Stage 1. Writing Blogs Starts With Understanding the Audience
Whether you are writing blogs for fun or are about to use them for some trading purpose, you have to think of your target readers. Before setting the ball rolling, you need to find out who your reader is and what is of interest to them.
For instance, there is no need to explain to the millennials the importance of promoting their commerce or goods on social media (if they are going to launch their business), because they are already aware of it. The focus of your attention should be shifted towards the promotional conception. The millennials tend to write more personal and casual posts, whereas they need to utilize a more business-savvy approach. This special tweak will make your blog stand out from the crowd of the thousands of other blogs.
Stage 2. You Opt for the Topic and the Working Title
Needless to say that each and every posting does not appear from nowhere yet “grows” from the ideas you have. First of all, sum up all your ideas and choose the one for the topic. It can be pretty generic. Your next step is to narrow it down to the title. Do not hasten since you need to craft a few working titles to pick the most compelling one later. A working title is your perfect guide during the writing process yet it is not the title of the blog. After putting a period at the end of your blog post, you are supposed to arrive at the concluding decision on the title of your writing. Notwithstanding the fact that the working title might be restated or narrowed down to the final title, it still helps you to concentrate on something more specific than a generic topic.
Stage 3. It is High Time to Draft an Introduction of Your First Blog Post
Despite how arresting your first blog post is, it might happen that a reader will not read it till the end. The reason for this is apparent: the introduction is weak and fails to capture the attention. Your primary aim is to create a strong intro that will hook the audience. Your chief assistants are jokes, intriguing questions, and incredible stories.
Stage 4. Context Needs to be Structured
The diverse range of information can puzzle both the reader and the writer. The practical hint here is to organize the data in a clear way. No matter how dull and general this bit of advice may sound, it is your key to success. Create any kind of graphs, sections, lists, tips, or even your own classifications – these forms will help you to structure the writing.
What is more, a blog post outline will come in handy when dividing your piece into sections and sub-sections. All you need to do is to decide the points to recount and group accordingly. If you are bewildered by this stage, you can simply download a blog post template from our website for free. With the help of the most widespread blog types, which were pre-organized for such an occasion, having a coherent writing is a piece of cake.
Stage 5. First Blog Post Ideas
To write an outline is among first blog post ideas. When an outline is in front of you, it is not a big deal to start writing your first blog post. Use it as a guide and add more accurate pieces of info. You are strongly encouraged to conduct research in order to gather some statistics, illuminating examples, and other plausible evidence to support your standpoint. By the way, make sure to provide proper attribution if you are use external sources.
A flawless style is not exactly what you are aiming at this stage. The most pivotal factor here is the “flow”. Getting stuck in a rut is a typical burdensome, which could happen to everyone. Thesaurus will ease the writing process due to the tons of synonyms (and antonyms if needed), which will help you to express your thoughts. ZenPen and Cliché Finder can also be handy. The first tool creates a free-format writing zone where you can center upon the ideas in your head but not the format of your writing. As for the second, you just type a word in the special field, and it finds dozens of common clichés on web. It is exceptionally useful if you got stuck, isn’t it?
Stage 6. Refining, Proofreading, and Fixing the Format After Writing Your First Blog Post
Writing your first blog post is not the end. If you doubt your abilities to notice the mistakes in your writing, ask your grammar-conscious colleague to edit and proofread this blog for you. Otherwise, you should better enlist The Ultimate Editing Checklist’s help.
Under present-day conditions, it is not sufficient to compile the eye-catching content. It is vital to create a vivid image with the help of pictures. The visuals are responsible for the success of your blog and its popularity. If you are perplexed by selecting a relevant icon for your post, check out “How to Select the Perfect Image for Your Next Blog Post” and devote assiduous attention to the part on copyright.
The ensuing tips come to your aid with formatting the blog:
- Visual appearance. It goes without saying that it is the readers’ choice to read or not. Nonetheless, if one opens the post and sees a poorly formatted “something” with undefined borders and unreadable font, he or she will not skim even a paragraph.
Solution: Properly style headers and sub-headers, which break up the blocks of the text, define the borders, arrange the illustrations, and make necessary blurbs. Utilize the same style from post to post. This consistency is of the first magnitude in case you want to look more professional.
- Tags & Topics. Tags are the public-facing keywords, which your readers will use to browse the subject matter of your blog. Frankly speaking, you do not need to develop an absolutely brand-new tagging strategy. Adding mandatory tags to each blog post is a rather outdated concept.
Solution: Compose some tags like “categories” or “topics” and select a dozen or two of tags you cover in your posts. It is totally light and breezy.
Stage 7.Mind to insert CTA
The next step consists of a so-called call-to-action. In most cases, CTA is perceived to indicate what you expect from your reader. It aligns the article with the reader and triggers the latter for action. Making a notable example, to download an e-book, subscribe to an e-journal or a learning platform, register for an event, or simply review a related composition. Indubitably, you consider the CTA as a promotion or advertisement as the writer will generate a lead.
Make your CTA sections the most valuable sources of information. It is a viable option to offer more associated content so that the readers will expand the frontiers of their knowledge.
Stage 8. Optimize SEO
The penultimate stage is to optimize your blog post for search. You can shorten your URL and add a keyword – go for it. Nevertheless, make sure you are not obsessed with the keywords trying to insert them in each and every sentence. It will make an adverse impact on the audience’s reading experience.
Unfortunately, no blog writing prompts will point out the value of coming up with a decent meta-title and description, anchor text, and mobile optimization.
Meta Description
Wonder what it is? Meta description is a statement you see on the Google’s search result pages just below the page title. It should be around 150-160 symbols (spaces and comas included) and present the article. Furthermore, it is strenuously advised to start the sentence with such verbs as “read”, “check”, “discover”, “find out”, etc.
Why do you need it? It improves the click-through rate from search as people will already know what kind of data is waiting for them in the article.
Meta Title
You ought to keep the title under 65 characters. If you have a possibility, you can add keywords or phrases, which will kindle the spark of interest in the readers. Ensure that the keywords naturally fit the context and do not overcomplicate the title.
Anchor Text
It is one single word or some words that link your post to another page either on your or on somebody else’s website. Choose these words meticulously for their precision and meaning as the search engines will take into account while ranking your post.
Mobile Optimization
It is peddling old stuff yet the vast majority of your visitors use their smartphones to surf the Internet. Ensure they have enjoyable not unnerving experience when checking your blog. Moreover, following the basic rules of SEO, you will score additional points.
Stage 9. Formulate a Memorable Title
As it was mentioned above, a final title has its roots in a working title. Nail it, add a keyword, voila! – you have the heading that will unequivocally awaken the interest.
If you have finally honed the skills of writing blogs, look for other options to take your blog up a notch. If you question how to cite a blog post, open our site. Hopefully, all aforementioned will be extremely helpful for you and your writing struggles!