If you’re not blogging, you should be. It’s an easy way to reach your audience in the digital space. The content team at CPV recently re-energized our own blogging efforts, and we are now blogging weekly. With multiple offers and ever-changing SEO recommendations, we’ve created a blogging template we use to ensure we’re always following best practices for each post. We’ve included a few highlights from this template to help as you write and publish your own blog, we hope you find them helpful!

Title

o   The title of your blog should relate to the subject matter, of course, and it should entice readers while including at least one of your keywords.

o   Your post should be 200-500 words. Avoid long, dense paragraphs. Remember, white space is your friend. Organize content with bulleted points, lists, numbers or subheads. Bold important text. Search engines place more emphases on text that is bolded, so bolding long-tail keywords can help you rank higher for those terms.

o   Be a teacher. Your audience is reading your blog for information, to answer a question or to learn something new. Be mindful of this when brainstorming topics, and keep timeliness in mind, too.

Image

o   Every single blog needs an image. Make sure the file name matches the keyword target – this also helps with SEO. The image should be visually appealing, relevant and appropriately signed – what do you mean by “signed”?.

Meta Description

o   Think of your meta description as a 150-character call to action. The blog must have a strong meta description to appear in search results. This is a teaser for your audience. It has the power to reel in readers or turn them away. Include one of your keywords.

Tagging

o   Tag the blog to make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for. We usually tag five topics. These should be broader than long-tail keywords. You are essentially summarizing the topic of your blog.

Social Sharing

o   Every single blog post should be tied to a social post on every platform you actively use. Include one brief sentence, along with the link to the blog. Watch your character count in Twitter.

Call to Action

o   Include a CTA at the end of every blog post. Ideally, it will be related to the article’s topic. Blogging is a great source of lead generation. You don’t want to lose a potential lead by not having a CTA. By including a call to action to an offer, you have the potential to stay in contact with new leads and email them related topics. And if you don’t have a great offer, you can always ask your audience to follow you on Facebook!