HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT BECOMING A BLOGGER?
HAVE YOU DREAMT OF PUBLISHING YOUR FIRST POST ON YOUR BRAND-NEW BLOG?
If the answer is yes, the first thing you must do is learn how to write a good blog post.
Today you’re in luck! You have come to the right place because we can show you exactly how to do just that.
Writing a blog post requires great commitment to inspire the audience (blog post reader). Engage them with organic content that offers solutions to their problems or pain points.
If the post is way too academic, inconsistent, poorly written, or even unexciting, the blog article has just committed internet suicide! The readers will click the notorious ‘x’ box at the top right corner of the screen! Following this action, they immediately flee and never return!
No need to fear my blogger enthusiasts! In this article, we will show you how to write captivating posts that will be cherished by your readers! You will be given steps to follow sequentially.
This aims to help you craft your first blog post with confidence. We will briefly give you tips on how to set up your blog/website as well. Take time to master your craft with lots of practice! You will become a savvy blogger before you know it.
Before we begin, let’s take a moment to discuss what a blog is and what it does.
WHAT IS A BLOG?
“A blog is literally short for ‘web log.’ Blogs began in the early 1990s as an online journal for individuals to publish thoughts and stories on their own websites. Bloggers then share their blog posts with other internet users. Blog posts used to be much more personal to the writer or group of writers than they are today” By Anya Skrba, firstsiteguide.
Bloggers are the experts of the subject matter in their field. For instance, a doctor may be blogging on the subject of medicine and wellness.
Some bloggers may have an interest in the subject outside of their profession i.e. a lawyer with a passion in cooking may blog about how to make a delicious recipe of Thai Chicken Green Curry.
This means everyone can be a blogger and that includes an ordinary person like yourself. Now that we know what a blog is, it is time to start making one!
Your blog will be filled with keywords (after you’ve done a thorough keyword research analysis), summarizing what your topic matter is. These keywords & key phrases are the basis of your online strategy to attract readers.
Let’s deep dive!
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN WRITING
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
Knowing and understanding your prospective audience is the most crucial step in creating a successful blog.
Once you pick your subject expertise, you need to know which perceived audience will have the most interest in your blog. How can we know who our readers are?
Quite simple! You create the buyer personas to understand what the reader’s needs are. Then, use them to produce topics on your posts as the solutions to their needs.
You may wonder if you can use buyer personas for non-business purposes. Absolutely!!
The more you know your audience and their needs, the better you can offer solutions to them on your blog posts. Your audience will appreciate your content and become loyal to you. Here are the useful buyer personas templates.
Example:
- Joe is a 45-year-old male. He works in tech with an annual income of approx. $120k. He’s looking for a permanent solution for hair loss.
Your blog posts are about remedies to hair loss. Joe won’t likely be interested in your blog if you only talk about temporary solutions i.e. taking Rogaine or Propecia.
You will certainly capture his interest by discussing the permanent solutions such as different techniques of hair-transplant surgeries i.e. FUE vs FUT. Check this Buyer Persona Template
PICK THE TOPIC THAT INTERESTS YOUR AUDIENCE
You now know who your audience is. The next step is to create the topic that catches their interest.
Let’s say you are a food blogger living in New York City! Your blog has always been about the beautiful food photo with a small caption underneath it. You have a few readers that love your blog, but the number has been stagnant.
You then go back to the drawing board. Redo your buyer personas and Boom! Produce the new topic: My List: New Restaurant Opening in NYC.
You start visiting new restaurants during their launches, tasting their featured items, taking photos, and writing reviews/recommendations to your readers.
Then, post the article on your blog on a bi-weekly basis while linking the featured photos to your Instagram, increase the traffic all around.
After 2 months, you begin to see more comments plus an increase in the number of readers clicking on the like/dislike buttons on your blog. Hence, a positive indication of readers interacting and engaging with the content of your blog post.
CREATING A CAPTIVATING HEADLINE
A compelling and captivating headline can evoke your audience’s imagination! It gives them the first glimpse of what to expect from your article.
Many people tend to create the content first before producing the right headline. This isn’t always the right approach. If you do this, try the other way around for a change and see how the planning goes.
You first create your potential headlines (multiple, lots of them). Once you settle and pick the one you like the most, you will use your chosen headline to orchestrate what your content should be about.
You can use Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule. This great tool will give you tips on how to improve your headline.
Keep it in mind! You can always tweak your headline as your content begins to accumulate.
For example, your original headline this:
- “How to Make a Quick Dinner” >>>> too broad
After a rough draft and a minor headline tweak, here’s the potential new headline:
- “How to Make Dinner in 20 Minutes under $15 Budget” >>>> narrowing down the focus.
Also, use a headline that engages human curiosity and emotion! Empathy is the key ingredient here. You must try to understand your audience from their perspective. Walk them through your blog post on what you can do to help!
Adding sensory words to your headline will help you achieve just that.
Example:
Suppose you want to blog about health and wellness.
This is your proposed headline:
- “3 Steps to Take with Sinus Pain”
This type of headline is called the list post. It gives the audience a promise of solutions to the problem they may experience. The word, “Pain” is a sensory word because it evokes the audience’s emotion.
This is a good headline. However, you can empathize with your audience even further by letting them know that you empathize with what they are experiencing.
Hence, your new headline maybe like this:
- “3 Ways to Stop the Throbbing and Piercing Sinus Pain”
In this case, you add two more sensory words to your headline: throbbing & piercing. Those who are dealing with constant sinus pain won’t hesitate to click on this headline.
ORGANIZING AN OUTLINE
As new bloggers, you will get overwhelmed by the amount of work to produce great content for your blog.
A blog post can be long with an excessive amount of information. Therefore, both it can easily intimidate writers and readers.
You can overcome this by organizing your content in an outline format. The organization can come in the form of tips, steps, or sections, etc.
Example:
Creating a blog post:
- “How to Use Facebook”
You want to outline your content by dividing it up into sections.
Your outline will be something like this:
Section 1 – What is Facebook?
Section 2 – How to Sign-up for Facebook
Section 3 – Navigating through Facebook
Section 4 – Your First Facebook Post
Section 5 – Facebook Security
Section 6 – How to Use Facebook Mobile App
Section 7 – Facebook for Business
WRITING AN INTRODUCTION
An effective headline will evoke your audience’s curiosity and emotions! Next, you must capture their interest with your amazing blog content.
You can do it by informing your audience of what you can do for them through your introduction.
Many new bloggers often make one common mistake when it comes to crafting their headlines. They tend to make the introduction way too academic. Too much statistical data. Most importantly, the topic’s main point is drowned in a sea of words.
A good blog introduction must intrigue the readers, tease, or even annoy them. You want to capture their attention so that whatever it takes, they will come to read the rest of your article.
Remember, always describe the purpose of the post, and explain how it will address the existing problems of your readers. This will give them a reason to keep reading. Hence, discovering the potential solutions to help them improve their work/lives.
Here’s the 2 examples of good vs bad introduction:
- “Do you want to lose 10 pounds in 7 days? I have a proven method that I can show you. All you must do is scroll down and read the rest of the article.”
- “Do you want to lose 10 pounds in 7 days? I have personally developed a method that can help you achieve that goal. In the past 3 months, I have helped my clients to look and feel their best. Here are their stories.”
The first one is a bad introduction because it doesn’t evoke your emotion and curiosity. The second one is an introduction that is more compelling to the readers. It gives myriad examples of weight-loss stories.
Your audience will likely look through all the examples in the article. Some will personally relate to the stories. This will inspire them to read the rest of the article and BINGO! Your readers just finished reading your article. Congratulations!
WRITING AN EFFECTIVE BLOG-POST
Let’s do a quick recap of what we have learned so far! First, we begin with knowing who our audience is. Then, we pick the topic that we want to write about; however, it must be the topic our audience will enjoy reading it.
The next step is crafting the compelling headline and introduction. Now is the most crucial step – writing your blog post. Here are the steps:
MAKE YOUR STORY-HOOK CAPTIVATING
The opening part of your article is called the hook. It is one of the most important components of all your content. With this in mind, you must spend time on it and making sure you have a great beginning to your article.
Your hook should be written in such a way that it grabs your reader’s attention. The hook will encourage them to finish reading your article. Empathy and knowing your audience are great tools in guiding you to create the right hook for your audience.
The hook must also include relevant facts, stats, and information. Be sure to address your audience directly. Convince them to trust and believe that you are the one who can provide them with the best information/solutions they have been looking for.
USE YOUR OUTLINE TO ORGANIZE & FORMAT YOUR BLOG POST
Your outline helps you to map out and organize your blog post systematically. The readability of your blog post is crucial. Make sure your article is easy to read for your audience.
You can do this by organizing them into small, digestible chunks. This will ensure that you’re never presenting your readers with thick blocks of information.
If choosing to use a subheading, make sure to be consistent in using it in every few paragraphs. A subheading allows you to make a pit stop in between each paragraph. It also makes your paragraph less dense and more pleasing to the eyes of your readers.
Always make sure to compare each subheading to the headline, while the content in the subheading doesn’t go off-track.
Check the consistency of your format that includes font design/size, signs, color, and theme. Please take time to double/triple-check on this and make the correction when it is necessary.
Any error stemming from the format consistency will make your article look unpolished to your audience.
CREATE EVERGREEN CONTENT
Evergreen content is search-optimized content that is continually relevant and stays “fresh” for readers over an extended period.
You may think that all online content is sustainable. After all, a blog post doesn’t just disappear after you publish it. But evergreen content is different. It continues to be relevant long past its publication date, with search traffic growth over time.
Your goal here is simple! Write a great article that will draw the audience to you. Make sure the content is relevant and timeless.
KEEP WRITING! LET YOUR IMAGINATION FLOW THROUGH YOUR ROUGH DRAFT
Don’t worry too much about how many mistakes you will be making when writing your first draft. That’s the way it is supposed to be.
All you must think about is:
- Follow your outline
- Your content is relevant to the headline
- The more you write, the more you will love and appreciate your article
Your imagination is your best writing companion! As a new blogger, your imagination will help you shape your blog-writing style. A mistake is a part of the process. Continue to practice from your mistakes and that will make you a better writer.
Remember. No one is reading your blog post yet at this current stage. You will have many more chances to go back to fix and revise your article.
STRONG & MOTIVATIONAL CONCLUSION
At his stage, you are almost done with writing your first blog post! The next step is to figure out how to give an effective conclusion to your article.
The goal of writing a blog post is to help/encourage your readers to take advantage of the useful information to solve any kind of problems they may have.
Show your readers that you have put yourself in their position. Imagine yourself taking the advice from your own blog post and using it to accomplish your goal. The more you understand your audience from their viewpoint, the more likely you will be able to motivate them to take action.
Our goal for writing this article is to help prospective bloggers craft their first blog post. Most first-time writers tend to face one thing in common – fear of writing & making mistakes. This can be solved using positive reinforcement & motivational techniques as part of my conclusion.
It will go something like this.
Example:
- “Here you are almost at the finish line with your first-ever blog post. It’s not that difficult, is it?
I have been on the same journey as you are experiencing right now. You have overcome so many challenges and I know how proud you must be! Congratulations.”
REVISE, POLISH, GRAMMAR & PLAGIARISM CHECK
The last step before publishing your blog post is to ensure your article is well polished and without grammatical errors.
First, you start by reading your article aloud in each sentence. This is the best way to help you detect errors or inconsistencies in your writing.
Avoid run-on sentences. Edit out unnecessary content! Check the spelling, style, and grammar of your blog post.
Ask another set of eyes to help proofread your article i.e. friend, coworker, etc.
You can also use an online grammar checker to help you proofread. I personally find Grammarly as one of the most useful grammar checkers out there.
Stay away from plagiarism! In the current digital age, sharing information on the internet platform is now a new norm. You must give credit to the creator of the content if you choose to incorporate that info into your written article.
If you don’t give credit to the creator, this is called – plagiarism.
Plagiarism Grammarly & Quetext are the two plagiarism checkers I highly recommend.
CREATE A WEBSITE, ADD A BLOG & PUBLISH YOUR FIRST POST
You wrote your first blog article and are ready to publish your first post. The question is where do you post it? Well, it’s now time to create your web blog!
WEB DOMAIN NAME
Ask yourself whether you would like to invest in having your own domain name for your web blog. You may want to start your blogging career as a freelance blog writer. This means you will be writing an original piece of content for others initially.
In this case, you may not need to get a domain name until you are ready to have your own web blog.
If you choose to get a domain name (many pros do), you will have to invest a little to get your domain name registration.
CREATING A WEBSITE & ADD A BLOG
Once you have a registered domain name, it’s time to create a website for your blog. There are many website builders out there, but the most popular ones currently are Wix and Duda.
Their services will help you build your website easily. Both Wix and Duda will give you an option to add a blog feature on the website as well.
USE A BLOG-SPECIFIC PLATFORM
Some website hosting services, i.e. Bluehost & GoDaddy, do include web-builder tools and built-in blogger features. If you already have a website set-up under their services, you can easily add a blog into it.
You can do this by using WordPress to add a blog feature onto the existing website.
WordPress is the world’s most popular tool for creating websites. WordPress is capable of creating any style of website, from a simple blog to a full-featured business website. You can even use WordPress to create an online store.
35% of the internet in the world uses WordPress. Therefore, learning it is a great skill most bloggers should have. You may choose to change your website hosting service. Remember, your blog can easily transfer to a different platform when you use WordPress features on your blog.
READY TO POST YOUR FIRST POST ON YOUR NEW WEBSITE?
You must be excited? You are now ready to publish your first blog post but before you do that there are a few final steps:
- Check spelling, style, and grammar a few more times (as many times as possible)
- Add images or videos. You will do this in order to add more engagement to your article.
- Optimize for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It’s all about using the right keywords to boost the ranking of your article, preferably to the first page on Google’s search engine result page (SERP). Learn more about SEO.
- Add a clear call to action. This allows you to ask your reader to do something in return for you after reading your article.
As a new blogger, you want to hear feedback from your readers. In this case, your call-to-action can be the following: ask your readers to leave a comment, share your blog post, follow you on social media.
Ok. You just finish all the final steps. Now, go ahead and PUBLISH YOUR FIRST BLOG!