If you want to improve blog writing in 2018, here are 4 simple steps to follow to create data-rich content:
Step 1: Understand what data-rich content entails.
When writing a data-rich blog post, every key point that you make should be backed by a credible data source. The more legitimate your source is, the more authoritative your content will be.
For example, if you wanted to communicate to your audience that too much caffeine is bad for your health, you would want to want to reference an article on the subject from the Mayo Clinic instead of an online forum for people that are not in the medical profession.
Step 2: Firm up your content marketing strategy.
While most SMB owners would agree that blog writing needs to be part of their content marketing strategy, few have a clear understanding of what they want to accomplish with their business blog.
Firming up your content marketing strategy and what you want to accomplish with your business blog, most specifically, will allow you to cut out the guesswork and get consistent results.
Each blog post that you write needs to have a clear purpose. Understand who your audience is and the information that they want to gain from reading your blog post.
Not every post you write will need to be heavily data-driven, but you’ll want to be sure to include this type of content in your editorial calendar. Planning data-rich content in advance will give you ample time to conduct your research for these posts.
Step 3: Come up with data-driven headlines.
While most people will read your headlines, few will commit to actually reading the blog post. You have less than 3 seconds to grab your reader’s attention, and a data-driven headline will leave your audience wanting more.
Make sure that the data included in your headline has a clear purpose. When writing a data-rich blog post, the process should begin with the data. Once the data is in-hand, the writer learns what it means and decides how to use the data to tell a meaningful story.
Step 4: Develop data-driven outlines.
Do you create outlines for your blog posts? Whether you’re writing a data-driven post or sharing your unique perspective about a relevant topic, developing an outline will speed up the blog writing process and keep you organized and on track.
Once you have a topic and mind and the data to support your key points, you’re ready to create a data-driven outline for your blog post. Using an outline will allow you to organize the order of your points, determine how the content will fit together, and craft a winning conclusion.
Preparing an outline will also allow you to be more intentional with your content marketing by driving traffic to deeper pages and incorporating implicit keywords.
In summary, writing a data-driven blog post doesn’t mean that your article has to be incredibly long. The purpose of incorporating data-driven posts into your content marketing strategy is to provide value to your audience, position your business as an authority, and increase online visibility.
If you want to succeed with blog writing in 2018, plan to include data-rich content on your editorial calendar. Be sure to refer to analytics to measure the performance of your data-driven posts in comparison to your other blog posts. You’ll find that your posts that contain an abundance of data will help to get your content read by your audience and ranked higher by search engines.
