Why You Should Write Long-form Blog Post Outlines to Increase Blog Traffic
What is that one simple hack for writing post outlines that convert to killer blog posts? Using placeholder text.
Using Lorem Ipsum has dramatically impacted our workflow and increased traffic to the blog for several reasons. We’ve discovered this little secret as a tool to help us really focus on writing longer, more in-depth blog posts, and we’re not looking back. The whole point of blog post outlines is to create a post that’s easy to read, leaves lasting impressions, and compels the reader to share. If you don’t know already – people ‘sharing and engaging with your content’ is the road that leads to you making money from your blog.
If you’ve never outlined a blog post before – that’s totally ok as well. Let’s dive into implementing placeholder text into your workflow and all of the meat and potatoes surrounding the creation of effective blog post outlines.
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In This Post
A Quick Snapshot of Organically Increased Blog Traffic
You’ve probably seen a lot of influencers and bloggers on Instagram and TikTok. Does it look like a never-ending stream of being online and talking to your audience? The key to these successful influencers is that they are consistent.
Consistency is everything when it comes to blogging and any other digitized career path. Have you ever heard of Moore’s Law? It’s the concept that technology doubles in complexity every year, but inversely, the cost for the same tech goes down. Moore’s theory hasn’t held true in the last few years – but that doesn’t mean the world isn’t changing in the blink of an eye. So that whole point about consistency? It means you need to be constantly evolving and learning to keep up!
As people who depend on technology – it’s our job as bloggers to keep up. Really, no matter what you do, you need to be learning to thrive in a digital era. (If you want to make any money, that is..?)
Hallmark Features of Succesful Blogs
We’re not talking about how a blog looks or how many Instagram followers you have. Creators on Instagram frequently buy followers in an effort to gain popularity and access to special features like the coveted ‘swipe up’ – but there are metrics that don’t lie.
- Domain Authority – How likely your website is to appear in search engines.
- Low Bounce Rate – The % of visitors who leave your site after visiting one page.
- Working with independent ad revenue companies like Mediavine.
- Brand Partnerships – Brands won’t work with bloggers/influencers with low visibility!
- Mentions in larger publications like Huff Post, Scary Mommy, 17 Magazine, The Associated Press, National Geographic + many more.
- High Backlinks – This means how often another site linked your website as a reference.
- Cohesive Branding – Don’t even get us started on how many times we see a new blogger that gives up before they’ve figured out their branding. We’ve been there, and it really took us some time to make everything feel professional!!
There are so many metrics to measure successful blogs, and these can’t be bought or changed with money. If your site is bad – your site is bad. If your writing struggles – take a writing course. The same goes for your photography. There are so many courses that we’ve taken over time to help us learn to code etc. We knew our blog could be better, and it gets better all the time because we’re learning from people who do it better than we do now.
How Long Should Blog Posts Be?
Multiple different sources around the web used to say that your audience could only handle bite-sized pieces of content. ‘Your audience’s attention span is no longer than a goldfish’s attention span.’ Ever heard a blogging guru says that? While we agree that that is the average attention span of your average reader… there are some key reasons to write long-form content.
The biggest reason to write long-form content being that it gets over 77% more back-links than short articles, increasing your domain authority and visibility!
Long Posts Get Shared More
We’re not saying every post you write should be 3000 words long. There’s a time and a place for that – think cornerstone blog content!! What you should know is that content that at least 1000-2000 words long gets shared the most.
Take a look at Backlinko’s recent article data on blog post length and the correlation with social media shares. So those articles with quick tips for a destination? Make sure you’ve packed in the right amount of detail for every subheading so that your audience feels like they’re receiving value.
Give your audience bite-sized pieces of content within larger pieces of content to maximize social sharing!
Getting Ranked Higher By Google
This is a section that will take more to understand – but a little in-depth reading will stregthen your blog immensely.
The old idea that content should overall be bite-sized is outdated and harmful for your blog’s Google ranking health. In general, content that gets ranked #1 by search engines is usually around 2416 words. It’s highly likely that writing blog posts with lower word counts will cause it’s Google rankings to drop dramatically. Why is this?
Maybe it’s because Google assumes that posts that aren’t long enough don’t have enough information to really answer your question? It doesn’t matter how good an idea is – if you can’t explain it and back up what you’re claiming is a brilliant idea – you’re not going to get anywhere.
If you want to rank higher in Google’s algorithm – write longer, more in-depth posts.
So what does this matter in an article surround how to write converting blog post outlines? If you want to convert your writing into traffic – allow your content to be found.
SWEOR.com talks about the value of expounding in your post because there’s more value in it for other content creators and readers. It’s easier for a reader or a content creator to link back to your content if it’s more complete and in-depth. They want to use your content as a credible source to back up their claims – so your post needs to be more comprehensive!
Become the expert on what you’re writing about.
The Exact Strategy We Use To Write Outlines
If you’re wondering how to create that coveted long form content – blog outlines are key. And for our outlines, we utilize placeholder text.
Using Latin text as a placeholder has been done for centuries in books. These days, like everything else, there’s a way to utilize it to be 21st century friendly. As place holders go – Lorem Ipsum is the Latin gibberish text that software developers for visual mockups and previewing spacing. It’s also incredibly helpful when realizing that you need about another 1500 words to really dive deeper into your subject, and get ranked by Google for your keywords. We’ve already talked about how important long-form content is – Loreum Ipsum placeholder text gives you a visual of the task ahead.
Some may not like this approach because it seems daunting. But think of it with a more positive approach – every paragraph that you write to replace the placeholder text is a win.
Expect big things of yourself –> then do them.
- Do a complete brain dump. Write down all relevant thoughts related to your topic.
(For example: When writing blog posts about a destination.. we like to include where to stay, what else is around it, where to eat, packing tips, etc.,) - Group ideas by SEO Topic. Even if you think some ideas may need to go in a separate blog post! This happens to use all the time.
(For example: Our headings will always be something that people have searched for, with plenty of helpful information to go beneath. See this post’s Table of Contents for examples of how to group your thoughts. ) - Insert Lorum Ipsum placeholder text under your headings to make your article long enough. Writing 2000 words should always be your goal. (Even if you don’t reach that goal – you can probably get close, and your SEO strategy/domain authority will thank you for it!)
Save this for later as a quick reference!
If this seems like an oversimplified way to create blog post outlines… it’s because you’re looking at writing like an obstacle. As a blogger- writing is what you do and should be a creative challenge that allows your mind to flex and follow new paths.
You can also look at this strategy as a way to rid your mind of cluttered thoughts. That big brain dump in the beginning? It should help you get organized and start writing.
Tip:
We’ve been at a place when there are just one too many blog post ideas floating around in our heads! Make sure you put all those extra ideas down in an excel spreadsheet!!
How Is Placeholder Text Helpful?
It’s common for software designers to use Lorem Ipsum because it doesn’t distract from their digital creations. Bloggers, however, have a totally different need.
We need placeholder text around images, and it helps us know how much we should be writing on a subject. Google prioritizes long-form content for SEO purposes. If you’re just now starting to learn what SEO is, we highly recommend reading this article to get started. If you’re a veteran blogger and you’re looking to increase your SEO knowledge and rank higher with Google – using placeholder text will be your savior.
Place holder text helps you structure what kind of content you need to write. You don’t want to write nonsense to make your articles longer – but Google prioritizes long-form content. Users can search for a term, and the articles that pop up first are longer, well-written articles from sites with higher domain authority.
You want to be on the first page on Google search because most people don’t click past that!
What Is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem Ipsum is gibberish Latin text purposefully made as a placeholder. Dating back to the 15th century, and thought to be scrambled parts of Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum at Malorum. Nothing more and nothing less – once you realize that the text is a repeat – you’ll probably start seeing it everywhere when looking for software for your blog!
(Especially when it comes to a new theme you may want to implement.. we’ve found that web designers who use Lorem Ipsum effectively generally have better blog designs!
Copyable Latin Text
We’ve included 1 paragraph of Lorem Ipsum for you to see and to be able to use in your blog post planning! Go ahead – copy it and get writing!
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec aliquet convallis hendrerit. Proin nulla elit, porta sit amet libero vehicula, imperdiet bibendum nibh. Quisque cursus augue iaculis, mattis turpis vel, auctor nunc. In id ante libero. Nulla facilisis risus ac tempus porttitor. Maecenas lobortis felis quis nunc hendrerit, quis semper libero congue. Nulla faucibus vestibulum massa, vitae mattis sem congue ac. Aliquam condimentum tempor felis, nec rutrum ipsum fermentum eget. Aliquam et mauris in eros vehicula dictum ac vehicula ipsum. Vivamus euismod sollicitudin quam at dapibus. Aenean dui nibh, gravida euismod iaculis et, porttitor eu metus. Vivamus pulvinar auctor est, sed posuere justo laoreet at.
loreum Ipsum Text Generator
You can find more than one generator, but this site has been the most user-friendly. Type in the number of paragraphs you need and click ‘generate.’ 10 paragraphs = about 1000 words.
Making Content Shareable
Creating content is only about half the battle you’ll face when starting a blogging journey. You’re going to need to learn photography, graphic design, copywriting, and so many other valuable skills. Most blogs fail, though, because they never learn to put their content in front of readers and give up before they’ve invested in a marketing strategy!!
Graphics
One of our favorite ways to encourage sharing is by creating graphics. Whether in the form of lists, bucket list checkboxes, or appealing Pinterest pins – people are visually motivated these days. Everything you thought you knew about blogging should be thrown out the window if your strategy doesn’t include visual branding.
Consider the graph above about how often blog posts get shared depending on their length? I couldn’t help but share the graphic and link back to Backlinko’s article because it was that good. The graphics’ colors and the easy to read typography made it stand out and give an easily digestible point. That’s what your graphics should strive to be as well!
Use Headings As Easy Pin Graphics
One of the easiest ways to create more ‘pins’ for a post is to create pins based on section titles. You don’t need to waste time creating catchy titles. People want to read straightforward information, and they’re more willing to visit your site if your content benefits them!
Sharing Plugins
One thing that we always include in our blog post outlines is a section for sharing posts. (Scroll to the bottom of this post for an example.) After all the precious information you’ve just shared – add a call to action.
“But.. What’s a call-to-action’?” – Us the first time another blogger mentioned that strategy.
Every time we end a blog post – we asked our readers to share that post!!This is a great way to boost your engagemtn and decrease your bounce rate! If readers are compelled to share one article, it’s highly likely they’ll be be back to find more article that serve them.
Even if you don’t use WordPress – chances are your platform has some sort of integrated system for sharing blog posts!
Coming Soon: Our guide to all of the most effective WordPress plugins for bloggers (including what sharing plugin we use!) Subscribe for updates ahead of time and be the first to know when that article will be live!
Someone Else Will Always Do It Better
It kind of sucks to read that headline doesn’t it? If there’s one thing we’ve realized during our blogging journey, it’s that someone out there will write better posts, will have better design skills, and most likely a faster loading time for their blog. (Working on site-speed is one of the banes of our existence.)
The next important thing we’ve realized? That really doesn’t matter.
There will always be space in the arena for those who fight to be there. That’s why blog post outlines are so effective for long-form content. Your content becomes focused and organized, which makes it easier to share or link back to. This gives you a fighting chance for your incredible content and ideas to be found by your target audience.
You can do this whole blogging thing; you just have to want it!
When Blogging Feels Overwhelming
It’s going to be hard at times, but we can definitely share some positives to keep your outlook light. #1: There aren’t many careers in this world that allow you to be creative and outspoken literally wherever you are. An artist has to have canvas physically in front of them.. but you? You need a pen, or pencil, or laptop, or your phone! As long as your ideas start to take shape – you’ll find your grove.
Some posts we think will be beneficial soon:
- The Top Courses We’ve Taken To Make Our Blog Better
- Guide to Using Stock Images That Still Work For Your Brand
- An In-Depth Look At Metrics of A Successful Blog
- Your First 6 Months of Blogging Guide
Are there any topics you want an in-depth look at? Paying it forward and helping our blogging community is so important to us. We were helped tremendously by a few other bloggers initially, and we want to do the same for you!
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