Copywriting for Blogs: 10 Tips You Need for Profitable Content

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Do you want to use copywriting for blogs?
Whether you’re a freelance writer, content marketer, or starting your own blog, copywriting can be used in your blog posts.
And that's what I'm here to help with!
So, if you want:
- Your blog traffic to stay on the page longer
- To get more email subscribers
- To make more sales or commissions
…Then you’ll love this new post.
Let’s dive in.
Contents
1. Use Powerful Headlines When Copywriting for Blogs
Every copywriter knows it.
8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.
Therefore, it’s crucial to hone in your headlines. Not just your ad copy or social media posts, but in your blog posts, too.
The question is:
How do you captivate your ideal clients to click and consume your content?
You cheat!
Blog title generators have come a long way and they can teach us a few lessons.
Look at the Kickass Headline Generator, for instance.
It provides a set of formulas for different types of blog post titles.
You fill in the boxes, and the headlines are produced. The “How to Headlines” section requires specific parameters:
- Topic
- Desired Outcome (to)
- Successful Outcome (past tense)
- Time Frame
- Well Known Celebrity
- Biggest Frustration
- Descriptive Power Word
…All of which are common tactics used in copywriting.
The headline tool then spits out a selection of highly compelling headlines that will intrigue almost anyone to keep reading.
Don’t forget to update your search engine titles, too. An SEO plugin like RankMath will let you edit these.
Try RankMath2. Use Copywriting Formulas
Copywriting might be the best skill to learn to make money online.
This is mainly because it uses the art of persuasion, which is essential if you want to influence your audience to buy your products or services.
Here’s why.
Copywriting follows a structured process based upon psychological triggers.
These triggers evoke an emotion that gets the reader to pay attention and inspires them to take action.
And you can bake these into your blogging process, using formulas.
Here are three powerful copywriting formulas you should know about.
1. AIDA
AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
This formula, like other formulas, takes people on a journey of building interest and a desire to resolve a problem.
A problem you can resolve, because you know the solution.
Here’s what it could look like within your own content creation:
- Attention: Use a power word in the title to hook the reader in
- Interest: Spark their interest within the body by highlighting pain points or benefits of a solution
- Desire: Build desire throughout the article, inspiring them to want what you’re selling
- Action: Tell them what to do next to take action and buy
Now, for an example:
- Attention: Netflix uses advertising to bring people to their website or download the app.
- Interest: Unlimited movies, TV programs, and more.
- Desire: Watch anywhere. Cancel at any time.
- Call to action: Ready to watch? Enter your email to create or restart your membership.
2. BAB
BAB stands for Before, After, Bridge.
With this formula, you highlight the before state of your potential customer, the after state of where they want to be, and how your solution gets them there.
Here’s a closer look:
- Before: Something they might struggle with that you know how to fix.
- After: Paint the desired future state they wish to achieve.
- Bridge: Explain how your solution gets them from A to B.
Want a real world example?
Here’s the McDonald’s chain using the BAB formula. This particular ad only displays when there’s a buildup of traffic.
- Before: Stuck in a jam? – Highlight’s the pain of being stuck in traffic.
- After: McDonald’s sign – Gives a desirable answer to the before state.
- Bridge: There’s light at the end of the tunnel – How to get there.
Clever stuff, right?
3. PAS When Copywriting for Blogs
PAS stands for Problem, Agitate, Solve.
This copywriting formula is like the evil twin of BAB, because it does the same, but leaves out the nice, desirable state in the middle.
Instead, it highlights the problem, then agitates it some more, before offering your way of solving it.
- Problem: Describe the problem, issue, pain point, etc.
- Agitate: Dig deeper in the frustration or negative state it causes.
- Solve: Give them the answer to the problem.
Neil Patel knows how to do this well in this example:
- Problem: Marketers tend to be very reactive.
- Agitate: We are conditioned to be very reactive. Whether it’s your boss who is pissed that your traffic dips or even yourself… everyone hates when sales and income drop because of something you can’t fully control.
- Solve: You unplug!
Notice that good copy doesn’t need to be revolutionary, just enough to keep the pace of the article flowing.
More on pacing later.
3. Use Magnetic Intros
Want to use magnetic intros that keep people stuck to the page?
You can do that by using the same techniques I mentioned earlier.
Here’s the deal.
The purpose of the article copy is to get your readers to buy a product.
Or sign up to your email list.
Or click on another article.
And the purpose of the intro copy is to get them to read the rest of the article.
It’s that simple.
The AIDA formula works well here.
Brian Dean of Backlinko uses AIDA in the intros for almost all of his posts:
He grabs the reader’s attention with the first sentence, then builds desire with the bullet points, and gets them interested by telling them they’ll love the new article.
Then he provides them with a clear call to action, to keep reading.
4. Use Bucket Brigades
The sole purpose of the first sentence in an advertisement is to get you to read the second sentence.
You now know how to get people to read your introduction by using a powerful headline.
And you know how to construct the intro to get them to take action and keep reading.
But how can you inject more power in between your paragraphs?
Simple.
With the use of Bucket Brigades.
These are innocent words, phrases, or questions that connect sentences together to keep the pace flowing.
You’ll see this technique being used by the best content marketing blogs.
Why?
Because it’s so effective.
Some common bucket brigades include:
- Here’s the deal
- The question is
- Why?
- Here’s a closer look:
And so on.
See how these words and phrases compel the reader to read the next line?
Here’s an example on the Backlinko blog:
Brian Dean uses bucket brigades in his articles all the time. You can see it in action in the image above.
You want to use them sparingly, though. If you add them to every other sentence, they begin to lose their impact.
5. Use Effective Pacing
So far, you have learned a few ways to grab the attention of your readers and keep them reading the next line of text.
But how can you increase interest throughout an entire blog post?
Two things…
Rate of Revelation and Future Pacing.
Here’s how to use these lesser known techniques in your blog posts to step them up a gear.
Rate of Revelation
Rate of Revelation is how novelists shift up the pace of a story. It’s an effective way to build tension and drama.
And you can use it in your copywriting for blogs, sales pages, social media, you name it.
Here’s the thing.
People are busy. They don’t want to be bored. They want to learn something new or be entertained.
You can use the rate of revelation to deliver valuable insights faster.
In other words, you “get to the point” and keep the pace going throughout the article.
Reveal exactly what they want to know and leave out the fluff.
Future Pacing
Remember earlier in the article, I said, “More on pacing later.”
Well, that’s exactly what future pacing is. To hint at what’s coming later in the article.
Future Pacing creates an open loop and builds curiosity about what it is they are going to learn.
It’s a technique used in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), which uses the power of language to influence behavior.
We see this being used everywhere, from commercials to TV classics like Lost or Game of Thrones.
They keep you on the edge of your seat by creating unresolved conflicts that you have to wait until three episodes in until it’s resolved.
…But now there are another five open loops in the plot.
When you create open loops in your copy, you’re subconsciously priming them for what’s coming, which keeps them reading.
Done effectively, your readers won’t want to stop reading until they’ve closed the loops because humans love closure.
5 Things to Avoid for Overall Better Writing
Now you know these creative copywriting tips. Here are five things you should stop doing that could ruin your efforts.
Big words
Using big words might make you look smart, but they won’t improve your writing.
In fact, using big words unnecessarily can have the opposite effect. They can ruin your writing.
Why?
Because you’re forcing people to use their brain and think of what they mean.
This slows a reader down and distracts them from the intention of the content, which is to raise their awareness of how you can help them.
If a person has to stop and think about a word, or worse, leave your website to Google it, it means you’ve already lost them.
You want to make your writing easy to read.
To get help with this, use a content writing tool like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor.
These tools will tell you how to make your blog writing better and easier to understand.
Check Out Grammarly
Overuse of Glue Words
Glue words are essential for sticking sentences together.
They consist of words like:
- And
- It
- The
- From
- A
- To
…And so on.
Even though these words are important, they don’t convey any meaning or context by themselves. They only serve to connect other words in the sentence together.
When Glue Words Don’t Help
Using too many glue words creates a sticky sentence, which makes writing difficult to read.
Text editors like ProWritingAid calculate the number of Glue Words in your writing and tell you when there are too many.
You want to aim for less than 40% glue words in your blog posts overall.
Here’s an example courtesy of ProWritingAid:
Sticky: I went over to my friend’s house after school and then we just played basketball for a really long time.
Glue index: 61.9%
Rewrite: After school, I headed to my friend’s house and we played basketball all afternoon.
Glue index: 33.3%
Try ProWritingAidUse long sentences
Really long sentences are difficult to read.
Long sentences take up mental energy to understand the message you’re trying to present.
When you use long sentences, they confuse the reader and stop them in their tracks, even forcing them to read it twice.
Okay, you get my point.
The first sentence above explains everything you need to know, in seven words.
Whereas the third sentence drags the same conclusion in 22 words.
It’s painful to read and doesn’t add value to the reader.
Using too many adverbs
Adverbs are modifications to other words. They will often end in the letters “-ly.”
Using adverbs is fine sometimes, but can be replaced with stronger adjectives, verbs, or nouns to improve your writing.
For example:
John called loudly for help – can be replaced with – John screamed for help.
Sometimes it makes sense to use an adverb, because they can add context to the sentence.
For example:
They left early to secure a parking space.
And sometimes, sentences can use adverbs to make them clearer with fewer words:
She threw her bag on the back seat in a hurry – can be replaced with – She threw her bag on the back seat quickly.
Using too much passive voice
Passive voice is when you mention the object before the subject in a sentence.
It’s not grammatically incorrect, but the reader has to read to the end of the sentence to know who’s doing the action.
When your writing forces people to read more to understand it, it can put people off.
Here’s an example:
The cat was fed by Sophie. Instead, it would be clearer to say, Sophie fed the cat.
Copywriting for Blogs – Conclusion
Using copywriting for blogs is a simple yet powerful way to improve your digital marketing strategy.
Knowing these principles will turn you into a more persuasive writer, build trust with your audience, and increase your conversion rates.
Try it yourself.
You may also be interested in our lists of the best copywriting generators and 101 buying words to help you sell more.
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