How to Write a Blog Post in 6 Steps – Beginners Friendly Guide
For the purposes of this blog post, we will presume that you know your niche and your target audience. These two are the first and two most important steps in blogging.
Also, it helps if you have a list of ideas for what you want to blog about. No worries if you don’t, but it might be a good time to start writing down your ideas.
0. Niche and Audience
This is your baseline for blogging because if you don’t know your niche and your audience, blogging makes no sense.
Know what to write about and for who before you go any further.
1. An idea
All good things start with an idea, why not blog post as well? I like to write down my ideas in a paper planner (I’m old), but any note app will do good for this.
A list of ideas will help you get a clearer picture of what you can write about, all you need to do is choose the one you will further develop and shape into a blog post.
2. Keywords
Now it’s time to do a little research on possible keywords and find the one you’ll focus on. Remember to write for people and not for Google.
There are plenty of great tools (paid and free) you can use to search for the best keyword, I use these 3:
- Keyword planner by Google — this is the one I use the most;
- Keywords Everywhere Google Chrome extension — after I finish with Keyword planner I hop on Google to see what suggestion Keywords Everywhere gives me;
- Ubbersuggest — I also like checking Ubersuggest, just to have more keyword ideas.
3. Headline
Some people write headlines at the end, I like to do it before I start writing because it gives me a sense of direction.
Usually, I write a few and then choose the best one using Headline Studio (there is a great new AI feature that can help you shape up your headline).
4. Outline
Honestly, I skip this step when I’m really inspired and just start writing. Most of the time I will create an outline of my blog post and include these elements:
- headings — how many I will have, titles (include keywords where I can) …;
- internal links — is there a blog post or a page you can link this post to? Great, write down the title and include it later;
- external links — any tools or resources you mention in your blog post that you can link to (Yoast calls them outbound links);
- lead magnets — if I have a lead magnet that is related to the subject I’m writing about, I will include it in the blog post (embed the subscription form or landing page).
5. Write
When you have everything prepared, it’s time to start writing. Check the outline to see where you’ll put headlines and everything else you can include.
I use the Grammarly extension to make editing the blog post easier. After I complete editing, I start inserting links and forms for subscribers.
6. Images
Now the writing and linking are complete, you can focus on finding the best-suiting cover photo, and the ones you will use for Pins.
Easily create Pins in Canva (or your preferred design program) and include them in the post.
Now your blog post is ready to be published or scheduled.
This post was originally published on Medium.
