Are you leveraging the profit potential of your blog posts? If you are simply writing content for your blog without any regard for optimization and readability, you are leaving potential right on the table.

With a few steps, you can give your readers and the search engines exactly what they want.

Think about a topic that will compel your blog readers to share your content. Make it creative and unique. Here are some quick tips to finding topics:

Ask! Ask your readers what they want to read.

Research forum sites and Q&A platforms like LinkedIn groups or Quora to see what people are asking in your industry.

What are your readers’ needs? Research on Twitter, Facebook or any other social site to determine what problems need to be solved in your industry

Spy on other related blogs and sift through the comments to discover trends.

News is always a welcomed topic because it is “hot off the presses”. The quicker you can report the story, the better. For example, I wrote an article a little while ago entitled: Will SEO be Dead in 6 Months? It discussed breaking, controversial news about Google and generated quite a buzz.

Write your blog around specific keywords. Not just any keywords, but those for which people are looking. If your keyword is only searched by 12 people a month, it’s time to move on. You can use the Google Keyword Tool for your research. If the search value and competition is high, you will have found a good keyword that will interest people. Devise one main keyword and two or three variations for each post.

Tip: Don’t get hung up with this step. If you have an idea for a blog post and you are having a hard time fitting in an exact keyword, write the post anyways if you know your audience will love it. You can do more keyword research for your next post. Focus on value first.

Important: Make sure your keywords are aligned with your audience’s needs. Don’t write about selling to businesses if your audience sells goods to consumers.

Write as an authority who is teaching your readers worthwhile information. Write in a conversational tone and avoid selling.

New marketers: If you are just starting, it can be hard to imagine yourself an expert. What you must understand is that everyone is an expert at something. Whether you are a parent, a spouse, a gardener or even a great cook, you have a story to tell. Infuse your expertise throughout your writing and over time you will feel more apt to teach others. If you feel like you are an authority inside, it will come across in your posts and you will be respected as such.

Headlines make every blog post easier to read. They also enclose copy into well-organized sections.

If you remember anything from this article, remember this…internet users have short attention spans so your blog content must be extremely readable. Short paragraphs, headlines and sub-headlines will help to break up your content into sections.

If your paragraphs are more than 5-6 sentences long, you risk losing a reader.

Use bullet points, bold, italics and underlines throughout to add emphasis where needed. Add images, screenshots, infographics or videos to attract the reader’s attention.

Use your main keyword in the title and throughout your post. You can add emphasis to your keywords by using them for H1 and H2 tags, in your title, alt tags for images and as alt text for links.

Internal linking – By linking to this old post on TopWorldNet, how to Write Blog Posts that Keep Your Readers Coming Back for More, I am not only referring the reader to more valuable information, but I am also creating a keyword specific internal link. These links (1-2 per post) will help your content in the search engines.

You don’t need anyone to tell you to share your content. Let your valuable work be known. Offer it on your social medial profiles and post it on relevant blogs without spamming. Make sure your blog post includes sharing buttons so your readers can easily share it with others. Your posts should also be available via RSS feed.

Monitor your readership over time. You will find certain trends, like which posts do better than others and to what type of content your readers respond. Blog optimization is a work in progress and a dynamic that occurs over a period of time. Pay attention to how your blog moves, optimize your posts, and stay on top of what your audience wants. This is a recipe for blog posting success.