Adding useful advice to your website builds credibility, AND it gives a big boost to your SEO. Not just any article will do to increase your search page ran:
- It must be specific and relevant, so that Google sends you YOUR RIGHT AUDIENCE.
- It must be so interesting, that you are seen as a credible, trusted source on the topic.
This quick checklist sparks blog ideas, so you don’t have to resort to AI!
Where to start
- Who is your audience – who hires you, or buys your products, or refers you?
- Define their job title, their goals, their priorities and what they are bad at.
- What interests them, confuses them, or annoys them about your field or industry?
- What are they are trying to achieve when they invest in your product or service?
- List common problems your clients experience, that leads them to call you.
- List negatives your client feels, that makes it hard to achieve their goal without you.
Article approaches
- tips: procedures to save time and effort
- hacks : shortcuts to save time and effort
- how to get started with: first steps for people new to a topic
- industry trends: latest facts and figures
- surprising facts: something they didn’t know about your field
- mistakes: something they might do wrong
- reflections: insider insights
- resources: downloads, cheat-sheets, checklists
- ultimate guides: an in-depth review
- fears: tasks that are less difficult than they think
- failures: tasks that are more difficult than they think
- lessons: something you did wrong so they won’t have to
3 tips for interviewing subject matter experts (SMEs)
Unless you are personally an expert in every aspect of the topic, you will need to talk to other people.
- If you are in engineering or industry, don’t call it “storytelling”. Talk about a case study, evidence, or a personal perspective.
- Identify the right person to interview. I use words like “legends” or “heroes” to get the top-of-mind expert about a topic. People who have worked “in the field” have more interesting stories, many unpublishable.
- Create a template, fill-in form or standard set of questions for interviews. It makes sure you get details like the name and title for quotes, and helps to energise the interview.
- Email the checklist to the interviewee when reminding them about your appointment.
- Ask if they have any photos, plans, mementos, awards. Often that gets them thinking.
15 tips to help with the actual writing
My secret checklist when I write for engineering, construction and industrial clients.
- be yourself… friendly, knowledgeable, helpful
- really short sentences – if there is a comma (and, but, because) break it into 2 sentences
- make posts more readable with lots of paragraphs
- put important words in CAPITALS or bold to catch the eye
- don’t use too much colour, multiple fonts – it breaks up the flow
- do use headlines and subheads – it gives structure
- make the opening intriguing and real – a fear, anticipation or irritation that matters to them.
- don’t make the opening sentence background detail about the topic (like AI does)
- it must have an image, diagram or graph to grab more attention. This takes ages! *
- don’t write product blogs, nobody cares about your product
- write the way you speak, or more accurately, the way you explain to your Mom
- if a word has “ing” check it’s the shortest way to say it. e.g. I will be speaking at -> I will speak at.
- teach something people don’t know about your field
- give value, even if you worry you are giving away a competitive edge
- don’t abuse engagement hacks like clickbait headlines, polls, outrage, or a pity party
* You must set up your website so that this image appears when people share and repost.