Ready to start blogging on your website? (If you’re not quite convinced of the benefits, I’ve got ya covered with this post.)

If you’re ready to rock and roll with creating posts on your website, but you’re not really sure where to begin to creative effective, share-worthy content, today I’m sharing a few of my favorite pointers for writing consistently great blog content.

Here are 6 must-have elements for every blog post:

A click-worthy title

Your blog title is SO important: it’s what determines whether or not someone is going to actually click on your post and read it (be it from the blog list on your site, in search engines, or on social media). There’s a solid chance you’re going to be writing about something that someone else—or many other people, for that matter—have written about before, so there will certainly be some competition. Do what you can to stand out amongst the crowd with a creative or thought-provoking title to draw your readers in.

Subheadings

I’ve mentioned it before, but I think it’s definitely worth repeating here for your blog posts: readers are typically looking for something very specific and are going to be scanning the content on your site. This is where subheadings come in handy: make your content easy to read and understand by breaking it up into different, easily digestible sections with different subheadings. No one wants to read a big ‘ole wall of text.

Social sharing options

Readers sharing your blog posts is great for SEO and further exposure of your your content. So why make it more challenging than it needs to be for your site’s users to share? Chances are, if users are forced to take the initiative to share or save your posts, they’re going to be much less likely to do so. Make it easy for them by implementing a built-in social sharing tool.

Images

Images can help draw in your readers, help you create interesting layouts, and can assist in making your point—especially if you’re crafting tutorial-style content. Always aim for high quality, original images in your posts.

Links

Linking out to related posts or other places on your site is not only a good strategy for SEO, but more importantly, it’s a great way to help visitors stay on your site longer and find more of your valuable content. Be sure to always include links to your other pages, relevant products or services, or other posts whenever possible.

Call to action

Try to end each and every post with a call to action: what should users do should they want to further connect with you? Maybe it’s to leave you a comment, maybe it’s to share the article on social media, or maybe it’s checking out your new service. Always encourage and invite your readers to consume more content or engage with you in some way.