How to Write a Blog Post? An Easy 10 Step Guide.

You are a great writer but suddenly one day, you are all set to write a great blog but are not able to move forward. You might have a deadline to think about and your readers might be waiting but, you are stuck with a single question in your mind ‘How to Write a Blog Post?’.

This situation is faced by not only new writers but can easily happen with an experienced writer. So before we refresh our minds and go through the easy 10 step guide about how to write a blog post, let us have a small recap to ‘What is a Blog?’

Blog

Today, blogging has become one of the most popular type of content writing found online where people can talk about their experiences, share their thoughts, life experiences, discuss about current events and books, share information regarding   new products and services, share new ideas and what not.

It’s one of the most helpful tools that supports you in building your brand awareness. It bridges a gap between you and your audience by connecting you directly with them and helps you in generating leads.

Though blogging began in the early 90’s, it wasn’t until the late 90’s that the term ‘blog’ came into existence. It all started as an online platform for the people to share their experiences in a form of an online diary (today we know these blogs as personal blogs).

Nowadays blogging is not just limited to personal blogs but can be classified into numerous fields, giving writers an opportunity to explore these different types of blogs and excel in the niche of their choice.

So now let’s take a looks at our ‘how to write a blog post’ guide that would help you to write amazing content.

How to Write a Blog Post?

Here is an easy 10 step guide to help you write a great blog post.

How to write a blog post – Step 1 – Understanding your Audience.

Markets flourish on the belief ‘Customer is the king’. Every business before producing any goods or services does a survey to understand what their customer is looking for and then produces the required good and services. It’s the customer who decides what they will buy and what they won’t. In the similar manner for virtual writers, our audience, our viewers are the king.

Before you begin writing a blog post, it is very important for you to know who your target audience is going to be. As a writer to have to understand what your audience wants to know about. What are the things or topics that would connect you as a writer with your audience? What is that they are looking for?

Let’s understand it this way, as a blogger your niche is books, that would make people who love to read your target audience on a broader scale. Now, if you are planning to review a book for young adults, your audience would be aged between 18 to mid-twenties. Here your research would consist of questions like, what is more popular, fiction or non-fiction? What are the popular genre among young adults? Are they more interested in mysteries, romance or lifestyle? If you have answers to your research, then you can review something that would attract more viewers towards your blog.

This is called creating your buyer persona, where you understand what your readers are interested in knowing about and it helps you to publish posts that your readers really want or need to know.

How to write a blog post – Step 2 – Choose your Blog Post Topic.

Choosing a topic to write about is never easy. With time it gets difficult to come up with inspiring new ideas to write about. Don’t let it happen with you. Let’s talk about some of the ways which can help you to find your blog post topic:

• Pick a topic you are passionate about. When you write about something you care for, it has a very powerful and emotional impact on your writing and you are automatically giving your best. When you start to think about the topics you are passionate about, tons of ideas flow through your brain. Make a list of all these ideas somewhere and you can use them the next time.
• As we discussed earlier, knowing what your audience cares about is another important factor to consider before you choose a topic. When you give your readers something they are passionate about, you engage them and can turn them into your loyal audience.
• Your research is your key. Before finalizing your topic always do a thorough research. You do not what to give your audience any incorrect information.
• If you are curious about some topics, then explore them. You never know when inspiration may hit and give you your next great idea for a blog.
• Read what others are writing when you need inspiration. But never copy their ideas and plagiarize. Rather put in your own thoughts to the subject. Try and gather as much new information and ideas as you can for your blog.

How to write a blog post – Step 3 – Plan and Organize your Blog.

One of the most common mistake made by the bloggers is not planning and organizing their blogs before they start writing. Spontaneity doesn’t work well when it comes to blogging. It only leads to adding a lot of information and random thoughts which were not really needed in the first place. These type of posts are generally not well received by the audience.

Every good blog post has a well-planned outline behind it. This outline need not to be a detailed or lengthy structure but a rough guideline that would make sure you stay on topic and not ramble or keep on adding ‘just a little more’ in your post. This not only makes it easier for you to write but also makes it easier for your reader to read and understand the message that you want to give.

For example, whenever I start writing a new post, I always pen down all my ideas and then make a rough outline on a paper and pen (old school never goes wrong). Like for this post, after my research I made an outline of the 10 steps I planned to write about. This outline also included what I would talk about in each steps. This way I was able to make sure that I talk about all the important points and give all the necessary details.

Every writer is different and unique in their own way. What may work for me may not work for you. Plan and organize your blog in whatever way you are most comfortable with. Make a detailed outline or a rough outline, scribble the outline on piece of paper or a napkin, use a word processor or pen it down old school. Pick a strategy that works best for you and keeps you on track.

How to write a blog post – Step 4 – Title/Headline.

The title of your blog post is the most important aspect of your blog as it’s the first thing your audience sees and makes a decision whether to click and read your post or ignore and move to the next one. Giving a title to your post is a tricky business because a lot of times (even with a thorough research and outlines) the final draft of the post may not exactly be what you initially planned.

There are two methods you can use when deciding your blog post headlines. First, you can either pick and finalize your headline, before you start writing. You can even use this headline to form an outline for your post. Second, you can use a temporary title also known as a working title for your post and check in the end if it fits with your work. If not, you can change your title and can give it a new catchy one.

There is no rule saying one has to observe a rigid strategy – one way or the other. Sometimes a writer can come up with a strong title before they begin writing and sometimes it takes a lot of work to find a title that’s fits the best. Another important thing to remember from SEO (step 10) point of view when writing you headline is (if possible) use your keyword in your headline. You need to ensure that the words surrounding your keyword in the title are desirable and attractive enough for viewers to click.

Adding a number to your title works as a great clickbait. For example – How to Be Happy: 25 Habits to Add to Your Routine. There are many tools like EMV headline analyser, that helps you to find the emotional marketing value of your headline and OptinMonster to make sure you are writing SEO friendly and clickable headline for your blog post.

How to write a blog post – Step 5 – Introduction.

You have your outline and you have your title. Now you can finally get started with the part you have been looking forward to the most – writing. But before you get into all the details of your post, first you have to give a captivating introduction. I am writing about the introduction separately from step 6 (Write your Blog Post) because it’s very easy to lose your reader if the introduction is not catchy enough.

An appealing title would act as a clickbait for your post but it’s your introduction which finally decides if the reader is going to read your work or not. If your introduction is not good enough, you will lose your reader in the first few paragraph or even in the first few sentences of your post. They would stop reading your post without giving it a fair chance (even if the rest of your post has been beautifully written).

There are various ways to give a catchy introduction: you can start with a story, interesting fact, statistics, joke, quotes and even start with something empathetic or sympathetic which would connect you with your audience right away. Then describe the purpose of your post and how does it addresses the issues faced by your reader. If your reader is satisfied and connects with your words, they would continue reading it.

How to write a blog post – Step 6 – Write your Blog Post.

And now we are finally here, step 6 of How to write a blog post. You have your topic, title and introduction and now you can take that last final leap and jump into writing. With a well-planned structure, you know exactly what you have to write and how you have to write. Let’s talk about few things that you need to remember when writing your blog post:

• Connect with your audience. If possible with your post then write in first person, include some relatable stories (they can be your own or someone else’s). convert your voice into words. Your audience with automatically connect with you.

• Your blog post at the end of the day is just a piece which is giving your audience answer to their question. But how you present your post to your audience is entirely up to you. You can either write it like every other research paper or write it as you are talking to a friend, giving new information you just laid your hands on. In other words, keep it simple, direct, use your natural conversational tone and just be you.

• Divide your blog post into headings and subheadings. This gives your viewer a clear picture as to what you are going to talk about in that particular paragraph.

• Keep shorter paragraphs. This would make your reader read whole article rather than skimming through it and missing out on important information. Nothing makes a reading a blog post boring than reading one huge (never ending) paragraph.

• Use bullet points when you want to highlight important points.

• Use captivating images. They help in engaging your audience attention. As compared with text based content, human brain processes visual content much faster.

Writing is a like any other skill, it only gets better with practice. The more you write the more naturally it comes to you. When you first start writing as a content writer, it might take you days and even weeks to finish your post. But with time and practice you can write great blog posts in a day or two or even in the matter of few hours.

How to write a blog post – Step 7 – Conclusion.

Have you noticed, at the end of nearly all blog posts and articles there is a small para giving a summary to the above written post. This is called a conclusion. After a catchy introduction, informative post, it’s time to end with a perfect conclusion. Your reader has taken time and read your (long) post, a conclusion reminds your reader as to what he read and helps you to create social engagement with them. Let’s take a look at some of the ways to create this engagement:

• Encourage your readers to leave a comment. Answer their queries and interact with them. This would help you in building a community for your blog.

• Ask your readers to share your post on social media platforms. It will not only help you gain more viewership but will connect you with your audience on one on one level.

• Ask them to subscribe to your blog and connect with you on social media channels. This way they can see and read whenever you post a new blog or article

How to write a blog post – Step 8 – Editing, Proofreading and Plagiarism check.

Step 8 of how to write a blog post, very important yet most easily overlooked. You are done with the writing part of your article but your work is still not done. Writing a post takes a lot time and patience and so does editing, proofreading and plagiarism check.

It’s not about simply skimming through sentences and correcting grammar or spelling errors here and there. It is a lot more work which would ultimately give your post that perfect finish and shine, to make it stand out among the other related articles. Let’s talk about things we need to do and things we need to remember when we reach step 8:

• The most basic point to remember when you are proofreading your work is to check for all possible grammatical errors and spellings. You can use tools like Grammarly to do so. Your site can rank low because of bad spellings and grammatical errors.
• Avoid repetition of certain words and phrases. Try and use synonyms for certain words and look for alternatives phases.
• A little trick to remember – if you are not sure about something you have written or it reads awkward or funny to you, it probably is. Read it out loud a few times. It will help you to see the error and rectify your mistake.
• Ask someone to read out your work. This person should be someone who has a command over the language and is not shy to give you constructive criticism.
• Check if the message you are giving to your audience is crystal clear.
• Admit that your blog post will never be perfect. The more you will read your post the more you will find something to correct or make change into. If not kept in check you will find yourself redoing a lot of work which would take away the essence of your post.
• However much you might enjoy writing. It is long, tedious and requires a lot of hard work. And sometimes to give your work the perfect finish, you have to be mentally prepared to make few cuts and rewrite some of it.

Last but not the least, after finishing with proofreading and all the editing work do not forget to check you work for plagiarism. You can use free plagiarism checker tool like smallseotools.com to check for plagiarism.   

How to write a blog post – Step 9 – CTA.

Following the above 8 steps, would answer your question ‘How to write a blog post’. But I am adding 2 more steps to this guide which would help to you to gain more viewers and gain a higher rank among other similar web-pages.  Step 9 deals with giving your readers a clear call-to-action (CTA).

At the end of your blog you add your conclusion and ask your readers to engage in social engagement via – asking them to comment, subscribe to your blog, follow you on social media, download an e-book, read some related articles, register for upcoming events or your newsletters, share you blog on social media sites etc., these are called call-to-action or CTA.

When your reader is happy with the content you provided them with a clear call-to-action, they would love to follow through. With every click on your CTA, you are generating a lead. This gives your readers an opportunity to learn more about you and your work and can even turn into potential customers in the future.

How to write a blog post – Step 10 – SEO.

Now that you have completed all the above mentioned steps for how to write a blog post, that means you are now ready to upload your work for the world to see. All you need to do now is work on your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  A good SEO would help to you to gain a higher ranking among the other related articles.

Here are some of the of the things you need to work on to better your SEO.

• Incorporate your focus keyword throughout your blog post whenever you get the opportunity. But remember it should not have any impact on your viewers reading experience nor should it be overly used.

• If you can use your keyword in your headline, then go for it. But remember not to cram a lot of words in order to so. If you are not able to do so, do not worry!! An attractive title with or without your keyword would attract readers towards your post.

• Add a meta description to your post before posting. A meta description gives a little snippet to what your reader can expect when reading your article. This would help you to improve your click-through rate.

• Anchor you text – link some of your word or words to another high ranking page. This link would lead your viewers to another page on your website or other website.

To get a better understanding on how SEO works you can read the following article: SEO Basics: Complete Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization.

To Conclude:

Blogging seems to be the easiest type of content writing but at the end of the day it’s all about practice and how much time and efforts you sincerely give into it. If you are new in this field or an expert, never shy away from asking for help or learning new tips. We all need it from time to time.

Hope these 10 steps guide on ‘How to write a blog post’ helps you. If you have any follow up questions or if my guide has been helpful to you, do leave a comment.

Happy Writing!!

Image Source:  Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash, Photo by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash, Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash, Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash, Photo by Merakist on Unsplash.