If you have a blog, it’s essential to consistently add high quality content to it. This is important for getting traffic, motivating visitors to return and to improve your search engine rankings. The following five tips will help you create great content that will make people want to visit your blog again and again.

1. Write About Trendy Topics

There are always evergreen topics worth covering in your blog. However, finding recent news or trends is one of the best ways to generate interest for your blog. You can link to interesting stories about your industry or niche. It’s also good to give your own unique take on the subject. Search the news and Google Trends to find out what’s happening in your field right now. Another good way to find out about what's popular in your niche is to search bestselling books on Amazon. Question and answer sites such as Quora are good for finding out what questions people want answered.

2. Use Visual Content

One of the biggest developments in content marketing in recent years is the popularity of visual content.

Photos, videos, slideshows and infographics can make your blog posts more interesting. There are several ways to leverage visual content. You can break up long blocks of text with images. If you don’t have a long article to write, you might embed a video from YouTube. Infographics are a great way to convey information in an accessible way. Visual content is both eye-catching and more likely to get shared on social media sites.

3. Have an Objective With All of Your Content

All of your content should be relevant to your readers. It's best to have a purpose in mind when creating content. Depending on what kind of blog you have, you may want to inform your visitors, help them solve problems, make them laugh or share fascinating or shocking stories with them. When creating content, identify your main objective. Then figure out how to deliver the most valuable content you can. If you're offering information, try to back it up with evidence. Provide links where readers can get more information. Internal links are great for keeping people on your website. However, it's also fine to link to other reputable sites as well.

4. Choose Compelling Headlines

The headline is what makes people decide whether or not to read a blog post. It also helps to make your post more SEO friendly. The headline should make people curious enough that they want to read your post. You might choose a headline that’s surprising, funny or that promises some information that your readers will find useful. If you're having trouble coming up with a headline, use an established formula. These include headlines that promise an easy solution to a problem, mistakes to avoid, lists of important points and surprising facts about a topic.

5. Write For Readers, Not Search Engines

Many bloggers get caught up in trying to game the search engines with the latest SEO tactics. Google now ranks sites mostly on how much value they provide to readers. You don't have to abandon SEO fundamentals such as choosing appropriate keywords, optimizing your images and acquiring high quality backlinks. However, you should be writing mainly for your readers. Your articles should flow naturally. The best way to rank your blog is to create content that’s helpful to your audience.

Jessica is a professional blogger who writes for Faxage, a leading company that provide Internet fax service for individuals and businesses.