Anatomy of a Successful Blog Post

I assume that anyone who is blogging wants to build traffic or increase readers. And if you're blogging for business, not for pleasure, there's nothing to assume.

But not all blog posts are created equal. Some get tons of traffic and some are virtually ignored. Some ignite a ton of comments while others leave you wondering if anyone is out there.

What makes a successful blog post?

The first step to creating a successful post is to monitor your traffic. After all, you can't improve your situation if you don't know where you are now. If you have a self-hosted blog (ie your own url rather than [http://www.wordpress.yourblog.com]) you hosting company will have some sort of tracking tool, maybe even more than one. But if you don't log in and look at it, it doesn't do you much good.

Notice if some posts get more traffic than others. You may find certain topics, certain types of headlines, certain writing styles get more traffic than others. Pay attention to this and write more posts about the popular topics.

How does a blog post become popular?

First, if you hit upon a hot topic. Sometimes this can just be luck. Other times it can be by design. If you go to a conference and sit in on a heated discussion in one of the presentations you know this will likely be a subject others will find interesting. You can also monitor sites like Twitter to see what topics are popular.

Next, once you notice a particular blog post is generating a lot of traffic - and a lot of comments - take deliberate steps to promote it further. Submit the blog post to blog carnivals to get more traffic and in-coming links. Tweet about the post on a few separate occasions and at different times of the day in hopes of getting a different audience. Import the blog post into your Facebook page.

Third, begin watching for other people who are writing about this topic. When you find blog posts by other bloggers, visit their site, read their post and make comments. Be sure to add to the discussion by adding thoughtful comments. When appropriate, quote yourself and included a link back to your original post. Some of the readers may click on your link to see your post.

Monitor LinkedIn Answers for questions about this topic. Again, when it is appropriate, add to the discussion, and include a link back to your blog post.

Take advantage of Search Engine Optimization by including keywords in the title of the blog post. Try to get the most important keywords in the first four words of the title. Refer to the post in other blog posts you write with a link back also helps with SEO.

You don't need to do this for all your blog posts, but if you take these steps for your best posts you can see a significant increase in traffic to your blog. And hopefully this traffic will be repeat visitors.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2927232