5 Simple Steps to Writing an Awesome Blog Post

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It’s not surprising why consumers find ads annoying.

An average American sees 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day. However, only a few of these ads offer value to consumers.

Also, the majority of consumers see ads as intrusive. They type “blocked heels” in Google’s search bar. After a minute, they get bombarded with ads about blocked heels across their social media accounts.

People’s distaste for ads can block the success of your digital marketing efforts. The solution? Try creating a positive online customer experience.

Random ads that add nothing to day-to-day living can put consumers in an immediate state of disdain for your brand. So instead of interrupting their online activities with mere posters and videos of your products or services, go for engaging and creatively driven content.

What is blogging?

In 1994, Swarthmore College student Justin Hall made the first blog: Links.net. However, his creation wasn’t called a blog at the time—just a personal homepage.

Later, people saw Hall’s idea as a novel opportunity to communicate information online. Thus, the word blog, short for weblog, was born.

Basically, a blog is analogous to a diary or journal. It allows internet users to talk about the details of their day or share information or opinion on various topics.

Blogging became a huge hit, especially in the United States. The number of bloggers in the country reached 31.7 million in 2020.

Today, blogging isn’t limited to individuals. Businesses also use blogging as a digital marketing tactic to get more online visibility.

Why is blogging important for your business?

Blogging is a great way to strengthen your virtual presence, especially when you partner with a Google Ads expert. You can get existing and prospective customers to visit your website by posting frequent and consistent content. You can also promote your blog posts on social media to attract engagement among your followers and subscribers. Apart from these, blogging offers the following benefits:

• It adds value to consumers.
• It establishes brand authority.
• It builds rapport with customers.
• It drives conversions.
• It differentiates your products or services from others.

How to make your blog posts awesome?

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters from Unsplash

Writing engaging and creative blog posts is not an easy feat. You can run out of words and topics to write. Besides not giving up, another key ingredient to successful blogging is organization. You need to have a process you can follow to avoid getting stuck or lost. Below is a short and simple step-by-step guide to writing awesome blog posts.

Step 1: Make a plan

Planning is an essential ingredient to writing a fantastic blog post. You must ensure you have everything you need before you sit down and write. Skipping the planning stage guarantees you a ticket to failure. You’ll be directionless, leading to a waste of valuable time and tons of money.

Apart from a sense of direction, planning also has other benefits:

• It helps you keep sight of your goals.
• It lets you focus on the anticipated results.
• It enables you to anticipate problems.
• It allows you to cope with sudden changes.
• It guides you with decision-making.

You don’t have to be an expert at planning to be great at it. Here are the four Cs to get you started:

• Choose a topic. When choosing a topic to write, live by the “no fun for the writer, no fun for the reader” maxim. As such, go for a topic that interests you.
• Create an outline. No matter how great of a writer you are, you need a rough guide to stay on track. This is where an outline comes in handy.
• Conduct research. The truth is that writers don’t know everything. Even so, you can write like an expert about a subject by thoroughly doing a research.
• Check facts. Don’t settle with Wikipedia. Instead, opt for credible sources, such as journal articles, books, and official websites.

Step 2: Come up with a great headline

The importance of a great headline is often understated. More than 40% of online users admit to skimming blog posts. However, about 80% of them never make it past the headline.

In other words, your headline creates the first impression. As such, make sure you make a good one. Otherwise, your blog post will get less or no attention, no matter how relevant and informative it is.

A great headline lets you reap the benefits of blogging. In particular, it can increase your website’s traffic by as much as 500%. Don’t feel too pressured, though! Here are some tips to help you come up with a great headline:

• Use persuasive language. Besides attracting readers, your headline should also convince them to read your blog post and take the next steps (e.g., subscribe to your newsletter, make a purchase). A persuasive language you can incorporate into your headline is one that offers a solution to a problem, like “How to Write a Great Headline.”
• Avoid passive voice. Active voice is easier to understand than passive voice. According to Purdue Writing Lab, using active voice is preferred because it prevents the statement from becoming too wordy or complicated.
• Use keywords. Including a keyword in your title can improve your search rankings. Also, it helps search engine platforms, like Google, to categorize web pages. Thus, it’s easy for users to find what they’re searching for online.
• Focus on the what, why, when, who, and how. “10 Best Blogging Books for Every Aspiring Blogger to Read in 2022 and Profit From” is an excellent example of a great headline. It answers what (i.e., best blogging books), why (i.e., to make a profit), when (i.e., in 2022), who (i.e., aspiring bloggers), and how (i.e., read ten blogging books).

Step 3: Start writing

Now that you got a plan and a great headline, you’re ready to begin writing your blog post. You can take either of the two approaches: write an entire draft in one sitting or go at it gradually over time.

There’s no right or wrong answer. Pick whatever works for you. After all, writing varies from one person to another. Some can complete a blog post within several hours, while others need a couple of days to finish.

Whichever approach you choose, the following ways may help your writing go smoothly:

• Write a captivating introduction. Readers who lose interest in the first few sentences of the introduction will most likely stop reading the entire blog post. You can grab their attention by starting your blog post with a story, a joke, or an interesting fact or statistic. Remember that the introduction is often the most challenging part of a blog post. Thus, you may want to write it last.
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Short sentences and paragraphs can maintain readers’ interest. After all, humans have a short attention span. As much as possible, limit your writing to the necessary things.
• Avoid repetition. Aside from long sentences and paragraphs, readers also hate the repetition of words or phrases. Try carrying a thesaurus every time you write. Look for synonyms of a term you’ve already used, but be sure you apply it correctly.
• Don’t use a third-person point of view. Readers want a relatable blog post. Writing in third person prevents you from establishing a connection with readers. So replace he or she with you. 

Step 4: Use images

Sometimes, words aren’t enough to entice your target audience to read your blog post. Hence, you need to add photos to your blog post to make it more interesting.

After all, a picture paints a thousand words. Also, readers are lazy and want to get information as fast as possible. However, you can’t just put any images as you please. You can learn from the following tips:

• Use your own photos or artwork. You may not be a photographer, and your pictures may not be perfect, but they’ll be a lot more personal than stock photos. Plus, you don’t need to worry about legality since any images you create are automatically copyrighted to you.
• Check for legality. If you need to take photos from the internet for your blog post, find out first whether you’re legally allowed to use them. You wouldn’t want to be sued for copyright infringement! You can take good-quality images for free from Unsplash, Freepik, and Pixabay.
• Optimize images. Images have a large file size, which can cause your website to lag. FYI, users abandon a mobile website that takes longer than three seconds to load. To avoid such a tragedy, optimize your images so that you can keep their quality high but their file size low. You can do so manually (e.g., resizing or compressing) or using an image optimizer tool.
• Place as many images as possible, but don’t go overboard. Don’t liken your blog to Instagram or Pinterest. You shouldn’t use images for decoration. Instead, you use them to make a point. 

Step 5: Do some editing

Last but not least, don’t forget to edit your work. Editing goes beyond fixing grammatical errors, correcting spellings, and striking through unnecessary sentences. It also includes ensuring cohesion in the main ideas.

Writing a blog post is hard, but editing may be more challenging. Here are some tips to improve your editing skills:

• Proofread more than once. Identifying and revising too many things at once can make you lose focus. Ultimately, you’ll miss other errors. To ensure your blog post is perfect, read through it several times, with each reading looking at spelling, punctuation, grammar, and so on.
• Don’t solely rely on automatic grammar checkers. Some automatic grammar checkers, including popular ones, offer suggestions that can turn your sentences into nonsense. Like humans, technology commits mistakes too. Thus, don’t rely on just either.
• Read your post aloud. It may be weird, but you can actually spot awkward phrases or sentences by reading your writing out loud.
• Have someone else read your work. Have a third party examine your writing. It would be better to ask someone with writing or editing experience. Besides spotting typos and grammatical errors, tell the person to focus on the flow and structure of your blog post.

Conclusion

Writing a relevant and informative blog post doesn’t happen overnight. It requires thorough planning, which includes choosing a topic, creating an outline, conducting research, and checking facts. Besides planning, you should also develop a great headline and a captivating introduction. Once you finish these steps, you can start writing your blog post. However, don’t settle with just words. Use images to make your message clearer. Once you complete the draft, make sure to proofread it several times. Of course, be patient. Awesomeness takes time and effort.