A health and wellness company asked me to consult on their digital marketing; here is an excerpt from my report:
Blog post length
1,600 words (maximum) is optimal; research suggests that this is a length at which you can offer your reader substance and reward her time without demanding too much of it. That said, your posts definitely aren’t too long. Brevity is best, and I appreciate that many of your posts focus on one precise point. I don’t think they can be too short, as long as they have purpose and value. Your [title redacted] post, for example, is proof of this – it’s clear, concise, and unadorned – adding anything to it would only detract.
That said, some of your posts seem longer than they actually are – which can be rectified via layout and design tweaks. I would also recommend rebalancing your two fonts into a primary and secondary. Specifically, I’d reserve the more floral font for your site masthead and headlines; it is eye-catching for sure, but its decoration does occupy more room on the page. For the posts themselves (the articles minus their headlines), I’d use the more muted font – it is simpler, cleaner, and less obtrusive – which can in turn make the the posts themselves more digestible. If this attention on fonts seems subjective, keep in mind that your visitors can use design as a basis for judging your site’s usability. So the sharper and more concise your site appears, the more function and value a user will ascribe to it.
Blog post headline length
Optimal length for a blog post headline is 6 – 8 words. Keeping the headline to one line of text – rather than letting it continue onto a second line – is even more important than actual word count. A one-line headline keeps the design clean and the copy accessible. It will likely help to encourage click-through to the article itself as well. [Title redacted] is a great example – as a headline, it is short and sweet and complete.
Blog post headline style
I’d suggest approaching these headlines more as teases than titles – again, with the goal of encouraging click-through to the article itself. The most effective of yours is: [title redacted.] There’s no summation or characterization there, it is just a minimal and effective tease to draw the reader in. I would suggest that the same approach be applied to all your headlines, using questions, commands, and prompts. Here are some edits I'd propose:
What 2022 holds in store for you.
Restless child? Move her bed.
How linens can relieve your cough.
How wind chimes can elevate a sense of calm.
Relieving mental pain = relieving muscle pain.
Hope for busy moms, in just 55 words.
Links to related articles
Your links at the end of each post are the perfect encouragement for a user to continue exploring, which can of course lead her to spend additional time on your site. That said, I’d limit the number of links at the end of each article to just three. (Too many choices can overwhelm rather than motivate.) Look at the end of [title redacted] as an example – the five “Related Articles” thumbnails appear cluttered, especially in the way that one falls onto a second line. One line of thumbnails would look much cleaner. Your layout allows for four on one line, which would certainly be enough. Three would look better – and groups of three do hold a certain power, design-wise.
The idea of linking to related articles can also help in your writing and planning, since this is an effective way to break down a complicated concept into several individual posts and point the reader from one part of a series to the next. You can also use this technique to create new follow-ups to older posts – which not only freshens older posts and keeps their topics alive but also gives new readers who haven’t dug deeply into your site a reason to do so. Successful sites do this to create depth and dimension, which can in turn motivate users to come back to your site more often and spend more time on it when they do.
Email subscriber list
One technique for building loyalty to your brand and increasing traffic to your site is a daily email to your email subscriber list — a tip of the day, an inspiring quote of the day, a wellness reminder, etc. Imagine a brief sentence or two of value, accompanied by your logo and a prompt to visit the site to see what’s new. Your subscribers are already interested in your content but may not visit your site as often as you’d like them to; a daily email sent to them first thing in the morning reminds them of you, your site, and your expertise – thereby giving them a fresh reason, daily, to visit you.
In these daily emails, I'd also include links to three existing posts on your site; these links could lead a user to a post she was previously unaware of, or they could remind her of a post she had been meaning to read, or they could encourage her to share a post she liked. At the very least, these links will function as reminders of your content and its value – which in turn can inspire additional visits to your site. And when occasional visitors become frequent visitors, your brand gets stronger, your traffic gets better, and your ad revenue grows.