If you are a web editor, blogger, web marketer, or a freelancer, you know that the main problem in content marketing is how to write a blog post, without spending days and hours on it ...
If you are looking for techniques to save time and write your articles faster, without spending 1/2 day each time, this article will please you…
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how to write a blog post the right way
Here’s an easy 12‑step process to Blog writing format so it catches the hearts of your target readers, clients, and buyer personas :
1. Define the target and objective of the article
Before you start writing your articles, you should know the readers and the path you want them to take.
This will allow you to adapt the tone of your article and structure it in a way that is relevant to your objectives.
What I Mean is :
Depending on the target and the objective, you must determine the nature of the content .
It can be human, economic, historical or even technical. It all depends on the levers that you want to activate in the reader.
To describe an electronic product and give advice on its use, it will rather be necessary to take a technical angle as for a product sheet.
If your article is intended to convey your values, it will be necessary to focus more on the human side, etc.
2. Understand Your Audience
No matter how much you may want your post to reach the entire world, that simply isn’t going to happen.
When planning a blog post, it is important to take the time to build a solid foundation.
Defining your target audience is the main element of your planning and design phase. It is absolutely essential to your success because it will have a downstream impact on the content, Aka message.
Here are the key elements of the basis on how to write a blog post :
To start, you could describe the different objectives and behaviors observed among your readers (potential customers ).
Understanding the persona of the readers is essential for everything related to quality content in general.
People who aren’t interested in cars won’t want to read an automotive post, and Yankees fans probably won’t want to hear anything about the Red Sox.
It is important to find your target market and focus on them as much as possible.
If you’re writing a post on a niche subject, you will want to make it as relevant as possible to those within that particular sector.
If, on the other hand, the post is more wide-ranging, you will still want to cater to people who would be more interested in your topic.
A blog post about how to garden is very broad.Are you writing it for beginners or trying to provide tips for people who already have quite a bit of experience?
You will need to research your audience and find a way to connect with them organically and creatively.
Make sure that you write a post that connects with their needs and feelings. Know what they are looking for and why they are looking for it and you’ll be well on your way to starting a quality post.
Figure out what your audience wants to know.
Are they looking for things to do in Paris? Or are they more interested in the history of Paris? Paris is a broad topic, and you need to know why your readers are interested in and form your post based on that information.
Fact
Businesses with blogs generate an average of 67% more leads steadily than companies that don't blog. (DemandMetric)
3. Plan Your Blog Post
Many people think they can get away with simply sitting down and typing randomly when they decide they want to put together a post.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. If you attempt to do this, you will likely find that you have no direction and that you will backtrack throughout the entire process. Your post won’t have a smooth flow, nor will it entice your readers to continue on.
Planning your post is extremely important in setting the framework. A well-planned blog post will be easier to write in the long run and will provide a higher quality experience for all of your readers.
Here are some tips on planning your post.
Decide what you want to write about
This might seem obvious, but you need to have a viable topic and some concrete ideas that you want to put down into your post. You shouldn’t just write a meandering piece that jumps from topic to topic and leaves your audience baffled.
You can write about pretty much anything in the world, but you might need some help deciding which of the millions of topics to write on.
Your post can be long or short, technical or freeform, funny or serious, but it always needs to have a point.
Start with things that interest you. If you are a sports fan, you might consider writing your opinions or predictions on an upcoming hockey season.
If you enjoy cooking, you can make a post about your favorite food, including a step-by-step tutorial or recipe highlighting how to make it at home.
If you’re having trouble narrowing down a topic, search for existing blogs on some of the things you love.
Whether you are a fan of traveling, playing piano, or working out, there are likely to be thousands of blogs that can provide you with a world of information.
Read through the blogs that interest you the most to gain some new ideas. You don’t have to write on the same topics as other bloggers, but their posts might provide some inspiration or spark your imagination to come up with something new.
Take Away
Even though blogging isn’t a direct sales machine, you need to be deliberate about picking topics that are aligned with what your company offers. This way you’re expected to notice a return on your time investment.
You can also brainstorm ideas around your niche or services and plug them into a tool like Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator.
Once you’ve decided what to write about, it’s time to move on to getting everything together.
Organize your content in an outline
This may sound like an unnecessary step and may even remind you of some boring grammar school projects. But it is a key step to take in order to ensure that your blog writing format is cohesive and flowing.
Without organizing prior to writing, you will end up with a rambling mess and be required to make a variety of changes that will take longer than the original write-up.
Your outline doesn’t have to follow a rigid set of rules, but it should still use proper formatting and include Headers with your main ideas and sub-headers with smaller points and elaboration.
When you put your outline together, you’ll be able to look at it and get a feel for how your post is going to sound when it is written out.
The nice thing about outlining is that you can move parts around more easily than if you simply wrote the post freestyle.
You can cut certain ideas that might seem out of place and paste them into other areas where they might be more relevant.
This will save you time when you are proofreading as you won’t have to go through an entire article to figure out where to put something else.
While outlining and according to Neil Patel, there are 4 main pillars to consider :
Hook: Be super specific, don’t expose your entire solution and Appeal to the minds to invoke an impulsive response.
Opening: Have your first sentence snappy, apply emotive voice to draw a picture of your long promise and use stories to promote your credibility.
body: Usually, this is where you’ll spend your time. If you stick to the research stage, it’s a matter of cutting away irrelevant info. Browsers should be capable of quickly execute your solutions and see an instant result.
Close: Highlight the primary message, Give users a motivation to respond with urgency, and End with a conversational motive.
If you don’t know how to create an outline, or are simply having trouble with yours, you can search for a blog post template online.
There are many available from free, independent websites.
You don’t have to stick them 100 percent, but they can be valuable tools in helping you put together a fantastic post.
Do Your Research – And not just for content
Before you start putting pen to paper – or more likely – fingers to keyboard, you need to be well-researched.
Concretely, to pick your keywords you must, therefore, base yourself on what people are looking for the most in search engines. Several tools can help you with this.
Initially, Google provides its tools, namely:
- Google Suggest: suggests similar searches based on the first words you type in the search bar. This tool can help you to know what research is associated with your activity.
- Google Trends: Allows you to analyze search trends. The tool will allow you to obtain the volume of monthly searches for words for a given period.
- Search Console: allows you to find out which keywords led visitors to your site/blog.
- keyword planner: allows you to find relevant keywords to create an ad on Google Adwords. Even if you don't want to do paid SEO, this tool will allow you to see the search volume, the competition, and the related keywords.
4. Create an Attention-Grabbing Headline
Whether you come up with you headline at the beginning or end of writing is unimportant.
The most important thing is that it captivates your audience and gives people a reason to be excited to read your blog.
A flashy headline with strong language is going to draw far more people in that a boring, technical headline.
I like some creative headlines in Buzzfeed website .
Successful catchy headlines always give the reader a reason to keep clicking through. If you are writing a blog post about building a new computer, there needs to be something actionable in the headline.
Something mundane like “Computer Building Tips ” will garner far fewer views than a flashy headline such as “15 high-tech Ways to Build the Computer of Your Dreams.”
You can use a tool that will will help you drive Traffic, shares, And clicks like coschedule headline analyzer
Blog posts are not technical product manuals and don’t generally need to be highly professional.
80% of clicks on your article is played on the copy-writing of your title. Without a headline that catches the eye, you miss opportunities to show your excellent content to your audience.
You can have some fun with your title and use emotive language and nobody will hold it against you. After all, you have many sites to compete with, and millions of readers to attract.
Remember, the headline is the first impression your readers will get, so you need it to be as effective as possible.
5. Make Your Post Easily Scannable
People aren’t expecting to read a novel when they click on a blog post.
They don’t want to see long paragraphs with no separation, and they don’t want to have to spend minutes scrolling through a wall of text to get to a particular subject.
“scannable content is short, sweet and to the point. Sentences and paragraphs are brief. Bold text and bullet points highlight key points. Links to other content are used to provide your readers with supplemental information.”
Short paragraphs are key to a scannable, readable blog post. Internet readers have short attention spans and are often only willing to take in a few sentences at a time.
Three or four sentences are all you really need in a paragraph to get your point across.
Do you know that 55% of readers spend less than 15 seconds actively on a page?
That’s not perfect when you intend to retain visitors exploring and to get them involved in your brand/product/service.
In many cases, bullet points can help make your post even more easy to read, especially if you are writing something like “15 Hot Tips for a Slim Summer Body” or “The Best Restaurants for a First Date in New York.”
Many blog readers may not even be interested in reading your entire piece – but might still want some of the vital information that you are offering.
The large majority will be very particular about what they read and will only scan, picking out specific words and sentences.
If you make it simple for them to find those parts of the post, you will still gain an audience and get the clicks that you need to be successful – even if they only read 3 paragraphs.
Now is not the time to be long-winded or write a dissertation.
Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and to the point. Strong but simple language resonates with blog readers and will draw more people in.
1. Targeted to an audience
2. Transmits emotions
3. Give/ take action
4. Demonstrate your expertise
5. Reflects your values
6. Create traffic
7. Participates in your sales
6. Prioritize Quality Over Quantity
People often mistake length of post with quality of content.
While search engines like Google often give priority to longer posts, this isn’t necessarily the best strategy for gaining a loyal audience or long-term readers.
Keep the focus on your readers rather on the search engines that are sending them.
If your posts are of high enough quality to keep people reading, your audience will eventually expand, and you will be able to grow organically.
Don’t try too hard to stretch your posts out just to reach a certain word count or page length.
Focus on the content at hand and make sure that you are succinct and making a strong point.
There’s nothing wrong with the creative language, but too much can be overkill and will detract from your main ideas.
John Mueller from Google even restated this on Twitter.
If you can’t find thorough information about a certain section of your post, it is better to leave it out than to try to fake your way through it.
Readers will know if you are just trying to provide filler and will be turned off to your site if you do so.
Provide only the relevant information and make sure that it is well-written and important.
7. Optimize for SEO
Writing an SEO article means that you will write your content following rules that will allow it to be positioned at best on search engines ... especially Google.
One of the greatest difficulties that bloggers and content marketers challenge is writing content that’s optimized for SEO, yet it will also attract people.
To produce highly valuable content that ranks well in Search engines (especially Google ) and simultaneously directing potentials customers to your online business, you need to consider the elements of the ranking factor of google algorithms.
The first of the rules to follow in SEO is to write naturally while seeking to offer the most relevant content possible to your audience.
None of the rules to apply should change the essence of your article if you recognize them.
It is not a question of repeating a keyword 50 times, but of knowing how to use its lexical field by approaching synonyms, words linked to the universe of the main keyword treated.
The goal is that Google can correctly interpret your content as being directly related to the universe of your keyword.
You could write the definition of a word without mentioning it and Google could then guess it (interpret it) because it is not a human but an intelligent bot who will know what you are talking about.
So writing an SEO article aims to offer the maximum of elements linked to a niche so that Google can correctly interpret it. In the end, relevancy and value stand.
This article from reliablesoft will help you a lot of how How to Write SEO Friendly Blog Posts
8. Choose a Platform
There are many platforms that provide access to free blogging services, and it is up to you to choose the one that works best for you.
One of the first things you learn about blogging is how to start a blog with WordPress.
WordPress is one of the most commonly used programs for bloggers, and it is simple to use and very intuitive.
To start, you will need to find a web host, which is not very difficult to do as there are many free ones out there.
If you want full usage, however, it isn’t even all that expensive these days to get full-feature web hosting services.
Once you’ve chosen your web host and your domain name, you are ready to install WordPress.
This is easy to do and can be downloaded from their website. Once it is downloaded, simply go through the install wizard.
From here, you can log into your web host and choose to create a new WordPress site. After this, you are ready to write!
Related : How To Start A Successful Blog 2021: Step By Step With Sitground
9. Add Relevant and Stunning Visuals
Visual aids are integral to a satisfactory blogging experience, especially in longer pieces. People aren’t looking for research papers or novellas, they want to be able to visualize your data or your arguments.
Things like graphs, charts, and pictures can make excellent additions to any blog post.
Remember that you can add too many visuals, however, so try to tone it down if you feel like your post is becoming cluttered or if your pictures are interfering with the ability to actually read what you have written for the post.
The items that you choose will, of course, be dependent on the topic and on your audience.
If you are blogging about 10 great beaches in Spain, then photos of the beaches are essential.
If you’re making a political post, then you will want charts and graphs to drive your point home.
You don’t have to choose between graphs and photos, however.
The beauty of visuals is that you can use any format in order to help improve your blog post and keep your readers captivated.
Don't forget videos.
In reality, the study reveals that videos can improve the time spent on your page by more than 100%
The good thing about using videos in your blog is that it’s very simple to do. You won’t have to design an original video content from scratch.
Alternatively, repurpose some of your old blog posts.
10. Add A Personal Touch
No matter what topic you choose, there’s a good chance that somebody out there has already written about it.
In fact, you can probably find pages and pages on Google about your topic, but don’t let discourage you.
The beauty of blogging is that you can write about a topic in your own voice and give your blog a unique character that is based on your personality.
Don’t just recite facts and empty platitudes – give your blog a personal touch so that people feel a connection to it.
Your blog should be and extension of yourself, and your audience should feel like they understand who you are when they read it.
Anybody can simply copy and paste information from another site, but when you add your own commentary and opinion, people will want to continue to return to read more from you.
At some point, you may even want to write about yourself. There are many ways to learn how to write a blog about yourself, but you may want to practice with other topics before posting something so personal.11. Built-In CTA
A Call-to-Action (CTA) is a central element for generating leads. Without CTA, no leads and no return on investment.
Without CTA, your website is ineffective. Creating an optimized Call-to-Action is crucial for you.
A Call-to-Action is a call to action button, like this :
A Call-to-Action is a button whose mission is to encourage the user to perform the desired action.
The most famous Call-to-Action (CTA) are probably - "Subscribe", "register", "Buy" or "Add to cart".
An effective Call-to-Action is a visible and inciting CTA.
Concretely, your Call-to-Action must attract the Internet user and encourage the Internet user to carry out the action you want.
Read more about CTA : 17 Best Practices for Crazy-Effective Call-To-Action Buttons
12. Proofread and edit your post.
Whenever you need to write an article, start by writing a draft first, then rewrite to make sure your ideas are clearly articulated.
If not, correct your article by deleting parts, changing the order of the paragraphs or adapting the style to your target audience.
Proofreading an article means paying particular attention to details: misspelled words or grammar and punctuation errors.
For this task, you can use a spell checker that will point to misspelled words, but beware: they are not foolproof.
A word may appear wrong simply because it is not in the dictionary of your software.
And remember, if the spelling of a word is correct but used in the wrong context, it will pass through the net.
To overcome this kind of problem, you can get help from tools like grammarly 's correction service.
Professionals make sure to correct all spelling, grammatical and syntactic errors.
To perfect your blog post, here are our tips:
- Read slowly and aloud: when you read aloud, say each word and make sure that the words put together "sound" well. If you read in your head or too quickly, you are doing a sort of systematic self-correction without it being really written on the sheet.
- Avoid using a specific gender (M / F): when you refer to people who may be men or women, try not to use pronouns (he or she in French) or adjectives (him / her) ) male or female.
- Use a dictionary or manual: there are many useful resources for writers, including people who speak a foreign language, including the book.
Always have this kind of tool on hand because, whatever your writing skills, you can always improve them!
Conclusion,
I would like to emphasize that there is no definitive recipe for a good blog post. What works today will not work tomorrow necessarily.
For one simple reason: as good practices are spreading, competition becomes stronger and your immune audience.
Adapt and reinvent is therefore essential to survive and double your competitors.
The recommendations that I gave you are meant to prevent you spend your energy to write articles that have little chance to bring you traffic but these tips will never excuse a test to your own ideas.
Further Readings: