Blogging is no different when it comes to the IT factor. You know IT when you see it, read it, hear it, taste it, smell it…etc. The IT factor is something that you really can’t explain, you just KNOW. It is why some things get instant notice and go viral and others no matter how good are just missing the “IT” that would make it become an instant success.
As a blogger I often find myself looking for the IT factor in my posts, not only my own but the articles written by my staff. I have seen several of my writers have breakout success articles that exceeded my wildest hopes for an article, one writer in particular I paid more than $120 in performance payments for a single article over the course of 8 months. This is because the article just kept delivering traffic by the thousands, month after month and caused a huge spike in AdSense earnings just from the traffic it brought in.
Blogging for the IT Factor
When blogging I can translate the IT factor into being something that stands out in a readers mind, either you solved a problem that many had, or you provided a unique perspective that many were looking for in your article. Each article is important and you have to strive to provide meaning to your article. Each article you should have a goal of what you want your reader to takeaway from this article, ask yourself this:
What do I want my reader to have gained after reading this article?
Is it information about a product or service that you want to sell? Is it leaving with a chance to win something? Is it having a solution to a problem that was plaguing them?
The other thing you need is to measure how successful your article was at providing what you wanted your reader to gain from it. This comes many different ways and can be measured by # of conversions if you are selling a product from the article, # of visitors to the article, # of comments which are engaging and clearly for the article and not a backlink…etc.
Read your own article from the mindset of a new unique reader stumbling on it, see if they would have gained everything needed in a clear, concise way. Articulation is everything and you must make sure you write only the number of words you need to to get the information across, don’t overstuff your articles and don’t leave any thing out that would help make your article have the IT factor that a rushed article would.
Your blog is your voice and why would you mute it? You want to be heard and you want to be heard clearly, so leverage all of your personality when writing articles. You will become a better writer and blogger if you keep thinking about your article IT factor and remembering to write for the reader and not just for the sake of writing (or trying to make profit from a affiliate product review).
Image Credit: sxc.hu