Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Blog Post
in Marketing by Richard Bertch
A blog is a collection of articles your company produces to communicate and connect with customers. Blogs can include infographics, images, and videos, yet the most commonly made posts are written. Each article must consist of specific steps to ensure it reaches the right audience, creates brand awareness, and follows search engine rules.
In trying to convey your expertise through educational and informative posts, businesses must also create value to keep readers coming back for more.
Why Write Blog Posts
Each blog post you create can help your company on several levels. If utilized correctly, your posts can:
- Build business authority
- Create brand awareness
- Better the company’s reputation
- Peak potential buyers curiosity
- Provide backlinks and improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Put your site on search engine results pages (SERPs)
- Form an online community
- Generate potential leads
- Show the business’ human side
- Convert possible buyer’s into paying customers
- Offer a form of customer service and product education
It may be hard to believe, but your business can gain a lot from one blog post. Now, picture more than one -- envision a hundred or a thousand written posts on your blog, and think about what that can do for your company.
Every growing and successful business needs to make writing relevant articles consistently a top priority. The more you create, the more you can build up the above components.
5 Steps on How-To Write a Blog Post
Here are the steps for you to follow when creating blog posts.
Step One: Gain a clear understanding of your target audience.
Every writer needs to know whom they are writing to and for before they sit down and start to write. The same strategy applies when creating blog posts; you must know your target audience. Some businesses already have a clear understanding of their audience. If you are not one of them, you need to be.
First, create your buyer persona or ideal customer. Base it on the data you collected from user research and web analytics. Write down any patterns you find, key traits, interests, and commonalities. i.e., age group, demographic, most or least popular product, etc. Use the persona to develop a user-centered experience using blog posts. With the right information, you can cover topics your audience really cares about, wants, or needs.
Finding what resonates with them is how you will continue attracting relevant customers who share the same interests as your business, making them more likely to buy from you.
Some blog posts your target audience may want to read:
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Industry News (Information that could impact the customer)
- New or upcoming product releases
- Summaries of podcasts or webinars you create
- How-to guides
You may have already picked up on the common theme happening with each type of blog post. Did you notice that all the components listed above have to do with meeting audience needs and less about the business itself? This is the value you need to give customers through the posts you create. Produce articles that readers can gain something from after reading them.
Step Two: Pick blog topics that align with your brand and customer interests.
The topics you choose to cover must align with both your brand and customer interests. Post topics need to be a mixture of interesting, informative, educational, entertaining, etc. Remember, what you write about must be relevant, full of substance, offer value, and resonate well with your targeted audiences.
Avoid writing just to write. Invest in each blog post you make by using the audience data you collect. Review the information to select topics your customers want to know more about, and then write about it.
Step Three: Organize your blog post content in an outline.
The amount of information you gather to write a blog post can sometimes be a lot. In some cases, it can even be too much. The easiest way to not become overwhelmed is to sort the information in an outline.
Now that you have the topic you want to write about, you need to plan how to deliver it in a post.
Every article needs:
- Blog title or Headings 1 (H1). The blog title needs to be in “Heading 1,” which can only be used once and for this reason.
- Opening paragraph. Write one or two paragraphs that briefly explain the topic and what the reader can expect from the post.
- Heading 2 (H2). At this point, you will begin diving further into the topic of the blog post, but it needs to be presented in an organized fashion; hence, why “Headings” are necessary. After “Heading 1” and the opening paragraph(s), your blog now needs to lead readers onto the following section, “Heading 2.” Add a title here using the H2 format to provide more details about the topic.
- Heading 3 (H3). If you need to list particular pieces of information under “Heading 2,” it must be done using the format of “Heading 3.” Most posts do not need “Heading 4, etc.”
Take notice of how the title’s “Headings” are in order; H1 is before H2, followed by H3. As mentioned earlier, you cannot use H1 again, but H2 and H3 can be used more than once in a blog post.
Thus, if the list you put in H3 format is complete, but you want to create a title for another section, use H2 again (not H1). If you make another list under the second H2 section, you need to use H3 once again.
Example Outline:
Title or Heading 1
Opening paragraph(s)
Heading 2
- Heading 3
- Heading 3
- Heading 3
Heading 2
- Heading 3
- Heading 3
- Heading 3
Conclusion
It may take time to become familiar with the formats and create outlines, but both are highly important. It also sounds a lot harder than it is, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. Each allows readers to focus on parts that interest them the most and provides an easy-reading flow. (Tip: Look at the layout or structure of this blog post to use as a guide.)
Step Four: Write your blog post.
Once you complete the outline, it is time to write your blog post. One of the easiest ways to start writing is to use your outline as a guide.
For Example:
In your outline, switch out the words “Heading 1” with the actual title of your blog post. Let’s say it is “How to Write a Blog Post.” Highlight the title with your mouse and change the format style from “Normal text” to “Heading 1.”
Continue going down the outline to switch out “Heading 2.” Perform similar actions as before, base it on what the outline shows you. If something does not apply, remove it. Re-create an outline and this process for every article you write.
Step Five: Edit and Publish Your Post
After writing the blog post, you must edit it. Take time to re-read the article and to look for any grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. Make the necessary changes. You may opt to use an online tool that will help you edit your work like Grammarly. Once you feel like the post is ready for viewing, publish it to your blog.
Conclusion
Get your blog posts in front of the right audience by studying their interests. Use analytics and data to develop topics customers will enjoy learning more about, and you write blog posts around them. Use these steps to gain readers’ attention and keep them interested as they become your customers.
