How to Give Your Blog Post Artistic “Sex Appeal”

What really attracts a person into reading a blog post? What does that blog post have that keeps us there and coming back for more?

This might seem like a stretch, but maybe this initial attraction is similar to someone who exudes sex appeal!

Please read on, I think you might agree…

WikiHow defines Sex Appeal: Seductive, fetching, and something that improves with experience – it’s sex appeal. Not limited to the beautiful people, sex appeal is something within everyone’s reach no matter your looks and age. It derives from unabashed self-confidence, healthy self-love, and a belief that you’re worth knowing.

Use your imagination for a moment. Doesn’t that define a good blog post too? Just like with people, the presentation of a blog post matters.

At a quick glance, a post must be alluring and it should keep you coming back for more. A good post is artistically and esthetically pleasing as seen in these tips below.

A Good Blog Post has a Great Smile:

There is nothing like a great smile to create a good first impression. Your post’s title is its smile! Just like a smile, the title is the first thing to grab your reader’s interest.

• Make sure the title contains the essence of your story and the most important and relevant words that are in your post.
• Make sure your title delivers!
• Be creative and informative with your titles and include keywords.
• Include keywords in your titles. Recently, I have learned that it is best to include keywords at the start of your title. This has more impact with SEO than if  you place the keywords at the end of a title.
• A good title will determine whether or not you will get readers to start looking at your post when it is seen in a RSS reader or search engine results page.

A Good Blog Post is Appealing:

Presentation matters. It only takes a quick glace of about three seconds for someone to evaluate you when you meet for the first time. There is not much difference for the design of your  post. Readers will skim an article in under 30 seconds to determine whether or not they want to read it.

• But, that doesn’t mean you have to go out and design an expensive, custom blog. There are many great blogs that use simple, and free blog templates.
• Readers want to scan your article. Make it easy to read.
• Having an appealing and great design can really improve your blog traffic and bounce rate.
• I have learned that plain text is boring and over 60% of your readers are visual – I know I am.
• Readers want to see pictures, graphs and illustrations.
• Visual aides like photographs and illustrations help your readers memorize the ideas that are written in text. You can either use your own images or get permission from the owner to use their images or use sites like Flickr to search for images with a Creative Commons license.
• Readers like bullet points and lists rather than long, unbroken paragraphs. Long posts and paragraphs are a common error, especially in new bloggers.
• The quality of your blog post design must fit its content.
• Avoid the overuse of bright colors.
• Choose a good color scheme. Try using this cool design/color wheel tool at > colorschemedesigner.com

A Good Blog Post is Well Groomed:

A clean and tidy appearance adds to anyone’s sex appeal. The same goes for a good looking blog post. After spending a lot of time writing, it is tempting to hit publish and be done with it. I can admit to doing this at times myself. I am so busy juggling painting and blogging careers plus being a mom, sometimes I get in a hurry, but I regret it later.

• Taking a few extra minutes to proof read, check punctuation and  hit ‘spell check’ for errors before you publish your post might boost your blog to the next level. I just found this free spelling and grammar checker > SpellChecker.net or you can pay a fee for this thorough this grammar service, Grammarly.com
• Don’t rush writing posts. It is better to wait an extra day or two than to post a half-hearted article.
• Reread your posts to see how they flow (sometimes reading them out loud will help).
• Have a friend look over your post.
• Test your links. (I often forget this step!)
• Remember, it’s never too late to go back over and correct old posts.
• As my blogging skills have improved, I now realize a blog is a work in progress – just like art!

A Good Blog Post has Great Content, Connection & Personality:

We all know, Content is King. But, if the King doesn’t look good, then nobody is going to sit and listen him. However, looks themselves can be deceiving. Even a beautiful, custom blog can lack personality and small blog can have killer content.

• ‘Sex appeal’ is about having the entire package – making the most of your positive features, putting your best self forward. It can be informative, funny, witty or clever, but it should be intelligent.
• A good blog post is easy to navigate and has informative links. Create deep-links or hyper-links within your own blog.
• Create linkback, pingback or trackback links within your post. This enables authors to keep track of whom is linking, and so referring, to their articles. This creates an informative post and will help you build your network connections with like-minded people.
• Good content is the most important attribute that will motivate your readers to share your post.
• Have share buttons available in your post to make it easy to share on social media sites.
• Be creative and make it your own, but remember to follow a couple rules. Don’t copy or plagiarize somebody else’s work. If you use a passage from another blog, be sure and add their link.
• Be friendly and invite conversation and comments, but be mysterious – don’t give out too much personal information.
• Remember, comments result in a number of benefits to both the reader and the blogger.

I hope you try these tips to create a seductive, fetching, blog post that improves with experience!  A blog post with artistic sex appeal is something within everyone’s reach no matter your looks and age. It derives from unabashed self-confidence, healthy self-love, and a belief that you’re worth knowing. What do you think?

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I found these articles really informative and helpful:
How to Craft a Blog Post – 10 Crucial Points to Pause
Blog Post Images that will Rock Your World and Where to Find Them
How to Create Killer Articles to the Glory of Success
and check out this helpful article on Quality Control by Problogger