How to write a great blog post in 6 easy steps
It can be challenging to write an engaging, informative, relatable and easy-to-digest blog post. Without guidance, it can be a daunting process to craft a good post and writer’s block can make an appearance really quickly. I speak from experience when I say that you do NOT want to feel like your blog is not interesting or get in your head about whether or not the content is good enough to be published. To help you craft a great blog post and integrate blogging into your multi-channel marketing strategy in the long term, I’ve compiled a list of 6 easy steps you can take to make the blog post creation process really simple.
Here are the 6 steps:
Getting the content together
You have decided to take on blogging as part of your web strategy. What now?
Firstly, the most obvious step: getting your content together. Some might agree that writing blog posts is much easier when you do have an idea of the direction towards which you want to head. A simple technique I use is the brain dump technique. This looks a little bit like this: every fourth Monday, I will go onto Asana, the content management platform, into my “blog post ideas” project folder and write down a lot of content ideas, freely, without any restrictions. I do this for approximately an hour, as this process also involves researching popular keywords, topics and industry trends. Once that it is done, it is time to sort through all the ideas and pick the ones with the most potential for exposure, relevance and public interest. Once I am happy with the 20 ideas I have for the month (2 blog posts a week over 4 weeks for my monthly planning), I organise my selected blog ideas into main topics and use certain other ideas as subtitles or sub-topics. This way, no idea is lost and can contribute to a winning blog post in its own way.
Have a clear sense of who you are targeting
Normally, when you start your business, you’ll have an idea of who your ideal customer is and what they want/are interested in. This will guide your blogging tone of voice. However, if, like myself, you are just starting out your blog or website, you will not necessarily know all the characteristics and demographics of the audience your content will attract. So, that means that you already have an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that you don’t have a clear sense of who you will attract and therefore need to speak to a wide range of people and keep your blog post open to an unknown audience. You will have to guess which topics are of interest to your future readers. However that is also exactly where your advantage lies: you can experiment, you have the freedom to express yourself as you wish and see what works best. My advice here is to keep your ideal reader or audience member in mind when writing. For my blog, for example, it would be: a micro or small business owner starting out with their digital marketing strategy, wanting to understand more about digital marketing , in an easy and relatable way, someone self-and mission-driven and curious, and most of all ready to admit that they might need help in tackling the online world. Create your own personas and write for them until the statistics confirm that you are attracting exactly the people you’ve dreamed of.
Craft an awesome blog post headline
Not only do you need to grab readers’ attention, but you also need to give them a clear idea of the exact topic of your blog. Keyword research really helps with this. When you have your blog post idea, try to put it into a simple sentence or a few words and Google them. See which kind of keywords, language and expressions appear in the first 10 results and go from there. Use simple language and think about the way your future customers would search for answers online. What is your customers’ search intent? What headline would answer their questions best? An important thing to note is that you should not put ALL the keywords you find in your research into your headline or blog post title. That is a practice called “keyword stuffing”, which is highly frowned upon by search engines like Google. Keep it simple, smart and concise.
Step 4: Create a captivating lead paragraph
Whether it is your introduction or an additional paragraph above the fold (before the user has to take their first scrolling action), ensure that you pay attention to your hook, your attention catcher. Establish the issue, problem or concern clearly, and use keywords to boost your SEO. You can tell a story you heard, use a relevant fact or anecdote or even use a more general statement about a pain point you have identified in your audience’s life. Here, it is vital for you to convince your future reader that they have come to the right place to find the answer they are looking for. As you can see in my introduction, my hook makes a general point about how dreadful writing a blog post can be. Then it talks about the commonly known “writer’s block”, which I know a lot of people experience (myself included). Finally, I offer a solution and that is how you make it clear to your readers that they have landed in the right place!
Step 5: structure your blog post clearly
Readers don’t necessarily take the time to read everything you write, not when they are looking for a straight answer to their question. This means that even if you put a lot of effort in your research and your writing, you will still need to indicate clearly to the users to which section they will have to scroll to be able to find the answers they are looking for. Creating headlines for each sub-chapter and sub-part of your blog post is therefore essential. It is also a search engine optimisation best practice, as clear, topical and keyword-containing headlines will help search engines like Google understand the exact contents of your post. Furthermore, ensuring that your blog post is outlined with headlines will help you get your ideas across in a more comprehensive way. No blablas, just concise, well-expressed points.
Step 6: Review, Correct, Edit
Growing up, my mother used to call my brother and I out for all the grammatical errors she would detect in our homework. With this kind of insistence, correcting errors and ensuring that grammar and orthograph are on point became a part of my personality. I cannot stress this enough: read what you wrote a few times over, use tools like Grammarly if certain words’ spelling leave you wondering about your knowledge of the language you write in and correct the mistakes you might have made in the heat of your writing process. A very common mistake when writing longer content is the use of “and” as a sentence connector. There are other words out there which can express the same sentiment, or you can even shorten your sentences if you would rather keep it neat.
Conclusion
Writing blog posts is something that I personally thoroughly enjoy, however it is so much easier when it is a structured process such as the one I shared with you today. These 6 steps will help you create a great blog post even if you are experiencing a temporary blockage. Let me know if there are any other tips and tricks you would like me to share, comment down below!
Have an amazing rest of your day x
