Have you heard about story arcs before?

Even if the term is new you likely understand what a story arc is. Did you ever watch the shows Friends? It was one of the biggest TV sitcoms back in the ’90s and early ’00s.

The sitcom is one of the most common mediums for story arcs. An example of a story arc is the relationship of Ross and Rachel. Their back and forth story created interest in the show right from the early episodes. People would tune in every week to see if Ross and Rachel would finally get together and stay together forever. This example of a story arc kept people coming back for more and it also encouraged new viewers to go back and watch past episodes so they could understand the dynamic of the arc.

A story arc is something you can use in your business blog to have the same affect on your readers. You don’t need to tell a love story, but you do need to tell a story that cross multiple posts.

The Story Arcs of GBW

There are a few story arcs going on here on the GBW blog.

One arc I try to keep working on continuously is the trend of SEO. I’ve commented on this recently in quite a few posts. SEO is a hot topic these days. Natural search is still one of the biggest drivers of traffic for many websites, but it is risky to assume this traffic will be there forever. Google has been slowly taking away the traffic of natural search results as they move to make more money from their paid results. It makes business sense for them. We shouldn’t act like they owe us free traffic for all eternity.

Here are a few examples of the SEO story arc taking place here on the blog:

• When Blogging, Ignore SEO
• Blogging Is No Longer About SEO
• Content Marketing Is Better than Link Building (and SEO)
• A Balanced Business Model
• Blogging Strategy 201: List Building

SEO is a big topic and I plan to keep addressing it with future posts. With each new post I try to link back to previous posts about SEO. This gives readers the opportunity to learn more about the topic as seen here on GBW. The arc continues from post to post. The story spans many episodes. This formula gives meaning to the entire blog and the company instead of just giving each post its own story.

A second arc here on GBW is the blog strategy review arc. This involves the reviews of popular blogs that readers here seem to admire. By looking at each of the successful blogs we can try to figure out what their secrets to success are. It has been one of the most popular post formats here on GBW. While each story is unique it’s the format of the posts that makes for an interesting story arc. Readers here see a new post about a popular blog and want to go back and read similar posts.

Here are examples of the blog strategy arc:

• Analyzing the Kissmetrics Blog Strategy
• The Simple and Brilliant Content Strategy from Gibson Guitars
• Analyzing The HubSpot Blog Strategy
• Analyzing the Woot Blogging Strategy
• New Project: Interview Scope

A story arc is a toll used in a variety of media. You can use story arcs on your media channel – your blog – to the same effect. use it to capture attention and keep readers interested in what will happen next.