Effective Blog Writing Tips For Beginners
A blog post is an excellent method to express your views and thoughts to the rest of the world. But more than being an avenue for creative expression, blogs can significantly increase website traffic, backlinks, and social media shares.
To have a dominating online presence, informative, concise, and entertaining content is required; and a blog post is an excellent material to exhibit those qualities.
It is recommended to publish new blog entries regularly. By doing so, you'll have a fresh stream of material for your email newsletters and higher chances to rank at the top of search engine results pages.
The benefits of blogs to your web presence can be massive. However, we can't deny that there are times it's a bit challenging to start a blog and we spend a significant amount of time just staring at an empty page which can sometimes lead to what we call writer's block.
So, to assist you in becoming more productive in your blogs, we have compiled blog writing tips that worked effectively for us. Continue reading to enhance your blog writing skills right away.
What Makes a Good Blog Post?
A good blog post speaks to a target audience.
Before anything else, it is not a good blog post when no one will read it. You have to identify your target audience first, then speak for them. Write something relatable to your audience or something that will spark a need for them. Keep your blog post as simple as possible as you are writing for your peers so that it is easier to understand.
A good blog post speaks to the same audience the whole time.
Writing a blog is like writing a story. It is not just a simple question-and-answer page. Yes, being straightforward in resolving your audiences’ needs is essential. However, it would help retain your readers' attention if your blog is engaging and there is a build-up as to what your readers are getting into.
A good blog post is quick and easy to read.
Most of the time, readers only get interested in reading your blog when they have questions that can be answered by it. Regardless of its length, your readers won’t stay on your page for long if it isn't easy to read. To remedy this, divide your content into sections and make it skimmable. Most readers only skim through the headers or the highlighted sections of your blog, and when something catches their attention, they read its entire content.
A good blog post provides interesting and useful content.
Sometimes, as writers, we get too many ideas in our heads, and as much as possible, we want to write them up in a blog. But it is not always that those ideas are coherent with one another. This is why having a blog with one encompassing thought is important. Remember, a blog post should not only be interesting but also provides value to your readers.
Elements of a Good Blog Post
1. Attention-Grabbing Headline
An attention-grabbing headline is comparable to an elevator pitch. This is not to say that your headline must be sentences long, but it should deliver the needed information that will pique the interest of your readers. Your headline must provide what your blog post is all about, wanting them to at least initially read your first paragraph.
2. A compelling Lead Paragraph
Moving forward, your lead paragraph must be compelling enough to immerse your reader in reading the succeeding paragraphs. There is no need for you to be flowery in your words before getting to a point. However, you must maintain that build-up to make your readers want to read more. Maybe, you can present and lay out your ideas in a single statement with an invitation to read more on its elaboration in the following paragraphs. Write it in a manner that they will not regret reading further but rather appreciate your ideas.
3. An Engaging and Informative Body
Your body will explain your main topic and expound on your arguments. This is your chance to elaborate on your thoughts and provide supporting rationale. Your body does not have to follow a rigid structure, but it has to be organized according to how you presented your ideas in your lead paragraph. An organized way to lay out your thoughts is by presenting them through bullet points or subheads and then writing their corresponding body below.
4. A Convincing Call-To-Action
A call-to-action is something you should never forget in your blog article. This is an avenue for you to decide on what action you want your readers to take after reading your blog post. Be as creative as you can. Your call-to-action can encourage them to comment, book a discovery call, share, read another blog post, or even buy your product or avail of your offered service. It is important to make your call-to-action as convincing as possible.
Effective Blog Writing Tips
1. Decide on a Topic
You cannot write a blog post without deciding on a topic. You cannot just write all your thoughts in one go and consider it a blog article. An effective blog writing tip is to write for a topic that is relevant to your readers. Leverage the frequently asked questions, as it means a lot are wondering about them, and it is your job to shed light on those questions by answering them through your blog. Brainstorm those questions and make them into blog topics.
2. Create an Outline
Before you begin writing your blog post, a very effective blog writing tip is to create an outline. Your outline must contain a list of the main points you want to tackle, divide the ideas into themes, and then arrange them in a logical progression. However, keep in mind that your outline is not final, and you can expand on certain ideas or eliminate some points moving forward if you deem it not fit for your blog article as you begin writing.
3. Make it SEO-Appropriate
Blog articles are a great way to generate significant traffic to your website with the help of search engines. By adding keywords, you can optimize your blog articles to be SEO-friendly but not to the point where you neglect who you are writing for. You can make your blog articles SEO-appropriate by adding those keywords but remember how search engines prioritize the value your content will give readers. Your priority should be writing for your readers and then incorporating keywords for SEO. An effective blog writing tip is to insert your keywords as naturally as possible and don’t force a keyword, especially if it doesn’t fit the article you are writing.
4. Make it Skimmable
After writing a compelling lead paragraph, break your body into subheads or bullet points. Readers who have no time to read an entire article just skim through paragraphs and read the part they think is relevant for them. With this, an effective blog writing tip is to make your paragraphs as concise as possible for them to be easier to read.
5. Attach Related Graphics
Images visually split long texts to make it easier for readers to skim through the entire, making it easier for readers to scan. Graphics can also aid in the illustration of your idea. When citing research or particular data, add a graph or diagram that visualizes the data.
6. Provide a Call-To-Action
Providing a call-to-action is something you should never forget when writing a blog post. An effective blog writing tip when writing call-to-actions is encouraging your readers to take the next step in your sales funnel. Your call-to-action does not necessarily have to be a sales pitch, as most readers do not read your blog for those.
7. Review your Blog Post before Posting
When you've finished a post, save it and revisit it shortly with a clear head and fresh perspective. Check it for grammatical problems, and ensure you've conveyed your ideas clearly, with arguments running logically following one another. Examine your title again to determine if you can incorporate a relevant keyword. If feasible, have someone else proofread your work for errors to ensure it flows properly.
How Long Should Blog Posts Be?
After doing extensive industry research and examining our own performance, we discovered that the perfect blog article length is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 words, with an ideal range of around 2,450 words. When you keep your blog posts within this range, they are more inclined to achieve higher rankings in search engines and receive more backlinks and social media shares. While these figures represent a decent starting point, there is no "one size fits all" answer because various topics need varying levels of material richness.
Conclusion
Regularly posting content is one of the strongest decisions you can make for the long-term growth of your website. So put these effective blog writing tips into action for a more comprehensive website and to rank higher in search engine ranking pages!
But if you're having problems getting started with content marketing, or if your website isn't catching visitors and enabling your business to expand, SMART VAs can assist you in rebuilding your website and creating original blog entries for your company! Book a discovery call with us now!
