Blogging is one of the most effective ways to drive organic traffic to your site, establish yourself as an industry expert and develop a community of readers.

Knowing what areas to focus on when creating your blog posts will help you create better blogs in less time.

So what are the key elements that high-performing blogs all share? Read on!

1. A Trending Topic

Picking topics that your target audience wants to read and is actively searching for is essential to writing a popular blog post. Here are a few steps to making sure your topic is a winner!

• First find your target audience.
• Then use tools like Google Trends, Keyword Explorer, and Answer the Public to see what keywords and topics your audience is searching for.
• Keep your topics relevant to your business, location, or industry.
• Write evergreen content to keep your blog relevant long after it was written.
• If you still don’t know where to start try a “Know Before You Go” post.

2. A Solid Structure 

Your blog post should be organized clearly with headings and subheadings to help guide readers through the content. Giant walls of text are a surefire way to defend your blog from readers. 

• Create an outline first. Trust us, this will always help!
• Organize your content under headings and subheadings. Headings are important SEO ranking factors, so include keywords in them when relevant.
• Try structuring your blog like an essay with an intro, body sections and a conclusion.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to sprinkle in links to other blog posts and your activities throughout your blog post. This helps with internal linking and directing traffic to the more important parts of your website – the pages where customers can make a booking!

3. Pleasing Pictures

A clear structure isn’t the only way to break up giant walls of text. Adding attractive images is a fantastic way to keep your readers engaged. 

Adding images of people enjoying your activities builds social proof, so it’s important to make sure your images are high resolution and look good on a mobile view.

You can even use infographics and other graphics to help vary the type of content your share in blog posts. Use this guide to optimize your images for search and accessibility.

4. Tantalizing Titles

Titles and headings are often the first element that captures readers’ interest. They will make or break your blog’s SEO, so keep these tips in mind to make sure your blog is at the top of the search engines.

• Pick a primary keyword based on your topic and make sure that’s included in the title.
• Look at titles of articles similar to your own and make sure you don’t repeat them.
• Use odd or crooked numbers to draw more attention to your listicles.
• Draft a few titles before picking one, since a title has a large impact on a blog’s performance. 
• Dive deeper with even more tips on writing good titles.

5. A Strong Start and a Stronger Finish

Start with a hook! Readers will only give your article a chance if they are grasped within the first couple of sentences. When writing your intro, try to use one or more of the following techniques to get your readers hooked.

• Ask a question: Posing an open-ended question at the start of a blog will immediately capture the reader’s attention and leave them wanting more. Who wouldn’t want that?
• Address a pain point: Keep your readers reading to the end by directly addressing/acknowledging a common pain point at the beginning of your article. 
• Surprise with a fact or statistic: Gain your reader’s trust by displaying expertise early on to help reinforce the points you make in the rest of your argument.

Finish with a call to action! A call to action at the end of your blog will encourage them to book an activity or read on to another blog. On a blog titled “7 Best Scuba Diving Spots in Puerto Rico” you could use a call to action like: “Now that you’ve read about all the best diving spots, go out and experience them for yourself. Book your diving tour below.” 

Practice Makes Perfect

Now that you know what it takes to write a high performing blog post, it’s time to get writing! Keeping a consistent blog schedule will be a great traffic driver for your website and the more blogs you write, the easier they will be.