Blog posts can be an excellent way to promote your products or services. They can also be used to bring more traffic to your website, create conversation, bring out your own opinions, and share your stories with the world.
Even though some years ago blogging was only something people did for fun, today, writing blog posts is one of the most effective ways to market your brand and business.
By harnessing the power of blog posts, you will be able to reach your audience and even push sales and bring in more traffic.
What is a blog post?
Before we look at how you can write a well-performing blog post, first things first: what is a blog post? A blog post is an article, news piece, or guide that is published in your website’s blog section.
A typical blog post is about 500-2000+ words long, and it usually covers topics that somehow relate to the website or business in question. A blog post is usually educational and problem-solving in nature, and it includes images, videos, infographics, and charts (if necessary).
The purpose of a blog post is to publish your thoughts, insights, and stories you think may be useful or interesting to your audience. A well-written blog post can help you to boost awareness, increase conversions, and bring in more traffic and revenue.
How to write a blog post that will bring in traffic?
Writing a blog post is not as difficult as it may seem. However, you have to consider a few things if you want your blog post to perform well and bring in more traffic. In addition to writing the content, you will also have to optimize it and make sure it gets seen.
This is how you write a good blog post, step by step.
- Consider your target audience: who is the blog post for?
- Use your previous brainstorming ideas to get inspiration
- Identify what's missing: write about something new
- Choose what type of blog post you want to write
- Pencil down a few topic ideas and choose the best one
- Create your outline and keyword-rich subheaders
- Write your blog post
- Proofread your post
- Add images and other media elements
- Upload your blog post to your CMS
- Plan your conversion path
- Add calls to action to guide your readers
- Link to other relevant blog posts
- Optimize for SEO
- Publish and promote
- Track the performance
1. Consider your target audience: who is the blog post for?
Before you even get started with your blog post, it is essential to understand your audience. If you have a business, you probably already know exactly what your target audience is. Consider what your target audience wants to know about and what will resonate with them.
For instance, if your target audience is millennials who want to become social media influencers, you will probably not need to write a post about how to create a social media account: most of them already know how to do it. Instead, you might consider what kind of information they are looking for: for instance, they might be interested in how to reach brands for collaboration purposes.
2. Use your previous brainstorming ideas to get inspiration
If there is a blog with older content, use it to your advantage and pull ideas from them. For instance, you can pick a blog post and expand on the topic that it covers.
3. Identify what's missing: write about something new
One thing you do not want to do is to write about something over-saturated. It is highly challenging to get your content to perform well in search results when you cover a topic that everyone else has already covered. Instead, find a new angle.
4. Choose what type of blog post you want to write
If you have never written a blog post before, you may not have considered that there are a few different types of blog posts.
Five of the most common blog post types include:
- A list-based post
- A “what is” post
- Ultimate guides
- An infographic post
- A “how-to” post
If you have a hard time choosing the right format, you can use a template for writing a blog.
5. Pencil down a few topic ideas and choose the best one
Your blog post title is the first thing a reader sees. It should give them an idea about what to expect while leaving them wanting more. It should entice and interest, and make them click the post open.
It may be a good idea to pencil down a few different title ideas and pick the best one.
6. Create your outline and keyword-rich subheaders
Center your main idea around some keywords that are relevant to your topic. Then, create an outline that includes some keyword-rich subheaders.
7. Write your blog post
Further down, we will look at how you can write a compelling and interesting blog post with visuals. Writing your blog post is, of course, the biggest part of creating a well-performing blog post, so this deserves a full section on its own.
8. Proofread your post
Before you click “publish” and make your blog post available for the whole world to see, you will need to proofread and edit your post. Proofreading means checking for typos and grammatical errors. If proofreading your own post seems challenging, you can always hire someone to do it for you or ask a friend to read it and fix any typos they spot in the text.
9. Add images and other media elements
No one likes to read a blog post that is only paragraphs after paragraphs of text. Making your post visually appealing and breaking it down by adding images and videos helps your reader to stay engaged.
Adding a relevant photo or an infographic gives the reader a break. Also, Google loves images, so they are also essential from an SEO standpoint.
In addition to adding media and images to your blog post, you should add tags and categories that describe your blog post.
10. Upload your post into your content management system
After the blog post has been written and proofread, and you have added images, tags, and categories, it is time to upload your new blog post to your content management system.
Either you can publish it right away, or you can schedule it to be published later. Alternatively, if you are not ready to publish your post yet, you can save it as a draft and come back to it later.
11. Plan your conversion path
A conversion path is a journey where a website visitor becomes a lead. Although the concept is simple, creating a good conversion path requires you to have an understanding of your target audience and what they want.
The conversion path determines how you want the visitor to move on your website and what you want them to do next. In other words, you should give them clear steps to take forward, and in a way, create a roadmap you want them to follow.
12. Add calls to action to guide your readers
Calls to action are short and gentle nudges to your reader that ask them to do something. Call-to-action buttons, links, and encouragements are also a part of your conversion path, and they can encourage your readers to, for instance:
- Read the next blog post
- Subscribe to a newsletter
- View your shop
- Get in touch
- Book a consultation
13. Link to other relevant blog posts
Adding relevant links to the other pages on your site or to other blog posts can give your readers more information and guide them around your website. You can add relevant links throughout your content and ensure that your readers can get more information about a certain topic.
14. Optimize for SEO
After you have finished writing your blog post, you should ensure that your post is SEO-friendly. This ensures that Google, and ultimately visitors, will find your blog post.
One of the essential things from an SEO standpoint is adding relevant keywords, but remember not to stuff the keywords into the post and make it hard or unnatural to read. In addition to keywords, there are a few other things you should consider, and we will take a look at them next.
Add your meta title and description
Meta titles and descriptions are the text that you see in Google after you search for something and search results pop up. They provide the readers with a short summary of the post before they click it.
The meta title is usually 50-65 characters long, and it is usually the title of your blog post. Your meta description gives a bit longer description of the blog post and is usually 150-160 characters long. Meta descriptions no longer factor into Google’s algorithm, but they give the reader a good idea about what to expect.
Meta description describes the content of your blog post or page.
Consider anchor text when doing internal linking
In short, an anchor text is a word or a sentence that links to another blog post, site, or page. Search engines take these anchor texts into account when they rank your page (or blog post) for certain keywords. Thus, it is essential to consider your linking anchor texts carefully.
You should also consider which pages to link to. The linking pages might end up ranking well on Google, so you want the linked page to include information that will lead to conversions.
Write alt text for all of your images
We already mentioned that adding images to your blog post is essential. All images you have added also need to have an ALT-text which describes the image and how it relates to your blog post. While your readers may not pay attention to the ALT-text or not even see it, it is important for Google.
Compress all images to improve page speed
The speed of your site affects your ranking. As Google crawls your blog post or site, it takes the loading speed into account. By compressing your images, you ensure that your site speed is maximized.
Ensure that your blog post is mobile-friendly
More than 60% of website visitors come from mobile. Nowadays, it is easy to visit a website or a blog post using an iPhone or an Android, so your blog post should also be mobile-friendly. This makes it more convenient for your mobile visitors to read your blog post, and Google likes mobile-friendly sites, too.
15. Publish and promote
After your blog post has been written, checked, and optimized, it is time to publish your blog post and promote it to get readers. If your website already has traffic, your blog post will probably get views automatically. However, promoting your blog post in different ways is always a good idea.
You can promote your blog post in a few different ways:
- Posting it on social media, such as Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, or LinkedIn
- Sending out an email newsletter
- Paying for an ad on Google or social media
- Telling your friends and coworkers about it
16. Track the performance
After your blog post has been published, make sure to keep an eye on its performance. Over time, you will see how many people visit the blog post and how well it converts. For instance, you can use the analytics of your content management system to see how well your post performs, or you can use Google Analytics by linking it to your site.
Write your first blog post
Now you know how the process of creating a blog post goes. Of course, you will need to write good content to get your visitors to convert and engage with the post. Although we briefly touched on the subject of actually writing a blog post, we will next go into more detail about the writing process.
Remember that one of the essential things when writing a blog post is to write about a subject that is not over-saturated. A subject that has been written about a lot may not rank on Google as easily, and you may not get as many visitors as you would like.
Instead, choose a topic that has a lot of search volume but has a low keyword difficulty: meaning that not many other sites have written about it yet.
Here is how you can write your first blog post.
1. Choose a topic you are knowledgeable about
Choosing the topic for your first blog post can seem challenging: after all, there are so many excellent ideas to choose from. The best way to start is to write about something you are knowledgeable and passionate about. If you are an expert in a certain field, you have all the tools you need to write a valuable blog post with a lot of information.
When you write your first blog post, you probably have yet to establish your credibility as a blogger. So, it is recommended to start with a “how-to”-post, a comparison post, or a list.
You can even pull inspiration from other top-ranking blog posts, but remember that your content should always be unique.
2. Target a low-volume keyword at first
Even though it may seem like a good idea to target a keyword that has a lot of search volume and that a lot of people are interested in knowing more about, the truth is that it may be difficult to rank with a high-volume keyword.
Instead, you should target low-volume keywords that are easier to rank with.
Low-volume keywords are considered keywords that have a search volume of 10-30 per month. Even though it may seem low, you may still get a good bit of visitors by ranking on the first page of Google with a low-volume keyword.
Also, when you rank high with your first blog post, even if it is for a low-volume keyword, you will feel more motivated to write another one.
3. Google the term to understand your target audience’s goal
Now that you have your keyword and topic, you should Google the term to see what your audience’s search intent or goal is when they search for a certain keyword.
For instance, if you Google your keyword and see other blog posts written about the topic, you can write about it, too. However, if the first thing that pops up is Pinterest images and product images, your blog post might not rank if your intent is not to promote your own product.
So, consider what your audience will be looking for when they utilize the keywords you want to use in your blog post.
4. Find questions related to that topic
Now that you have decided what you want to write about and what your angle is, you should Google the term again and check for questions that people ask. When you Google a keyword, there is a section called “People also ask,” and you can see commonly asked questions related to the topic.
By taking note of these questions and answering them in your blog post, you can rank higher and make your blog post more comprehensive. Ultimately, you want your blog post to answer all the possible questions your readers might have in mind.
5. Come up with a working title for the post
We already touched on this section briefly earlier. When you start writing your blog post, the first thing to do is to create a title, or rather come up with a few good ideas and pick one that works the best.
The title is the first thing your readers see, and in a few seconds, it should captivate your reader’s interest. A good title describes the post while leaving the readers wanting more. You can even jot down a few good ideas and have someone else take a look at them and give you some feedback.
Your title should describe the post type as well. For instance, if you have chosen a list-based post, the title could be something close to “X best ways to save money this summer.”
On the other hand, if the blog post type is a “how-to”-post, the title could be something like: “How to save money for a trip to Paris this summer.”
6. Create an outline
After creating an interesting title, you should create an outline for your blog post. In other words, create a draft by using subheaders (H2’s and H3’s). By breaking down the post with subheaders, it will be easier for the reader to follow the post and find the information they are looking for.
But not only that, it will be much easier for you to write the post when your headers and subheaders are in place. The outline guides you, too, when you write the post.
7. Write an introduction
After your title, there should be an introduction to your blog post that shortly describes what the blog post is about without giving away too much. An introduction is typically a paragraph or two. It includes your keyword and pulls the reader into the post.
The introduction is often what gets the reader interested. First, your interesting title gets your readers to click open the blog post. Then, your reader reads the intro and (hopefully) keeps on reading.
8. Write out each section of your outline
The last part of writing a blog post: actually writing the content. Fill in the sections of your outline and give the readers what they want.
What makes a good blog post?
A good blog post is valuable to the reader. It is educational and informative and answers the questions the reader has in mind. The content is well-written, error-free, and easy to read.
Also, when you want to write a blog post that brings visitors to your website and increases traffic, you have to optimize your content for SEO. A good blog post also nudges your readers forward in the conversion path and encourages them to take action.
Taking all of these things into account when writing your first blog post can seem challenging, but it gets easier over time when you track the performance of your blog posts and you see what works and what does not.
Formatting your blog post
After you are done writing your blog post, you should also format it and make it easy to read. Formatting can also improve the visual aspect of your blog and make it more pleasing to the eye.
- Include subheadings to arrange ideas
- Center your photos and media
- Add ALT-text to images
- Keep your sentences clear and short
- Use media with purpose
Include subheadings to arrange ideas
We already mentioned that your blog post should be broken down into sections with subheaders. This is not only to make it easier to read, but it also looks visually more pleasing than a big chunk of text.
Include subheadings and paragraphs to arrange your ideas and to make the blog post clear and easy to read.
Center your photos and media
Centering your photos and other media makes your blog post look more professional, but it also makes the post easier to read on a mobile device.
Add ALT-text to images
The images you just centered need ALT-texts that describe the image and tell Google why it is relevant to the blog post.
Keep your sentences clear and short
Clear and short sentences are easy to read and understand. Also, Google tends to like short and concise sentences, so ensure that your sentences are not unnecessarily long.
Use media with a purpose
Using media, such as videos and images, is an excellent way to break down the content and even improve your rank on Google. However, ensure that all media you add is relevant to the content.
Utilize blog post templates
If you are unsure about where to start, you can find a free blog post template online and start writing. Free blog post templates allow you to get started as they offer a blog post outline that can kickstart your blogging career.
In addition, there are many blog post examples online that you can look at to get an idea of how to get started.
Summary
Writing an effective blog post can seem overwhelming at first, but practice makes perfect. Although considering the topic, title, SEO, formatting, media, and other things seems like a lot, after writing a post or two, you will notice how much easier it gets.
Focus on offering your readers something valuable while ensuring that the content relates to your website and brand. Also, a good and well-converting blog post nudges the readers forward in the conversion journey and encourages them to click on another blog post or link.
A well-written blog post can be very useful in marketing and driving traffic to your website, so pay attention to details and create an eye-catching and informative blog post that offers value to your readers.
