How To Write a Great Blog Post

Writing a blog post isn’t a walk in the park, unless the park you’re thinking of is full of calls to action, interesting hooks, external and internal links, and images. A good blog post takes some time and thought, and it can be intimidating to know where to start.

Luckily, we’ve created a thorough outline for writing a good blog post, and we can’t wait for you to use it.

If you like what you see, consider using our pool of experienced writers to write blogs for you. For now, we’ll let you get to the meat of this blog post.

What Exactly is a Blog Post?

When you think of blog posts, you might imagine mommy bloggers talking about their newest childcare discovery or bookworms describing their latest read. While these can be defined as blog posts, we are talking about the majority of the content you find on the internet. A blog post is any piece of content published on a website’s blog, specifically the blogs of companies and businesses. This includes articles, how-to guides, news pieces, opinion pieces and more.

Blog posts are a huge factor in driving traffic to a site. Most articles you read online are types of informational or persuasive posts written by a company or organization. These pieces of content are a great way to build up brand image, but they can also be important parts of the sales funnel.

Are Blog Posts Going Out of Style?

Some people think that blog posts are outdated, but surprisingly, they are becoming more useful for businesses all the time.

Millions of search queries are made on search engines every day, and most search results are high-quality blog posts. With strategized content, there is a lot of potential for traffic, lead generation and increased sales.

How To Write a Great Blog Post

Anyone can write a blog post, but that doesn’t mean that every blog post is going to stand out to your audience. High-quality digital content is organized, engaging and well-researched.

For some, it can take several hours to write a 500-word blog post that meets this standard. Because of this, businesses often turn to blog writing services to fulfill their content needs.

Whether or not you choose to outsource your content, we have a few tips on making the writing process easier.

1. Create a Blog Post Outline

Writers around the world agree that starting with an outline speeds up writing. This is mainly because writing a good blog post outline can help you sort out all the details before you even start to write. You’ll know exactly what you’ll be talking about and what kind of research you need to do.

How To Write a Blog Post Outline

Engaging blog posts have a good flow, and an outline can help you achieve this. If you already have a content strategy, you’ll likely have a great starting point for writing your outline.

First, identify the topic. This can be a keyword phrase or a general topic that you’d like to focus on.

Second, choose what kind of blog post you are going to write. Are you planning on taking a “how-to” perspective? If so, write a step-by-step guide.

Third, write out key points and plan the flow of your writing. If you don’t like the order of ideas or want to change them, go ahead and write in the ideas that work. This is one of the benefits of having an outline before you spend time writing things you may not want to keep.

Fourth, include solid arguments with each key point to back up your ideas. With blog posts, you can include links to referenced material or even link to other pages on your website. This is a good time to start researching a few of your key points and finding solid information to include in each claim.

Review Your Blog Post Outline

Always take the time to read through the ideas you have written down. If you write lots of blog posts, you may get good at writing blog post outlines quickly and efficiently. This is a great skill, especially if you plan on posting a lot on your blog (which you should!).

As you review your outline, make sure that each idea revolves around the keyword or topic you’ve chosen. This will help you stay on track as you write and help create a cohesive piece of content.

2. Research Your Blog Topic

Now that you’ve sorted out the flow of the blog post, you can worry less about writing something you’ll just end up deleting. Now it’s time to get committed to your blog topic.

How To Research for Blogs

Depending on the purpose of your article, you may need to do extensive research on your topic. For example, you may be looking for the top 10 best makeup brushes. This may require some actual shopping, but more often than not, for articles like these, you’ll be doing a lot of Google searching. Reviews, websites and videos will be your best friends.

As you research, take some notes. Even better, start recording statistics you find. You can cite these later when you write the blog post by attaching a link to the source. Statistics or examples are a great way to involve your reader and increase your level of authority as an expert about the topic.

Facts and opinions from credible sources can do a lot for your content. Not only can they help prove your own credibility, but they also enrich the content and make it more useful to the reader. If you’re not sure how to incorporate statistics or data, check out these 10 ways you can get the ball rolling.

3. Think of a Great Title and Intro

You’re doing great! You know what you’re talking about, and you know where to write it. Now it’s time to get to the content creation.

An important part of your article is the way you present it, so make sure to spend time thinking of a great title. When possible, try using action words or involve lists or guides. Remember that your title is the first thing readers will see, so you want it to catch their attention.

How To Write a Blog Intro

If your title catches the attention of readers, the next thing you want to tighten up is your introduction.

Introductions should be full of your brand voice. You want people to feel like what they are reading is captivating, new and interesting. Start by using a hook, which could be an interesting fact, an engaging statement or a question.

Next, address the readers. Identify the problem they may have and the solutions they can find. Help them feel like whatever you’re talking about will apply to them.

Then, make sure your introduction flows well with the rest of your article, and be sure to let the readers know what they can get from the blog post. Whether that’s answers to a question, new information or invaluable tips, you can help your readers stay on board from the very beginning.

4. Write With Your Brand Voice

If you’re struggling to create a good introduction or can’t quite perfect the title, no worries. Plan to come back to these later and move on to the next step. This is the writing of the blog post’s body, which will be focused on the topic you’ve chosen and the research you’ve done.

If you have a solid outline, this can be easier than you may think. Move from one point to the next. Each heading will help you know what the paragraph should focus on. Don’t forget to pepper in some personality to make the content interesting and flow well.

The more practice you have, the easier it gets. This is also a great reason to hire a content writer. You provide the topic and guidelines, and they do the research and writing part, saving you time and writer’s block.

As you write, be sure to avoid run-on sentences or poor grammar. Tools like Hemingway Editor or Grammarly can help you fix most of the writing, but you may want to brush up on basic grammar rules to help you face semicolons and em-dashes without fear.

Once you’ve finished up the body, throw in a solid conclusion that wraps up the article. If you’re looking to convince readers of something or direct them to your shop, throw in a natural call to action with an internal link.

5. Added Bonus: Use SEO

If you feel good about your article, feel free to skip this step. But if you want to optimize your article for search engines (and therefore increase traffic), you may want to use some of these SEO tricks.

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t as scary as it seems. Making a blog post SEO-friendly simply means formatting it in a way that search engines can interpret with ease. Here are a few formatting tips you can use that only take a few minutes:

• Use H2, H3 and H4 tags
• Write a meta description
• Link to credible websites
• Link to your own content
• Use and optimize images

Additionally, your content should revolve around a couple of keywords that you can include in the title, headings and within the content. If you’ve chosen a good topic, you’ll likely focus on that topic and refer to it often throughout the article.

If you want to get more technical, target a keyword to begin with and write your blog post about that keyword. Try to include it evenly throughout the article, and this will help search engines to rank you high for users who search on that specific keyword.

6. Publish and Promote

The bulk of the work is finally done, and it’s time to publish your masterpiece. If you are looking to attract more followers and build up your brand, plan on publishing articles at least 2-3 times a month.

Along with publishing articles on your website, you may consider posting on social media accounts to spread the word. If you don’t do much content distribution on your own, you are leaving it up to Google’s search rankings to do the job for you. In that case, it’s important to include SEO.

Let Us Help You Write Good Blog Posts

With this step-by-step guide, we hope the writing process will get easier for you. However, we have an even simpler way to receive top-notch content whenever you need it: Hire a blog writing service. We’ll take care of the details for you, and you can expect great content as consistently as you need.