There are so many aspects to writing a blog — setting up your own website, images and the like, but this blog just talks about how to approach writing a blog. Baby steps and all that.
I’m potentially putting myself in the line of fire here, writing a blog about how to write a blog. But there are no hard and fast rules here (in my opinion), so I can let out a sigh of relief in advance.
So many people ask;
- What is a blog?
- How do I write a blog?
Good news…they are easy questions to answer and anybody can do it.
Google defines a blog as;
So let’s get started
1) Why are you writing a blog in the first place and who are you writing it for?
For keyword optimisation? Because you have been told to? Or because there is a topic you care so much about that you could easily write an e-book about it?
Whatever the reason, you need to make sure that whatever you promised to your audience is what you gave them. Don’t get self-indulgent and try to prove in 500 words how much you know about a subject. Keep to a focus. If things aren’t necessary and don’t add value to the key takeaway, leave it out. Simples.
2) Create a headline worth the click
And make it relate to what you are writing about. Don’t have a headline of ’27 Amazing Blog Titles’ if not one of them is amazing. That’s clickbait.
It’s wasting people’s time and chances are they won’t click on your next blog. A psychmatters article, written by Vicky Laing includes a brilliant presentation by web psychologist Nathalie Nahai featuring how to write a killer headline.
3) Be you
This is the easy bit. Write how you talk. Blogs should be informal and conversational, so reading somebody’s blog should feel like you are actually listening to that person talk in front of you.
4) Make life easy
Have you ever read a blog and switched off or given up? If you are feeling that right now then I have admittedly failed, or have I? But essentially….Write something that you’d like to read yourself and something that you can read in a matter of minutes.
That means creating a structure and telling a story (between 500-1000 words roughly).
Where do you start and where do you want to end up? Introduce some relevant visuals to break up the content and to further illustrate your point. Break up your content into headings or bullet points. Most of us scan content in an F-Shape Pattern, which means it is particularly important to grab your readers attention and in all the right places.
It’s also important to include quality links in your blog that directs the reader to extra supplementary info that might enhance their knowledge on the subject and see you as a thought leader. This could also increase your domain authority and Google rankings. But that’s a chat for another day.
5) C-T-A
Calls to action! Remember the key takeaway I was talking about? Well, this is it. What do you want your reader to do next after reading the blog? Leave with a key piece of information? Buy a product? Fill in a form? Whatever it is, include a way they can carry out that action and include a link if you need to.
For example;
So there you have it. It’s time to put pen to paper or hand to keyboard and get writing!
Extra tip: Read other blogs. A great way to see how others do it and keep improving the way you do it.
For more tips on what makes for great content, check out some of our blogs or give us a call on 0116 2986332 to see how we can help you with your content.
