No matter what kind of blog you write, there’s little question that the idea of writing a blog from one month to the next can seem tedious. After all, many personal blogs begin with a desire to share ideas and interact with other people. People can also blog to promote their products and services, become an influencer, and even carry out affiliate marketing. Businesses blog as part of their content marketing initiatives. No matter your reason for blogging, though, it’s important to stay disciplined. Regular content posting is one of the best ways to grow subscribers, but it requires a consistent flow of ideas.
Luckily, there are ways to plan and run your blog that will make your job much easier. Not only can you plan a content calendar months in advance, but the task of SEO can help choose topics. Knowing what your plan is in advance helps achieve your goals, from fun interaction with your favorite topic all the way to becoming a full-time blogger. Using the right tools, and these blog writing tips, you’ll have a great chance for success.
Before You Write Your Post Blog Writing Tips
Unsurprisingly, blogging excellence starts before you start writing. Careful planning paves the way for an excellent post, whether it’s a post that will stand alone or be part of a series. You’ll need to choose a topic that’s relevant, write it carefully to show up in search engines, and stay organized. These blog writing tips will help you do that.
1. Know Your Audience
First, you should always know your audience. In some niches, it’s obvious: teenage girls wear Juniors clothing, businessmen may travel a lot, and certain personal care items are gendered. However, nowadays it’s getting more complicated to know your audience for most topics, due to changes in society. Now, interests span generations, genders, and even socioeconomic groups.
Knowing your audience is more than just demographics and your niche, though. Some people like a quirky approach to a particular topic, while others are quite traditional. However you define your audience, it’s critical that the content you produce meets their expectations. Knowing what those expectations are is the first step.
2. Understand Search Engine Optimization
Next, get a good grasp of SEO. Without sound SEO practices, there’s a high chance that your site traffic will be minimal. Distributing your blog posts through social media and industry forums isn’t enough: while these activities will drive some views, traffic from people finding your site in search is even more important. That’s because with search engine traffic you’re edging out your competition for views.
On the other hand, with good SEO techniques, you’ll have a chance at the first page of results. Being on the first page of Google is one of the best ways to drive traffic and revenue to your site. It also means that your blog is considered a significant voice for that niche.
3. Check Out the Competition
Next, see what your competition within your niche is writing about. In this case, I mean narrow topics, like “ways to become an influencer,” not “influencer marketing.” Chances are that your competition has a finger on the pulse of their audience, and you should too. Various tools can help you watch the competition, such as social media dashboards and search engine marketing tools. In addition, you should read competitive blogs to see the comments people are leaving. In the next blog writing tips, you’ll challenge the competition.
4. Pick a Good Topic
Once you see what your competition is doing, it’s time to choose a topic for your next post. Ideally, you’ll select the topic based on recent trends within your niche or your audience’s interests. You can write a post that’s similar to your competitors’ content and compete directly. Or, you can pick something that’s timely but slightly different. And of course, you can always choose a topic that’s responsive to your audience. Whatever you pick, though, be sure that it’s brand-compatible.
Further Reading: Stumped for Blog Post Topics? Here’s What Your Brand Should be Blogging About
5. Do Your Research
With a topic chosen, it’s time to research your topic. You can do this by looking for articles that discuss it online manually, or using various blogging tools. With tools, you’ll often be shown several competing articles and an analysis of their SEO. As part of your research, find out what main points you should be making based on the questions people are asking within the topic. Then, prioritize them to ensure your finished blog post is the right length.
Further Reading: 41 Tools for Blogging That Will Improve Your Writing and Increase Your Traffic
6. Formulate an Outline
One of the most important blog writing tips is to make a good outline. With an outline, you keep the finished blog post organized, ensure that you cover all the bases recommended by your blogging tools, and maximize readability. Luckily, the process of making an outline is similar to high school papers, with main headings and subheadings.
Further Reading: Here’s How to Structure a Blog Post for Both Readers and Search Engines
As You Write Your Blog Tips
In many ways, planning your blog post is the hardest part because you need to gather and organize information. However, it’s easy to lose your audience with a poorly written post. These blog writing tips will help you deliver every time.
7. Write Compelling Headlines and Eye-Catching Titles
If you’re a busy professional, which blog post will you read first? The one with a boring title that only describes what’s in the post, or the catchy one that draws you in? Nearly everyone will read the catchy title that’s compelling and descriptive. Intimidated? There are some tips from experts that you can try. For instance, using numbers in the title is highly effective.
8. Hook Your Readers with a Great Opening
A catchy opening alone won’t keep your audience. No blog writing tips post would be complete without mentioning the importance of a great opening. These draw the reader in, tell them what will be discussed in your post, and compel them to stay. Then, you have an audience that can interact with your content and increase dwell time. This is important because the number of time people spends on your website influences how well you do in search engine results.
9. Get Specific and to the Point
People don’t read material that rambles on and doesn’t deliver the promised information. For that reason, one of my blog writing tips is to present your ideas simply and without too much fluff. Your blog isn’t a click harvester with those obnoxious ads, so don’t make your audience think they stumbled on one. Otherwise, your audience won’t grow, you’ll fail in SEO because of bounce rate, and your blog won’t thrive.
10. Make Content Skimmable
As a rule, blog posts are something that you want to read quickly, so these blog writing tips include the importance of skimmability. While many readers will settle down with your content and digest it thoroughly, just as many will skim to see whether or not your post is something they need to spend significant time on. For instance, a blog post like this one requires more interaction from a beginning blogger, while a more experienced one will skim it to see if I am saying anything new.
Make your posts accessible to both groups.
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11.Visualize Your Data and Use Images Wherever Possible
One of the major aspects of internet publishing is the ease with which you can use images. From infographics to photographs, information that is visually presented is easily digestible. Depending on the type of blog you’re writing, you might have numbers and statistics to report. Consider using a graphic format for this, since numbers can otherwise seem “boring.”
After You Write Your Blog Post
My blog writing tips don’t end with the last word of each post. Rather, having a successful blog requires careful revision, link building, and other extras beyond the words. Here are the final tasks before publishing your blog posts.
12. Trim Unnecessary Words
While most of us realize that flowery language is inappropriate (and makes people question your writing skills), it’s also important to be concise. Read through your blog post and see if there are any extra words that should be trimmed off. Not only does it make your post easier to read, but it helps with skimmability. Finally, conciseness makes you appear more professional, which is especially critical for corporate blogs or ones that market you from a business standpoint.
13. Read and Re-read to Correct Any Grammar and Spelling Errors
Next, proofread your blog post. Spelling and grammar errors look bad for you as a blogger. While most bloggers have a few typos, too many can damage your SEO and turn off your readers. Excessive errors also make people think that you don’t write well, or that you outsourced the writing to someone who is less than fluent in English. At best, errors are distracting.
14. Link to Valuable External Resources
Most people know that backlinks help build SEO, both for you and the other website. But backlinks are among my blog writing tips for another reason, too: if you provide valuable resources to your readers, it’ll encourage them to come back. Be sure to include both internal links and external ones, since both help with SEO.
Further Reading: 10 Top Tips to Increase Your Blog Post SEO
15. Include a Relevant CTA
Finally, a great call to action helps encourage people to keep interacting with your content. In some cases, you’ll want to encourage commenting on or sharing your blog post. But for other blog posts, especially those that are branded or corporate, a more appropriate option is related to the product. For example, you can encourage people to subscribe to your coaching service or request a demonstration of the product. Whatever you choose, make sure it fits your post well.
Conclusion
In today’s world, blogging is more important than ever as a form of content marketing and even as a business in and of itself. Unfortunately, it’s hard for some people to get started on a blog, or to keep it going over time. Much of the struggle comes from the need to stay on track, or not knowing how to maximize results. Fortunately, armed with these blog writing tips, almost anyone can be successful.
Further Reading: Blog Post Examples That Will Light Your Creative Spark
Hero Photo by Fikret tozak on Unsplash
This is such an elaborative article I have ever read. All of your tips and suggestions are really helpful. Comments provide valuable feedback to the author. Readers can express their opinions, offer suggestions, and provide constructive criticism, helping the author improve their content and writing style
Glad you liked it Megha! Thanks for the comment!