There’s actually more into “life after the headline” to talk about later on. Giving into consideration that I usually think of my main topic first, write a catchy headline for it, then forget all the introductions I’ve tailored since the beginning of my career. But how about “life after the article”? Let’s contemplate a bit in what happens after you hit the publish button. Do you just forget about it and go minding your own business? Cross-post it on social media and wait for the magic to happen? Let’s see about this with some critical writer confessions below.
If you’re into blogging as a career, creative writing in all its shades, take those confessions directly to your heart, and please don’t hesitate to share yours with me as well.
Life after the article
Life after the publish button of a blog is different than before hitting it. In the digital world, attention time spans are less than 3 seconds, you’ve gotta do what you gotta do. You also need to be fully aware and prepared for the other side of the barrier in order to get satisfying results. Can I get more specific? Well, right away…
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I confess… After writing a long piece that took a lot of research and effort, I feel like it took all my energy like I deserve a vacation for a whole week after.
My thoughts are all still occupied by that piece. Thinking of every bit I wrote, rereading it, imitating the character and personality of the article I created. Sharing it with friends, cross-posting it online, and watching it grow readers and fans. Take compliments and feedback as if it were my own flesh and blood.
But how to beat the 3 seconds attention span in writing articles?
Make it catchy, make it specific, preserve the coherence and cohesion of your thoughts. Write for people as if you were speaking to them in real life, if you were speaking to your friend in front of you, how would you talk? How’d be your tone? Yes, that’s it. Make it that way… With more respect though, and lesser use of slang words.
To be more specific in my turn, here are some writing tactics you should be following in order for your content to succeed in getting attention throughout the blog.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Basic steps of writing a WordPress article: (phase 1)
- Research the topic, read a lot, collect notes if you would
- Collect the most efficient and related keywords that you want to use in your article
- Start contemplating in your title, you can edit it later after the article is done, give it more than 10 minutes of thought, it’s the first key to getting your article read.
- Contemplate in your intro, give it thought, make it clear, direct, grasp their attention
- Don’t forget your thesis. Intros should answer 3 questions: (Who) this article is for, (Why) am I writing it and think you should read it, (what) am I writing about?
- Make a clear head for SEO optimization along the way.
- Use Heading 1, 2 and 3 in an efficient way, heading 1 should contain your main keyword
- Use different variations of sentence lengths.
- Hyperlinks are very important in the rating of your article and website overall. Add internal and external links!
- Include images (beware of content rights) and include image alt attributes
- Now after revamping and going through the article once or twice you’re committed to adding a call to action
- Finalize your article by adding the last pieces, don’t forget to add your meta description, tags and categorize your article in the blog.
- Finally, take a deep breath, press publish, and hope for the best.
Psst… wrong, welcome to phase 2!
Life after the article carries multiple meanings, it could mean after we hit publish, how do we feel as writers? Relieved of course as I illustrated above, but then we have obligatory tasks that follow. So it could also mean, after the article is published, what to do next? And here is the answer:
So you’ve followed all the instructions in the list above, and you finally hit publish. Do you lay down planning your next trip to Hawaii? You could, but instead, you should hurry in recurring to your article. Take those steps into consideration to following up with your content. Then let us plan our trip together.
- Cross-posting is a must. You must have several accounts on the suitable social media platforms through which you can post a link preview of your article with a catchy caption on each cross-post (avoid plagiarism, even in those)
- Consider sending in-mail (maybe launch a newsletter on the blog) so you can send your latest blog posts and establish an intimate relationship with your readers!
- Think of your peak point in the article, that’ll be your secret to getting extra attention and clicks through
- If it isn’t your personal blog, reshare your blog through the brand’s page on social media. Showcase that you publish on big websites names!
- periodically take quotes from your article, let it be statistics or facts, share them on your stories with a link.
- Podcast it on Telegram, Whatsapp to your friends and relatives, ask them for feedback. These are your die hard supporters!
- Catch on any related trend as long as you live and revive the article on behalf of that trend and keep it regularly updated.