You could hire J. K. Rowling or George R. R. Martin to write your blogs. But nobody will read them if they don’t look good on a mobile device.
Google has given us plenty of warning. They first announced that they were switching to mobile-first indexing back in 2017 and it’s now the norm for the entire web. But still, too many businesses don’t realize how much more SEO clout they could be earning with some simple tweaks to their mobile experience.
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing your own blogs or you’ve outsourced them to an SEO copywriting services company. Here are 3 things that you need to be mindful of before hitting publish on any blog.
Headlines Need to Touch a Pain Point
Your headline needs to elicit some sort of emotional reaction in your would-be reader. This is not to say you need to go with click-bait and over-the-top hyperbole, like What Happened Next Will Stun You headlines. However, you do need to:
- Understand your audience’s pain points
- Zero in on those emotions with your headlines
Even if 98% of the general public doesn’t care about your offering, you can still make an emotional connection with that 2%. If you’re selling payroll software, find the words that your audience uses to describe the problem that your software can fix. Are they annoyed? Frustrated? Fed up? Bogged down, or wasting their time?
Put the exact verbiage they use in their complaints into your headlines. This shows your target audience that you understand their problems.
Be Mindful of Your Image’s Size and Impact
First and foremost, don’t bog your mobile experience down with a large image.
Your mobile load speeds have never been more important than they are right now. In fact, Google’s Core Web Vitals has given us new ways to measure speed.
You need to pay special attention to your blog/web page’s Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). This basically measures how long it takes a given page to completely load. And if the rest of your page is being held back by a massive image, your LCP is going to suffer in a big way.
Make sure that you’re optimizing every single image to ensure that your pages are loading as quickly as possible.
While we’re on the topic of blog images, you also need to avoid using boring stock images. You might not be able to afford a Getty Images or Shutterstock account. But there are dozens of surprisingly amazing free image sites out there. Go with bold and interesting image choices, and take advantage of free editing tools like Stencil or Canva to take them to another level.
Write Social Specific Copy
Too many people will post their blogs on social networks by simply re-using the headline and the first paragraph from their blog. This is a wasted opportunity.
Take the time to write something unique and interesting for each post. Keep in mind that someone who clicks on your blog from LinkedIn likely has different needs and pain points than a Facebook clicker. Write copy to appeal to each respective audience.
What do these 3 tactics have in common? They’re all free. Yes, you can completely revamp your blog’s mobile experience without spending any money.
It will only cost you the time it takes to do things the right way.