Now what? What will make your blog swim—and not sink—in a deep sea of content?
Every writer faces the challenge of turning good content into great content. By paying special attention to headlines, visuals, editing and social media, you can boost your blog post’s audience appeal.
Here are 13 tools to take your blog writing from “meh” to marvelous:
Making headlines
Your headline is the most important aspect to generate traffic for your blog, especially on search engines.
An intriguing headline alone can increase the traffic to your article by as much as 500 percent. Fewer than a quarter of visitors will actually read past your title, which means it has to be shareable and enticing enough for people to want to read your post.
1. KingSumo Headlines
This automatic headline optimization plug-in for WordPress has proven to increase blog traffic by addressing title creation intelligently.
For creator Noah Kagan, who took a few extra steps to implement this strategy into his blogging process, the payoff was a 17.8 percent increase in traffic.
In WordPress, type in as many titles as you can think create. These are shown to visitors and shared with others. The algorithm will determine the best-performing title, and in-line statistics will tell you which to choose.
2. 25 Headlines
Reminiscent of writing words as a child, this tool—inspired by Upworthy, Kissmetrics and Hubspot—concentrates on the “practice makes perfect” method for headline writing.
Much like the ideal tweet, the length of a blog title is crucial for attracting readers. This tool will help train you to create a title of ideal length on the first try. Other features include checking Twitter length and determining whether your title reads like spam.
Smart editing
These tools outperform simple spelling and grammar checkers by gauging and adapting your writing style to the behavior and interests of your target audience.
3. AtomicWriter
With this tool, you will find out whether your level of complexity is suitable for your audience, and you’ll get real-time feedback to help you improve your blog writing overall.
Other features include metrics regarding how your title, format and readability affect your content’s performance, all provided in an easy-to-understand Chrome extension, WordPress plug-in or app interface.
To help maintain your voice, ProWritingAid is an objective eye for your content. Key features help you to measure readability and to identify wordy sentences and overused words; these help you make your content more punchy and interesting.
Stock photos & gifs
Picking images that match your writing can increase your page views by as much as 94 percent by helping visitors understand your tone and visualize your written content.
5. Stocksnap.io
This website delivers high-quality, high-resolution pictures daily, differentiating itself from the stock photo pack with its curation process and social media sharing options.
Only selected photographers within the network can publish content. Users see how many people have viewed, favorited and downloaded a given image, creating a community and highlighting a photo’s popularity.
6. Stokpic
With 12 years of professional experience and hundreds of photos, photographer Ed Gregory started this site as a personal project, releasing photos free to the public.
As the numbers climbed, requests for a more diverse selection of people, locations and cultures increased. Realizing he could not fill the demand by himself, he funded a sponsorship program that provided 12 new photographers each with $500 worth of photography equipment. The only requirement was that they contribute 50 photos to the site a month, encouraging creative growth and a work ethic.
After just one year, this site had just under a million page views, with 200,000 downloads in 197 countries.
Great to use on the fly, Pablo helps boost your social media posts’ reach with an easy-to-use image creation tool. You may have seen this tool used in Twitter chats.
8. Giphy
A 2-in-1 curation site providing free gifs in many categories, as well as offering an app to create your own, Giphy is a popular destination for gif detectives.
You can find celebrity, media and sticker gifs, as well as a category dedicated to artists who create illustrated gifs. The app enables you to record moments and add filters or special effects.
9. Giffiti
This app combines animated gifs and your photos, adding a bit of humor to your posts, a powerful, customized way to reach your audience.
Get social
Social media can be the most crucial step to giving your blog posts a boost.
You can increase traffic and interaction when your post is shared on the right platform and at the ideal time and day. Get help with these tools to ensure your social media calendar includes cyclically sharing your posts and relevant articles from your network.
10. AtomicInsights
By understanding which posts people liked best, along with which days had the highest performance, you can create an effective editorial calendar. AtomicInsights analyzes your social media, Google Analytics and blog history data to help you determine these factors for your blog.
11. Edgar
This app helps you ramp up your social media regimen and stops your posts from going to waste.
Like most writers, you have blogs that are not re-shared more than a few times within several weeks of publication. The accumulation of green content will probably not be seen by month’s end, because many new articles will have outranked your blog.
With this app, you can categorize your content and schedule and cycle through posts by category, all while updating your content library.
12. Social Media Calendar by Twenty20
This subscription system emails weekly reminders of ideal content for your social media posting schedule.
Topics such as upcoming events, popular hashtags, photos, tips and guides for social media will be sent to your inbox to help build your social media presence in conjunction with your blog.
13. Post Planner
If you work with a marketing team or are looking to increase engagement, Post Planner helps you find the right content to post. With access to a library of images, articles and status ideas, you’ll share amazing content your audience will appreciate.
Amanda Chiu is a self-taught social media enthusiast turned social media marketer. A version of this article first appeared on JeffBullas.com.(Image via, via & via)
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