Google may be responsible for 90% of all web searches in the U.S., but once people click to your website, your content is responsible for getting people to stay. And usually, that website content comes in the form of written blog posts, especially when search engine optimization is involved.

Having high-quality blog posts is essential for more than just SEO. After all, every online business needs an email list to be competitive, and a business’s blog content often drives their email marketing. If you’re also interested in boosting your social media marketing strategy, sharing good blog content is one of the best ways to do it.

However, you probably know that writing high-quality content isn’t that easy. Not only that, but most writing advice is vague and hard to understand for new writers. Ideas like writing in an active voice, showing instead of telling, and other common advice can be more confusing than helpful.

Of course, the surest way to get good content for your blog is to work with a digital marketing agency. But in the meantime, here are four intuitive, easy-to-understand ways to improve your website’s written content.

Know Your Audience

You don’t have to be a professional writer to write well for your chosen audience. The first step is knowing who that audience is, and knowing what they want.

Whenever someone finds a blog post, it’s almost always because they have questions they think the blog will answer. So whenever you approach a new writing task, do it from this angle. What does your audience need to know that you can tell them?

It’s a good idea to do some research to find out what information already exists on your subject. If every other blog out there already answers a question or solves a problem, is there really a point in doing it again on your blog? To find out how your competition has addressed the problem you’re approaching (or if they’ve addressed it at all), just run a few web searches and check the first few results. If you can answer the question or solve the problem better than anyone else has so far, you’ve got a great idea for a blog post.

Write Short, Simple Sentences

As we’ve established, a lot of writing advice is difficult to understand. But here’s a rule that’s easy to follow: keep your sentences short, and keep them simple.

That said, you shouldn’t talk down to your audience. But you should try to avoid niche jargon that only pros will understand. When you do use it, make sure you properly define it so non-experts understand it. And don’t use long words or complicated phrasing just because you can. You won’t come across as smart — it will just make your readers go somewhere else for answers.

Let the Text Breathe

Writers talk about something known as “white space” — this is essentially the blank area that surrounds text, typically seen in margins and between paragraphs. White space is important for making your writing easy to read, and that, in turn, makes it easier to understand. This is especially the case online, where readers are limited in how closely they’re able to read a block of text. In your webpage design, use a clear, easy-to-read font, and make your paragraphs short like your sentences.

Use Images and Videos

Finally, one of the best ways to improve search engine ranking and make your readers happy is to use multimedia in blog posts. An image is worth a thousand words, and a video is worth a thousand images, so using both where it’s appropriate can go a long way towards making your blog content more useful and enjoyable.

If you work with a digital marketing agency, they might offer to create infographics and images specifically for your blog content. You can also imbed videos from YouTube directly into your posts. Just remember to give credit to the original creators or publishers whenever you use someone else’s media.

A good digital marketing agency will know that a website’s written content is important for establishing trust and authority. Whether you’re working with a digital marketing agency or not, by following these tips, you’ll easily improve your content writing.