You’ve got something to say. You want to tell the world that you love the new season of The Bachelor, or that you’re starting your own business and want people to know why they should hire you, or that you need people to sign your petition against puppy-kicking. There’s only one problem: who’s going to listen? Figuring out how to communicate effectively with others is key if you want your message to be heard. Fortunately, much of what we have learned about effective communication can be applied when writing a blog post for an audience on the internet. Blog posts are great for getting a message out there, but at some point someone has to read your words. In this post I will explain the three main things that make a great blog post: structure, clarity, and entertainment value. Hopefully these tips will help you write better blog posts in the future!
Find your topic.
Once you’ve chosen your topic, it’s time to move on to the next step of writing your blog post.
A good way to start is by asking yourself these questions:
- What am I going to write about?
- How will this help my readers?
Plan your structure.
To create a blog post that captures your reader’s attention, start by planning the structure of your article. This means deciding what is the main point you want to make and how you are going to support it. If possible, try to plan out an outline so that you have a clear idea of what points will be covered and in what order they should appear. In this way, even if someone were to skim through your post quickly (and many people do), they would still find it engaging because everything makes sense and flows logically from one idea to another.
In addition, take some time before writing each section or paragraph so that you can think about how best express these ideas in words rather than just saying whatever comes into your head first!
Write your blog post headlines.
As you write your blog posts, consider these tips:
- Use keywords to help with search engine optimization. While you’re writing, think about what people would be searching for if they want information on the topic of your post. If you can use words that are already popular search phrases, it’s a good bet that Google will rank your site higher than others for those searches.
- Use a question to get people to read your post. Questions spark curiosity in readers’ minds and make them want to know more about the answer—and maybe even check out what else you have written! A reader may even leave a comment asking for clarification on something he didn’t understand or thought was unclear.
- Use strong statements to get people to read your post (but don’t overuse them). Strong statements draw attention because they’re unexpected; readers sometimes find themselves disagreeing with things they really shouldn’t disagree with but still do anyway because they’re so surprised by how someone could actually say something like this! By starting off strong and then ending on another equally surprising point of view, two opposing ideas collide in perfect harmony–with each other–and create something so amazing no one has ever seen anything quite like it before (or heard anything quite like it before).
Add supporting information (or images).
Add supporting information (or images).
While you want to keep your blog posts as short and concise as possible, there’s nothing wrong with adding a few supporting points. If you can do this through images, that’s even better! Images are an excellent way to add more content without taking up space in the body of your post. For example, if you’re writing about how to start a blog and include tips on what equipment is most useful for blogging, consider adding some pictures of blogging tools like cameras and computers. This will help illustrate what you mean when talking about those items while also giving readers something interesting to look at.
Another way that images can help make your blog post more interesting is by helping it rank higher in Google search results. Studies show that people tend to click more often on articles with photos than ones without them—so if an image has any chance of getting shared or clicked through from social media sites like Twitter or Facebook (which usually have smaller character limits), it’s definitely worth including one!
Edit and proofread your post.
Editing and proofreading your blog post are two of the most important steps in the blogging process.
- Proofread your blog post for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.
- Check for any formatting issues, such as missing words or incorrect paragraph breaks.
- Make sure that the content makes sense when read out loud. You want to avoid any awkward sentences or phrases that don’t flow well when spoken aloud by another person reading your work aloud—especially if it’s a video format!
Promote your new blog post.
You can promote your new blog post on various platforms, such as social media and email.
- Promote it on social media. Once you’ve published your new blog post, share it on Facebook and Twitter. Add a link to the article in the description field of each post so people can read more if they want to. You might also consider promoting your article with paid ads on Facebook or Twitter if you have the budget for it.
- Promote it through email marketing lists and newsletters that you send out regularly (e-mail list building is beyond the scope of this article). If you have an e-mail list already built up, this is an easy way to reach out to subscribers who may be interested in reading about what you wrote about in your latest blog post!
- Promote it on other blogs listed under “Blogrolls” at the bottom of each page on their site or take advantage of existing hashtags related to content similar enough that readers will see their link after scrolling down a bit from yours too; both ways provide additional exposure that can lead back directly back through Google search results when people click those links again later down further after finding them first time around using something like Google Search Console which tracks clicks between pages within same domain name but don’t always show up correctly without knowing how everything works behind scenes…
This is the takeaway
The takeaway is the main point of your article. It should be clear and concise, and ideally it will summarize the entire article in a single sentence or phrase. The takeaway should also be a call to action, something that prompts the reader to do something next:
- Sign up for my newsletter!
- Subscribe to my podcast!
In this case, our takeaway could be something like “if you want more money in your life, then stop living paycheck-to-paycheck.”
Conclusion
I hope that this guide has helped you to understand the basic process of blog posting and what it takes to write a great one. If you follow the steps outlined above, your blog post will be well on its way towards success!