How to Write Content That Gets a Ton of Traffic

If people tell you that creating content will drive a ton of traffic to your website, they’re telling fibs. 

That’s not how it works.

Digital marketers the world over know that high-quality content is the lifeblood of any successful inbound marketing strategy. Yet, creating that level of content while getting rewarded for it seems like black magic to many. 

It’s one of the biggest challenges digital marketers face when Hitting Publish and I have a confession to make … I’ve struggled with it a lot in the past.

Fortunately, this means I have a few sneaky tips for helping you out if you’re in a content creation jam. One that generates the kind of traffic you need.

You can turn things around, and I won’t be asking you to go from zero to hundreds of posts in just a week.

Truth is, the more valuable the content you have on your website is, the more likely you are to increase your traffic and hence, your revenue. That’s why 41% of content marketers say their content creation is generating a return on that investment.

Here’s the bitter truth no one tells you…

You can learn SEO, buy links (or grow them organically), and try to increase your traffic through social signals. But that won’t bring you the traffic you need. 

In fact, according to famous digital marketer, Neil Patel, the right content will drive traffic, engagement, and conversion.

There’s no magic formula to being at the top of Google searches and getting tons of traffic. If you’re looking for a magic formula to be at the top of Google searches and get tons of traffic, look elsewhere. 

I doubt you’ll find it.

How to create search traffic-friendly content

Just because you write content, it doesn’t mean you’re going to generate more visitors. 

In this post, I’m going to share with you, how to write content that generates tons of traffic to your website.

If you can write content on anything and generate traffic, then everyone will be successful when it comes to SEO and content marketing.

But that’s not the case!

If you don’t want to be one of those who are writing content and getting no results, you need to do a few things:

Write about topics your audience is searching for

When people use search engines like Google, what they want are answers, and it’s Google’s job to deliver those answers.

It’s the same when people are reading your content — they want answers.

So, if you’re writing about topics your audience isn’t searching for, Google isn’t going to serve up your content to the searcher and ultimately, you’re not going to rank. If, on the other hand, your content focuses on what the user is searching for, you’ll see a boost in your site’s traffic.

It’s simple…

As long as your content ranks in Google for the relevant search queries, you’ll receive consistent organic search traffic.

That’s because Google favors websites that provide content users are searching for. 

Before you begin writing, you need to understand your target audience and what resonates with them. Knowing this, you’ll be able to create content that adds value to their lives and the type of content they’ll love to read. 

Let’s take a step back!

If your target audience is dog owners, for instance, you don’t want to write about the best cat food in the market. Instead, you want to give them actionable tips about the healthiest dog foods in the market.

How do you find topics your audience is searching for?

The easiest way is to use a keyword research tool. Go to Ubersuggest and plug in keywords you’re trying to rank for. It’ll show you keyword ideas and their estimated monthly search volumes.

Ideally, you want to go after keywords with high search volumes because such keywords often generate more organic traffic. This is not always the case, though.

Ubersuggest’s content ideas report will even show you all the content that’s popular based on Google search traffic, backlinks, and social shares. If these pages are getting a good amount of search traffic, then this confirms that the topic has organic traffic potential. 

What’s more, it means that’s a topic your audience is actively searching answers for.

For example, if you find that the top-ranking pages for the query “how to start a blog” are getting quite a significant amount of search traffic, that’s likely a good topic to target if you run a growth hacking blog.

Also Read: How to Rank a Website in 2020 (The Latest Approach)

Create the right content for your target keyword

Over the years, Google has invested a lot in understanding the meaning behind ambiguous searches. Google’s aim is to provide users with the most relevant result for their query.

What this means is, if you want to rank for any particular keyword, you need to figure out exactly what searchers want and give it to them.

But how do you know what that is? 

It’s simple! Look at the search results, then follow suit.

Let’s say you want to rank for “organic SEO techniques.” And you discover that most of the top-ranking pages are lists of the best SEO techniques. That’s the type of content you should create too. 

It’s difficult to stress just how important the concept of search intent is to SEO. If you want to rank these days, understanding and creating content with search intent in mind is critical. And you can only achieve this if you create the right kind of content for your target keyword.

Craft a captivating headline

A good headline sparks interest and invites readers in. So, your job is to write something that’s captivating, draws your reader in, and makes them click through to read your content.

Truth is, a headline is so critical that 73% of buying decisions are made from the point where readers come in contact with your title. What’s more, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline but only 2 out of 10 will click through to read the rest of your content.

Sure, you don’t want to create crap content. But you also can’t afford to joke with your headline.

How do you write amazing headlines? Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Keep your headlines between 5-7 words

When your headlines are too long, for some reason, it’s just overwhelming, and people don’t want to click through.

When they are too short, people don’t know what your content is about and they’re not going to click through.

It’s that simple.

Use adjectives in your headlines

The next thing you want to do when you’re writing your headline is to use adjectives.

When you use words like “effortlessly” for instance, in your headline, it creates the illusion of simplicity. In other words, people will think it’s easy and because people want easy ways to create content, they’re more likely to click through to read your content.

Remember, everyone wants the easy route. 

That headline is way better than “The Definitive Guide to Creating Content that Earns Links.”

Of course, you don’t want to make your headlines sound like clickbait. So, be sure to really show your reader how effortlessly it is to create content that earns links in your content.

Which of these headlines are you more likely to click on?

1. 10 Ways to Double Your Search Traffic
2. 10 Effortless Ways to Double Your Search Traffic

I’ll leave you to ponder on it.

Meanwhile, you can check out this link to get a comprehensive list of common adjectives you can use in your headlines.

Create some mystery

When you’re writing headlines, create some mystery. For example, “The Six Benefits of Coffee: #4 Will Shock You!”

Your reader will be like: “Whoa! What’s number 4? I want to know what number 4 is.”

With that kind of headline, your reader is anxious about knowing what the fourth benefit of coffee is. People are more likely to click on your headline if they feel number 4 must be crazy as your headline says.

But here’s a catch.

If number 4 is just another plain point, your readers won’t trust you anymore and they’ll immediately bounce off your content. And you probably know that’s bad for your SEO because it will increase your bounce rate, Google will flag your content as not relevant, and your rankings will hurt.

So, don’t trick people into reading your content. Make sure when you’re using this tactic, you have amazing tips and techniques. 

Getting more search traffic is not just about your content. It’s also about your headline.

Looking for more headline techniques? Sumo has a huge list of them here.

Kickstart your intro with the AIDA formula

Your headlines make people click. Your intros convince them to read your content.

How then do you write a compelling introduction?

Use the AIDA formula.

The AIDA model has been around for years and the reason it’s stuck around for a long time is because it works.

If you’ve never heard of it, it looks a little something like this:

And it’s a model that is widely used in both advertising and marketing circles.

Most people would claim the AIDA formula is a copywriting formula—one you can use to write a blog post. And I’m not disputing it. In fact, you can also use this formula to craft powerful headlines for your content. 

But it also works amazingly well for your introductions. 

Awareness is grabbing your reader’s attention in the first place. So, you want to start by grabbing their attention fast.

For example, in this post you’re reading, I started with a bold statement.

The next thing you want to do is to pique your readers’ interest by giving them some interesting stories, facts, or examples. In this case, I gave you a fact to work with.

Interest is important because it keeps readers on your page and possibly on other pages of your website. 

Third, create a desire in your reader to keep reading by explaining why that’s important. In this example, I hinted at the fact that a chunk of content marketers are getting returns on their investments thanks to content creation. And I justified it with facts. 

And finally, get them to take action. Think of it as a call-to-action (CTA), which is all about asking your readers to move on to the next step. In this case, I urged you to do the following things if you want to create quality content.

That’s how powerful the AIDA formula is in getting people to read your content. And if you can get people to stay longer on your page with this formula, your bounce rate will reduce drastically, Google will love your content, recommend it to searchers, and ultimately rank you high.

Make your content easy to read

When reading the above content, there’s nothing more daunting than a wall of text. Writing your article like this is a surefire way to send your readers away. 

Why? It’s difficult to read.

Instead, what you should do is to break up your text into readable chunks. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to have short paragraphs. A good rule would be to make your paragraphs 4 lines long – not 4 sentences, but 4 lines. 

Here’s an example of a long paragraph that is still readable: 

“This is an example of a very long paragraph. You should not go beyond 4 lines when writing a paragraph as it looks clunky and unappealing to readers. Try to ensure that you stay within the limit and remember that this is for 4 lines, not for 4 sentences, so your paragraph may contain more than 4 short sentences.” 

Optimally, your paragraphs should be as short as possible – 1 or 2 lines. However, don’t go overboard and only use one-sentence paragraphs constantly, especially if the content would be more understandable and well-organized if it were grouped in 3 or 4 lines instead.

Remember that reducing the size of a large paragraph may require re-wording it.

Pro tip: You can break down large points into multiple paragraphs to get your point across.

Another easy way to make your content easy to read is to use images. You will notice that I use a lot of images to help demonstrate certain ideas and concepts better than words.

But images aren’t the only way to break up your text. You can also use videos, infographics, GIFs, or even subheadings within your content.

Conclusion

Writing great content is never easy and it can be mentally draining. It is for this reason that it’s easy to procrastinate with the excuse that you’re waiting for inspiration to strike.

It won’t.

And if that inspiration never comes, it means you’ll never publish anything. And if you don’t publish your content, you won’t rank.

But it becomes much easier when you write with these tips in mind. Once you follow all those tips, your content will be way more amazing and you’ll be able to drive consistent traffic back to your website.

Truth is, it’s only by publishing that you stand a chance to rank in Google.

Did I miss out on any important tips? Let me know in the comments below.

BONUS TIP

GIVE! GIVE! AND GIVE!

You should be ready to WOW your audience by not only educating them through your content but also giving them some valuable assets that will prompt them to come back time and time again.

You can do this simply by giving them some tools to assist them with the problem they are facing via codecanyon.

OR

Do like me by giving your readers an asset that you think could be useful because they read your content to the end. To say Thank You, get a FREE copy of the Content Marketing Workbook from HubSpot below: