It seems like every business has a blog these days.
Every. Single. One.
From your local mechanic to Starbucks and General Electric. (Actually, GE has several blogs, written by division. I looked.)
Having a blog for your business is a good idea.
The whole search engine marketing (SEM) aspect gets more exposure for your business and makes it easier for new customers to find you. It’s an easy way to update your current customers on your latest products. It gives the search engines a reason to visit your site regularly.
Here’s the catch. It’s not enough to just have a blog. You must know how to write a blog post that your audience will want to read.
Otherwise, there will be a bunch of people finding your blog posts, clicking on them, and clicking away immediately because the information they’re looking for just isn’t there.
That’s bad for your website and bad for business.
To get you on the right track, I’ve laid out the 7 steps you can follow to write an interesting blog post that will appeal to your audience and that site visitors will take the time to read and share with their friends.
1. Write About Something that Will Interest Your Audience
“Well, duh” I hear you say.
Yet you would be surprised how many blog posts are out there that rarely get read because very few people are interested in that particular topic.
When you are deciding on the topics you’re going to write about, don’t just think about what interests you. Think about what interests your audience.
One of the simplest ways to do this is to “answer your reader’s why.”
This is not an existential “why” (though depending on what you do, it could be). What you want to do is answer the questions about your company and your product or service that you get regularly.
For instance, I am a copywriter. I end up answering a lot of questions about copywriting and blogging. Look, here I am writing a blog post about how to write a blog post. (Very meta.)
I do this for two reasons:
- It is a good resource for people who want to write their own blogs.
- It shows potential clients who want to work with me that I understand the fundamentals of writing a blog post.
Either way, I am able to share my expertise and showcase my talent all at the same time. My topic is appropriate for the people who already read my blog regularly and it will attract new readers who want to blog for themselves.
This will help me grow my audience, grow my email list and get new writing clients. All of which are good for my business.
Think about your goals for your business when you’re writing your blog posts. What kinds of actions do you want your readers to take? Why should they read your post? That will help you determine the type of post your writing and the subject you’re writing about.
2. Research the Subject of Your Post
Again, this may seem obvious, but I see so many posts that give incorrect information or don’t make a lot of sense.
Take the time to do some basic research before you write your blog post. This is not a Master’s thesis. You don’t have to spend months researching a topic to write a 1500 word blog post. But you should at least look at a few other blog posts to make sure you’re on the right track.
Looking at other blog posts will also show you what your competition is writing about and how they’re writing about it.
There are probably hundreds of blog posts out there about how to write a blog post. I looked at several of them so I could see what format other writers used, the information they gave and the “voice” they used (silly, serious, formal, casual, etc.)
Doing this helped me decide how I wanted to write my blog post. Since I know what a bunch of other bloggers have written about, I can make my post different so it will stand out from the rest and get read more often.
If you’re writing about a topic you’re not very familiar with, definitely do your research!
The last thing you want is a bunch of nasty comments on your blog telling you that you’re wrong, correcting you publicly and slamming you for not knowing what (to them) should be right in front of your nose.
People get very sensitive about whatever may be near and dear to them and they will call you out if they think you get it wrong. And they can be very nasty about it.
3. Do Your SEO Keyword Research
You probably remember me referencing SEM or search engine marketing earlier in this post. SEO or search engine optimization is a part of SEM. Specifically, the part where you pick a specific keyword or words that someone might type into a search engine box when they’re looking for an answer to their question.
I am not going to go into a long explanation of keyword research. It is a vast topic and there is a ton of information out there written by people who are much smarter than me and who know this topic inside and out.
I will recommend The Beginner’s Guide to SEO from Moz.com as a good foundation for what SEO is, why you need it and how to make it work for you.
The short explanation is your keyword is a word or string of words (known as long-tail keywords) that people search for regularly. You want to include this keyword in your blog post title, URL slug and in the body copy a few times. This does two things:
- It shows your reader that they’re in the right place and they’re going to read about the topic they’re looking for.
- It tells the search engines that your blog post is about this keyword topic and the search engines should show your blog post to people searching for this topic.
For instance, my keyword for this post is “how to write a blog post.” You’ll notice I sneak this in every once in a while. No easy feat since it’s not exactly something you say every few sentences in normal conversation.
By adding my keyword into my body copy (or text of this post) I am showing you, my reader, that yes, this is all about how to write a blog post. (See, I did it again.) I’m also telling the search engines that they should show people my post when they enter my keyword into a browser search box.
Again, this is a VERY simplified explanation because I do not consider myself an SEO expert. I know about it enough to write about it and do it, but I’d rather you read up on it from the pros in the field so you’re getting the right information.
My point here is, find a keyword that is relevant to the subject of your blog post and make sure you include it throughout the post as you’re writing.
Please, for the love of all that’s well written, make sure you use this keyword as a natural part of your conversational writing!
In my opinion, there is nothing worse than a blog post where it is painfully clear that someone has stuck a keyword into the text at random places because it needs to be on the page, not because it makes any sense within the text.
Years ago, in the early days of SEO, I worked for a company where we were required to insert specific keywords a certain number of times. It’s not that hard to do.
These days, the search engines are much smarter about finding those keywords and identifying the information around them as relevant. They will penalize you for the dread internet crime of “keyword stuffing.”
Don’t be that blogger.
4. Write Your Blog Post
This is the easy part for me personally. I know this isn’t true for everyone, so here are some tips:
Outline your blog post before you write it
I outlined this post before I started writing. I don’t do it every time, but in this case, it helped me figure out what order I wanted to write things in.
I wrote a bulleted list of my section topics and removed them from the list as I added that section to the post.
Take notes during your research phase
This helps me immensely when I’m writing about a topic I’m not as familiar with. Then I have something to refer to quickly and easily.
I’ll even add the URL of the web page where I found the information to my notes so I can go back and check something if I need to. This is also useful if you add endnotes to your blog post or you want to link to another article.
Write naturally
“Ummmm…. What does that mean exactly?” I hear you mutter.
Write like you. Don’t write like a college professor (unless you are a college professor). Write in an easy, comfortable, engaging manner that your readers will enjoy.
This is usually referred to as “conversational writing.” You’ll notice I do that in this blog post. I refer to you, my reader, directly. I even give a bit of your side of the conversation. I don’t overcomplicate things.
I do this because I want this to be easy for you to read. I want you to come away from reading this knowing how to write a blog post. I don’t want you to get frustrated and click away to someone else’s website, looking for the same information.
Edit your blog post
No. Really. Do. It.
Once you’ve finished writing, go through and edit your blog post. Take out anything that is unnecessary. You may even find places you need to add more information to make things clear.
Run a spell check on your post.
Please.
We will all thank you for it.
Then read it again to make sure you’ve used the right “there, their or they’re” and autocorrect didn’t accidentally change a word into something that makes no sense within your sentence but is spelled correctly.
Deep in the underbelly of the blogosphere lurk the trolls who will condemn you for bad grammar and misspellings. Don’t feed the trolls.
Find images to add to your blog post
If you’re writing a how-to post, add in screenshots or pictures of, well, how to do it.
Otherwise, search the internet for images that are relevant to your post and add them in occasionally.
This breaks up the text and makes it less daunting for people to read. And you can entertain your audience with pictures of kittens if you want to.
I recommend free image sites like Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels as resources. There are bunches of them out there, so if you have one you prefer, use that.
For the record, this is a picture of my kitten Irusan, being adorable when he was smaller. Because kittens.
5. Add a Content Upgrade to Your Post
“Okay… What is a content upgrade?” you ask.
A content upgrade is a free download you give in exchange for someone’s email address. This is a very efficient way to grow your email list from your blog.
I don’t add them to every single blog post I write, but I do add them to the majority of my posts.
I get to give you extra, useful information. You give me your email address and find out when my next blog post is released, as well as get a special, subscribers only, business tip once a week.
If you want to learn more about content upgrades, check out this blog post I wrote about them.
Or, you could just download the content upgrade for this post right now and get first-hand experience.
6. Get Ready to Publish Your Blog Post
You’ve written and edited your blog post. Perhaps you’ve let a friend or two read it to get feedback so you know if everything makes sense to someone besides yourself. (Never a bad idea.)
It’s time to load your blog post into your content management system or CMS. For me, this is WordPress. Some of you may use Wix, Weebly, SquareSpace or another CMS for your blog. For that matter, some of you may just keep your blog on Medium.
Wherever you house your blog, here are a few important things to remember:
- Add a “More” tag to your post where you want to cut off your post text in the preview on the blog catalog page. Some themes do this automatically (like mine). Some will display your entire blog post on the catalog page if you don’t do this. (Ask me how I know…)
- Add your images to your post in the CMS. Resize them if necessary. You want your images to load quickly so there aren’t large blank spaces in your post while someone’s slow connection is processing them.
- Add a thumbnail image or featured image to your post. This may be another random image you grab from a free picture website or it may be something you design, or have designed, specifically for your blog post. You will want to make sure this is at the top of the blog post. Some CMSs have a specific place for this in their blog post layout. Others don’t. Figure out whether your CMS has a specific place for your featured image within your blog post and go with it.
- Add your thumbnail image or featured image to the “Featured Image” section of your blog post so it shows up on the catalog page. In WordPress, this is in the right sidebar of the Gutenberg system. It may be elsewhere in other CMSs. Make sure your featured image shows up on your catalog page, along with your blog post title and an excerpt, once your blog post is published.
- Confirm that your keyword is added to your SEO plugin or system. Personally, I use Yoast for my SEO management. It’s popular and it’s free. There are plenty of others out there. Enter your keyword into this part of the blog posting system so your chosen system can make sure you’ve dotted all your “I”s and crossed your “T”s when it comes to SEO. It will give you further instructions as needed.
- Fill Out the Social Media Section of your CMS: This is not applicable for all CMSs. Some do it automatically. Some have a specific section that you need to add your blog post title, a short description of the post and your featured image to. This transfers the information for your post to social media platforms so when you add the URL for your post to your social media post, the picture and description show up with the link.
When everything is ready, hit publish!
7. Promote Your Blog Post
You’ve written something awesome! Yay you!
It’s time to shout it to the world.
Email your list
Start with an email to all of your subscribers.
You are collecting email subscribers via your blog, right? That’s kinda what it’s for. Your current and potential customers want to know when you publish a new blog post. You should have a way to subscribe to your email list so they can get regular updates. That is the whole point of the content upgrade.
If you don’t think you need an email list, read this post. Seriously. You need an email list. Trust me on this one.
Speaking of which…
Set up the opt-in system for and delivery of your content upgrade
Personally, I use Leadpages to collect my opt-ins and Drip as my email service provider (ESP).
Leadpages collects a new subscriber’s email address via a popup box, delivers the new email addresses to Drip as they come in, then sends my content upgrade to anyone who opts in for it. You can see this in action for yourself below when you click on the button to opt in for the content upgrade.
I can also create a Thank You page for my content upgrade so my new subscribers know their email address has been registered in my system and they’ll get their content upgrade shortly.
In my opinion, there is nothing worse than hitting the “submit” button on an opt-in system and getting no response. You wonder, “Did it work? Did my email address go through?”
Help your new subscribers out. Show them they did the right thing and show them a Thank You page, verifying that you received their email address and they’ll be receiving their content upgrade shortly.
Depending on the CMS and ESP you use, you may need to upload your content upgrade somewhere so your new subscribers can download it from a link in the automated email you set up to deliver your content upgrade.
Send out social media posts
Personally, I promote my blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Those are the three big platforms where my readers hang out.
Where do your readers hang out? Are they Tumblr people? Do they prefer Instagram? Find the social media platform where your audience hangs out and promote your blog post there.
You can pre-schedule your social media posts within most platforms. You can also pre-schedule posts using tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Edgar.
Get Your Blog Post Checklist so You Know Exactly How to Write a Blog Post that Your Audience Will Want to Read
Now that you know all the elements of how to write a blog post, it’s time to go do it yourself!
Download my handy-dandy Blog Post Checklist so you can remember these 7 essential steps and each of their components.
And you’ll get to see an opt-in system in action, so you can reverse-engineer it for yourself.
Click on the button below to get your Blog Post Checklist now.