Writing blogs is a great way to boost search engine rankings, attract potential consumers, earn loyal followers and cement your brand as a key influencer in your respective industry.
Quality takes your blog further
While anyone can write a blog and add to white fluff on the internet, it takes skill and strategy to write a blog that readers give merit. Placing an emphasis on quality when writing a blog is essential to maximizing your efforts and the writing’s marketing potential.
Benefits of high-quality blogs
The benefits of quality in any creative production are vast. Writing high-quality blogs is good practice in general, but it will also help you reap marketing benefits, including:
- Attract readers
- Gain loyal audience
- Develop industry voice
Attract readers
Blogs that are well-written, have a strong voice, are easy to follow and stay consistent to brand messaging or education bode well on search engine algorithms, pushing the blog’s host website farther up search rankings, earning greater volumes of traffic.
Attracting readers or potential readers is the first step in generating a platform that will one day invite and host a large audience to rely on your brand for information and entertainment. These same readers will, hopefully, become your purchasers.
Gain loyal audience
As you attract more readers, you have the opportunity to develop a loyal following. A loyal audience will reward you by spreading the word about your platform, sharing your pieces and proving your legitimacy to both future followers and to search algorithms.
Develop industry voice
High-quality blogs communicate that you are thoughtful about your business, your brand, your industry, and niche. The better you write and the more substance you offer, the more seriously prospective buyers will consider your place in the industry and the more likely they are to purchase from you or recommend you to a friend.
How to Write a Good Blog Post
When it comes to writing a good blog post, you want to consider both the elevated style and standard of writing as well as following a thoroughly measured strategy outline. Neither one of these components can carry the blog on its own, so you’ll need dedicated resources and attention to detail to ensure that your team executes well.
Writing a superior blog can be broken down into characteristics to include, steps to follow and tips to pay mind to as you draft and write.
Let’s get started!
Characteristics of a blog
High-quality blogs include superior writing, editing, perspective, and delivery. When writing a quality piece, be mindful of the following blog assets:
Informative
Everything you present to your readers should be informative. If they want to be entertained, they’ll read a book. If a consumer has come to your site, it’s to learn something, be it about you, your industry or products. Inform!
Entertaining
While readers probably aren’t browsing brand blogs just to escape reality, they do need to be entertained to keep reading. Focus on making posts funny, witty, engaging or interesting.
Industry/brand relevance
Keep blogs close to home. Why is what you’re writing about important to your readers and potential consumers? Stay on brand.
Now that you know what areas of excellence to aim for, let’s discuss building the best blog.
Steps of writing a blog
If you’re up for it, keep these steps listed at your desk or in your creative space to follow every you sit down to write a post. If you follow this list each time, you can create a high-quality piece to read.
- Research your audience
- Pick your topic
- Outline the blog
- Master your headlines
- Write the blog
- Call to action
- Edit to perfection
- Optimize for SEO
We can dive into the details of each step.
Research your audience
Before you do anything, even before you decide to commit to writing blogs as a part of your marketing strategy, research your consumers. First, you’ll find out if they read. Second, you’ll find out if they do read, what interests them, how long they read, when they read, why the read, etc.
When researching your audience, find questions to these questions:
- Who are they?
- What do they want?
- What do they not know they want? This last question is a perfect segue to publishing an attention-getting blog post.
Pick your topic
Picking your topic sounds easy enough, but there is a lot to it! Be smart about which topics you write on, when you publish them and why. Before choosing a topic, be sure to:
- Create a list of all potential topic ideas (there will likely be many!)
- Analyze consumer research to determine which topics are most likely to interest readers
Outline the blog
Before you write, draft an outline to follow. Even if you veer from the outline as you write, it’s good to have a shell to keep ideas within the context and organized enough to follow.
As you pre-structure the post, include these items in your outline:
- Keyword placement: where will keywords have the most effect and flow?
- Flow: what is the best way to present this information to the reader?
- Structure time management: given the outline sections, you can appropriately designate time to each blog part
Master the headlines
Some of your readers will only read your headlines and others will only read your writing if your headlines are decent. Include keywords and make sure your headlines are:
- Compelling
- Take advantage of sub-headings to dive deeper
Write the blog
Once you have a plan in place and research to fuel your content, start writing! Keep it engaging and entertaining and try to do the following:
- Stick to your outline
- Inform and educate, even if you’re cracking a joke
- Overwrite (this will make editing easier than if you haven’t written enough)
Call to action
At the end of the post, write a clear and actionable step your reader can take. Wisely decide if you want to ask for an email address or a comment after reading. The more accessible and relevant the CTA, the more likely its execution.
Remember, when writing a CTA:
- Be clear
- Be reasonable
Edit to perfection
After letting your blog sit a day, edit two or three times before publishing. As you or somebody else edits, look out for the following:
- Grammar
- Punctuation
- Context
- Flow
Optimize for SEO
Before you publish your post, make sure you’ve checked all the SEO boxes so it can rank well and earn more readers.
You can follow these SEO essentials in your outline:
- Meta Title
- Meta descriptions
- Focus keyword
- Related keywords
- Interlink
Got it all? Great! Now, we have a few expert tips to share to really make your piece shine.
32 Tips for Writing a Blog Post
When writing your post, you’ll follow your outline and research to produce a quality piece. If you want to go the extra mile and tilt readers toward repeat visits and shares, follow these pieces of advice below.
When researching your audience…
- Go above and beyond, searching interests outside of your industry to connect dots
- Use a data collection tool such as:
- Quora
- SEMRush
- Twitter Advanced search
- KewordTool.io
When picking your topic…
- Make sure it’s interesting to your readers
- Make it useful to your reader’s life
- Keep it relevant to your brand and industry
- Research to ensure it’s a unique idea or spin
- Question if it has potential for length and depth
- Question if it’ll be useful or relevant in 3 years
- Thoroughly evaluate consumer research
- Look out for high volume and low competition when researching keywords
When making the outline…
- Do it every single time
- Thoughtfully place keywords
- Outline the essentials:
- intro
- headings
- sub-headings
- bullet points
- alt. format sections
- conclusion
- Creatively break away if you want to
When crafting smart headlines…
- Let keyword research guide you
- Be action-oriented
- Stick to positive language
When writing the blog…
- Don’t force it, be yourself
- Research first so you have plenty to say and solid context
- Write in the morning before you’re tired or not excited
- Don’t edit as you go, it will waste time and break your focus/flow
- Overwrite so you have plenty of content to edit down
- Save conclusion and introduction for last
When calling to action…
- Be straightforward and clear
- Keep it relevant to the post’s subject matter
- Don’t ask for too much, make it easy to comply
When editing to perfection…
- Wait a day to edit so you can review the material fresh
- Have somebody else read it so easy errors aren’t overlooked, context is sound and flow is easy to follow
- Preview layout before publishing to see how the reader will digest the info
- Proofread again before publishing, always!
When optimizing for SEO…
- Focus on the essentials and basics, don’t get lost in the clutter of SEO potential
- Use a checklist to ensure you’ve included the bare minimum
Are you ready to write a stellar blog post? Let us help you!
Rosy Strategies provides superior marketing solutions to brands who want to grow and make an impact in their industry. If you are searching for help on drafting ideal blog posts or curating a blog strategy that complements business goals, get in touch with our team at Rosy Strategies today.