How to Write a Blog Post From Start to Finish 2022 l Blogging Tips Step by Step 2022
writing a blog post is one of the most effective cost efficient and all-around best content marketing strategies out there in order to drive new traffic generate new leads make more sales and attract new customers but the key with blogging just like with any other kind of content marketing is an understanding that your results are directly tied to the quality of your blog posts and while creating well-written and shareable content can sometimes feel overwhelming well i assure you the results are well worth the effort and this is especially true.
when you know that the content that you're putting out there is helping you to build a bigger brand bigger business or help your message reach more people so in this video I'm going to give you a simple framework that i call the perfect blog post to help you write a complete blog post from start all the way to finish as well as seven easy to follow tips to help you create truly great writing that turns readers into subscribers and customers and lifelong loyal subscribers.
so let me show you how it's done and it all starts by breaking down the elements of the perfect blog post starting at the top with the headline there's a great quote by advertising legend David Ogilvy that says on the average five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy when you have written your headline you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar so clearly the headline is important not only because this is what the vast majority of people are going to read but more importantly because it's the headline's job to actually entice and intrigue and get people.
to read well the rest of the blog post and while the topic of creating truly click-worthy and engaging headlines is a topic all to its own here's a few tips to help move you in the right direction that can turn kind of boring and ignorable headlines into those truly blockbuster hits that get someone to get drawn in and really consume everything that you've got to write the first of which is using a question headline formula where essentially you just take whatever it is that you are going to use as your headline and then just ask it like a question you see something funny happens in the minds and in the brains of a reader.
when they're presented with a question and that is their subconscious wants to nope needs to answer it for example instead of using a simple and relatively straightforward headline like this is why most marketing fails well it could be turned into a question simply really by tacking a question mark on the end of it and phrasing it as are you making these five marketing mistakes with a question mark another thing you can do is to use a problem-based headline and really spend some time uncovering the main problem that you're going to be solving within your blog post see a common mistake that many writers and content marketers make is writing content.
that solves a problem that a lot of people didn't even know they had put another way when you give somebody a solution but they don't really understand the problem that it's solving well this is kind of nice to have content instead of need to have content and that's what you want to make the need to have content kind but let's move on to the next part of the perfect blog post which is the first line if the goal of the headline is to get them to read that first line well then the goal of the first line is to get them to read the second line and the third line and the fourth and you get the picture.
this is why your main goal with that first line of your blog post is to do everything and anything in your power to hook your reader you want to draw them in get them to pay attention and of course get them to keep reading the first line is another great place to ask a question because again it automatically engages their subconscious mind and force them to come up with some kind of an answer an alternative though is you could simply come out with a really bold claim or statement ideally something mildly contrarian or controversial something that sort of peaks their curiosity and gets them interested for example you may have heard.
that goldfish only have like a five second memory well scientists have recently proven that this is totally false and in fact did you know that goldfish can actually remember things for up to five months okay let's move on to the next part the body the body of your blog post is where you're gonna be doing the bulk of your heavy lifting this is where you'll present your points you'll tell your story you'll share any relevant statistics or facts or anything that's relevant. to what you're trying to propose now here's the deal when it comes to blog post length well there really is no perfect link however longer typically tends to do better.
but there's a catch longer is better provided it doesn't get all weird and rumbly and start going off on all sorts of random tangents that have absolutely nothing to do with the main topic that you're supposed to be talking about in the first place but more on that in just a minute all that said i do find that having anywhere between three and seven or so sub points for your blog post tends to be a pretty good place to start this allows you to present your case or tell your story from a number of different angles and really give some context to what you're talking.
about plus longer blog posts well they typically offer more opportunity for you to offer more value and again back up what you've been promising in that headline and in that first line of your whole blog post anyway I'll cover exactly how to do that in just a second when i give you some of my top tips on how to write a truly effective blog post but first or i guess last we've got to cover the last part of the blog post next this got confusing the final part of the perfect blog post is none other than the conclusion the conclusion is really really important and in fact one of my biggest pet peeves.
when reading a blog post or consuming any kind of content or media of any kind is when you get all the way to the end of the post and you're left there wondering what's next this is why it is incredibly important to include a conclusion to wrap up everything you've just said with a few key take away points and that all-important cat or call to action now summing everything up and a few key takeaway points relatively self-explanatory but that call to action well this is your opportunity to guide someone towards what's next whatever that may be it could be something simple like to just leave a comment or reply or maybe share the post or it could be something.
a little more engaging like to subscribe or to click or to call or maybe even to buy something there really is no one-size-fits-all kind of universally acceptable call to action for the bottom of your blog post but the key thing to keep in mind is to make sure that it's congruent with whatever it is that you've been talking about throughout the post in other words make sure that the next step is kind of a logical next step and not just some random path you want to take somebody down so with the perfect blog post out of the way now let me share with you seven of the top tips that I've learned after a decade of blogging and building up an audience of over 100 000 subscribers.
first off we got to talk about focus it's important to remember that your reader the reader of your blog post found this content for a reason whether it was through a specific search on a search engine or by clicking a link on social media something caught their attention they clicked it they ended up on your page or post clearly they have a goal and a goal to learn more about whatever it is that they were promised when they clicked on that link and read your headline and ended up on your post so you kind of owe it to them to deliver on what you said you're gonna do in order to do.
this you need to make sure that your content is as focused on that subject as is humanly possible the key here is to really try to again focus in on what you're talking about and avoid going off on too many random tangents or other ideas it's okay to have other ideas it's okay to even write them down but save them for another post next you need to be concise you see just as important as your ability to focus in on that one single topic really is well so is your ability to be clear and to be concise one easy way to do this is to remember to keep your sentences short and your paragraph short as well this makes it easy for someone to simply scan over your content.
and it also kind of encourages more consumption of your blog post because humans are built and really hardwired for success and for achievement and for progressive realization of what they're trying to do man that sounded fancy the point is when you present somebody with a giant wall of text it's overwhelming it's hard to get through it's not a lot of fun but there's a reason that many of the social media algorithms have tapped into this sort of limitless unlimited scroll where someone just kind of keeps whipping through content well you can apply that same sort of consumer behavior to your blog posts.
with those shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs allowing them to cover more ground and go through more content and really get that feeling of accomplishment this same approach is not only used by social media algorithms and the top bloggers but by video game designers as well delivering a ton of achievements right at the beginning doing this creates kind of an addiction with every word they read with every sentence they make it through with every paragraph they scroll by the reader gets a sense of accomplishment that drives them closer to the finish my next point is perhaps the most important one of this entire video and that is to keep it conversational.
when it comes to writing truly effective blog posts truly effective content truly effective marketing of any kind it's got to be conversational yep you can pretty much consider this your permission to toss out all of the grammar rules you learned at school and just write like you talk again short sentences casual conversational punchy funny and avoiding jargon or tech talk or insider lingo like the absolute plague it is a lot of the rules that are out there although grammatically correct well they make your blog post sound pretentious and cumbersome much like the words pretentious and cumbersome so don't use them.
if your reader needs to pull out a dictionary or a thesaurus every time they read one of your blog posts well you're working too hard and more importantly you're making them work too hard nobody's gonna subscribe nobody's gonna come back I'm not saying to treat your readers as dumb but rather to do some of the heavy mental lifting for them by simplifying your concept and again keeping your writing conversational write so that your readers will understand and not get all bogged down in fancy talk next we got to talk about editing sitting down and just hammering out a 2 000 plus word blog post and hitting publish.
well really shouldn't happen even the great writers like Hemingway are well known for really strongly disliking their first drafts this is why my biggest suggestion here is to simply break up your editing into a couple different phases for the first phase simply read through your blog post from top to finish and look at it for content ask yourself questions like did you get across all of the points that you wanted to and are there certain areas that you kind of need to beef up or support with more facts or studies or statistics this is your chance to identify and fix any kind of issues from the top down also ensure that the length matches the content depth.
if you find any sections that are getting i don't know like fluffy airy basically just kind of useless well feel free to cut them out in the end this is going to make your blog post and your overall writing significantly stronger once that's done it's time for phase 2 which is where you're going to read through your blog post from top to bottom and read it out loud you see most of your readers when they read your blog post are going to do something called sub vocalization this is basically just fancy talk for saying the words out loud in their heads.
as they read and well you can make sure that there's no awkward gaps or pauses or breaks in your text by simply doing this for them ahead of time you see a funny thing happens when you actually read through your blog post and you say it out loud it makes it significantly easier to identify any mistakes or errors or parts that the words just don't seem to fit together right then the third and final phase make sure to go through your blog post one last time and check for things like spelling and grammar and voice you definitely want to save this step for last because you're going to be making some other edits previously and you don't want to miss some parts or have to change.
things twice now i appreciate this sounds like it contradicts the previous rule about ignoring grammar and ignoring all those rules and just keeping it conversational but there are a couple things that will make your blog post look kind of like amateur hour if you miss I'm talking about making sure that you don't have too many obvious spelling errors or that you accidentally use the wrong form of there there or there also as a bit of a bonus tip if you find this editing round completely exhausting and you're needing to make a huge amount of edits to every single blog post that you do well next time you write a blog post try writing it by kind of pen and paper old school long hand there's a free hand whatever the case.
when you write with a pen and with paper well most people naturally write slower which allows them to slow down therefore make less mistakes okay next you need to make sure that your content is actionable sharing stories and talking about your success and all the lessons you've learned is absolutely fine but what your readers are really after is what you can do for them so you always want to try to keep the focus on creating actionable content things that your readers can actually go out there and implement and experiment with and get results from you see a funny thing happens.
when someone takes what you've written and they go out and they apply it and they get good results the funny thing is they come back and they want more a good way to do this is to think of short little lists or to highlight key tasks throughout your article essentially drawing attention to important action steps or things that they can do also if you happen to include a checklist or a cheat sheet or some kind of a blueprint embedded within your blog post well it'll give them a reason to keep returning to that anytime that they want to experience this sometime in the future also makes it really shareable for other people.
that they may also think might also want this thing the fact of the matter is that nothing sells like getting someone good results okay next let's talk visuals you see images and graphics and visual content can take a good blog post make it great and the key to creating truly shareable content is finding relevant and engaging and relatable graphics now a bit of a warning here simply going to any old royalty-free stock photo site and grabbing whatever generic and random photo you happen to find sticking it in the blog post it's okay but it's not great you want to do your best to try to find visuals and graphics and images.
that are not only relevant to the content that you're talking about but also that are somewhat emotionally appealing and evoke some kind of emotional response and if you happen to have the ability to turn some of your text-based content into more graphical representations like through an infographic or some kind of visual depiction of what you're talking about will make your content just that much more powerful but if that wasn't enough well according to Forbes articles with images get up to 94 more views than articles without so that's simply too much to ignore now when it comes to the cat or the call to action which is one of those fundamental elements.
that you want to include in your conclusion the biggest mistake that i see most writers make by far is simply not having one and again that leaves your readers wondering what's next and this is why on the topic of the call to action or cat well it's incredibly important for me to let you know that if you truly want to get more subscribers more traffic and more readers to your blog then it's all going to come down to understanding and applying proven digital marketing basics and fundamentals and this is why the very next thing you're going to want to do is check out the video I've got linked up right here on digital marketing so make sure to check it out now and I'll see in the next video alright the next thing that will really help you become a better digital marketer is to understand the differences between strategy and tactics and when to use them strategy is all the big picture stuff and this is really where you want to focus
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