August 16, 2017

If content marketing is the core of your mental health marketing strategy, you should be performing a number of activities, including developing and launching compelling marketing content, using a variety of social media platforms to reach your target audience, updating/enhancing your web content on a regular basis, etc. In that scenario, your blog posts are just one element of your content portfolio. Consequently, you may find yourself writing them somewhat robotically in an effort to meet deadlines. If so, you may not be getting the interest and readership that blogging is capable of generating.

The Formula for Better Blog Posts

In order to optimize the value of the posts that you are putting time and effort into creating, you want to keep certain key attributes in mind, including:

Engaging headline

The human attention span gets shorter every day. You’ve got six or seven seconds max to grab a reader’s attention with your mental health marketing blog posts. If you don’t, they’ll move on to something more interesting. Some studies have shown that headlines in the area of 70 characters and 12 words are optimal.

Eye-catching featured image

The featured image for your post appears at the top. You probably don’t want it to be a literal representation of what’s in the post. In fact, if it takes a reader a fraction of a second to understand the how the image relates to the post, that “epiphany”  is a positive thing that enhances the reader’s experience.

An intro with a hook

There are two goals for the initial sentences of your post. First, you want to make it crystal clear what the post is about. If readers have to go looking for that information, they’re likely to go looking for something else to read! Second, you want to describe the post content in a way that teases your audience and makes them want to read more.

Variety in body copy length

Some experts advocate shorter posts (approximately 350 words), while others recommend longer ones (2,000+). To appeal to both types of readers, it’s a good idea to vary the length of your posts.

Subheads and bullets

If you make it easy for a reader to find what they’re looking for in your post, they’re likely to keep coming back. If instead, you lump 500+ words into, say, three large paragraphs, your readership will plummet.

Solid data. Posts containing facts and figures are very appealing to people. While your topic won’t always be one that involves stats, if you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em!

Clear, compelling meta description

Meta descriptions don’t actually appear in a post. They are displayed in search results in order to give potential readers an idea of what they’ll be seeing if they click the link. In the same way that you want a headline to entice the reader, the meta description must do the same.

If You Build a Better Blog Post...

As experienced mental health marketing experts, we know that interesting, easily consumed blog posts are an essential element of an effective content marketing strategy. In fact, that holds true for all the different types of companies and organizations we work with across many industries. If you’ve got inbound marketing goals, our full-service agency can help you meet them. Give us a call!