's like, oh, yeah, no, yeah. Reading. Yeah. And I like to read, ironically. And, but, you know, so make your text well spaced, right? Separate smaller paragraphs, two to four sentences max. You know, you really don't want no six, seven sentence paragraph. Break them up. Like, separate images and titles and things like that. Bullet points. If you have some video, sprinkle in your video. That way your text is flowing. And one of the things to do here as well is make sure that when you create that space, that there's some continuity from one area of text to the next area. That way I just don't read a paragraph and leave. That I'm actually inclined to keep reading. Yeah. The end of one paragraph begs, like, what's going to happen next. Exactly. Keep your text well spaced. It goes a long way. Number six. Step 60 says, use subheadings for scannability. Kind of what we were talking about earlier. Yeah. People scan. I know when I click, I'll read a header. I'll read the first two or three sentences. And if I'm not captivated, I immediately begin scanning. Looking at the text. Looking for whatever I'm searching for. And if I can't find it really, really quickly, then I'm going to go find, search some words. Boing. Exactly. And so, he goes on to say, including multiple headings, divide your text in the easily digestible segments, which encourages visitors to read. I'll say this. If you're going to use multiple subheadings, and you should be sure to tag them the correct way. Right? You want to

use header tags. You want them in order of importance. So, you know, you shouldn't have any H1s at the bottom of your page. Right. Right. Your H1s, probably your main page title should be in the H1. Then that first kind of big subheading should be in H2. Yeah. And then all those other subheadings should probably be H4s, just depending on how much content you have, actually. But make sure you tag them the correct way. Last one. Step seven. Seven. He says, leave readers wanting more. And I totally agree. You know, Empire and Scandal and all these great shows, they do a phenomenal job at making you wait to the next one. Yeah. Exactly. And so your blog content can be presented in the same way. Matter of fact, he says one way to do this is to end with a cliffhanger and invite readers back for next week's post. It's a great idea. Right? Especially if you're writing about a series or, you know, something like that, that's frankly, that you have enough content to do that. Where if you can easily write more than 600 words, stop at 600. Yeah. In that post right there. In a story, hopefully. Exactly. And have that continuation of the story happen next time. For the following week or whatever. You may even want to remind people about it in a newsletter, right? Hey, don't forget to tune in to the blog post coming out next week. Yeah, tweet about it. Exactly. Coming up. Yeah. And so I added this. Yeah, mention your next topic. Or even better, allow your readers to select your next topic. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. If you gave them a poll and allowed them to choose what you should write about and then made a contest out of it and chose one and then crafted this long, beautiful blog post about it, they would read it. They'd share it, especially the person who selected it. And so that's a great way to engage users and make them feel empowered. Mr. Patel. What do

you? Great article, dude. The seven-step process for writing a blog post that people will actually read. And keep in mind, you know, content is important, especially with SEO. We're under the belief here, we want to drive traffic that converts to leads. Right. We build sites that convert traffic into leads. Right. And we understand that having good content helps our SEO to get your site ranked. And so when we say, I don't really care about the content, don't look at it as that we don't care about the content. We're just more concerned with what that content is doing. Is it building people to the site that are picking up the phone and calling you or contacting you via email? And if they happen to read it, great. Content without action is a visitor. Exactly. Content with action becomes a customer. So our focus is on action. All right. So is that it? Do we have any news? Do we have any what? Any what news? Any? No. No. No what news? All right. So if you're looking to grow your business with the largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet, the internet, call eWebStyle for increased revenue in your business. That's 713-592-6724. If you have a referral, so you're in the internet marketing business, you have a referral. We've already got people who've done this. Send somebody our direction. They pay their bill. We pay you. We are filmed live at 5999 West 34th Street, Suite 106 here in Houston, Texas. This is the end of podcast number 270. Thank you guys for tuning in. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for making us the most popular internet marketing podcast in the new universe. Everywhere. Thank you. And until the next podcast, my name's Chris Morris. I'm Mr. Miller, there's Milky Way. And I'm Charles Lewis. Bye-bye for now. Slightly raised up, eyebrow high.