When Elizabeth decided to begin ER Marketing Services, she was drawn to writing projects. This is how she became a content writer and strategist for business owners specializing in blog posts. newsletters, website content & SEO, and social media. These are the team’s awesome blog post-making steps.
Make A Post Idea List
You might already have one of these. It’s that scrap piece of paper with all of your writing ideas, or it’s the “Amazing Ideas!” text file on your computer.
If you don’t have an idea list, it’s a great way to have all of your strokes of writing genius accessible in one place, and a great starting point for future awesome blog posts.
It also makes it easy to review which ideas that you have already acted on: highlight them, colour code them, do what you will with them that fits your organizational style.
Create A Post Release Plan
All your awesome blog post ideas are now in a neat little pile, waiting to be picked for the writing stage. Now it’s time to pick the topic for your first post: but what about the second post, and the one after that?
Sometimes you really want to start writing on one topic, but after looking through your idea bank you find one that might make a bit more sense to release first. This might be because it will talk about one of the building blocks in another post.
Making a plan of release will help you find that starting point. Find the topic that will become the foundation of your future content and act on that one first. Then, decide what the follow-up will be, and suddenly you’ll be on an effective writing schedule.
Make An Outline
The topic has been picked and you’ve opened up your word processer to get going on your first post, but where to start? What should you talk about first?
Every good post starts with a solid outline. This is the framework of your post and can be as in-depth as you need it to be to organize your thoughts into words. It doesn’t need to be the classic “essay sandwich” format either – if you have a lot to say, load up your outline into a hero!
Feel free to use our free How To Set Up The Perfect Blog Post reference guide if you need some inspiration or guidance to get you started.
Write An Eye-Catching Headline
A good headline is extremely important for an awesome blog post. This is the first thing that someone sees in their Google search and is the biggest, boldest bit of writing that they’ll see on your post.
Write a headline that tells the user what to expect and gives a quick look into what’s inside. For example: “12 Easy Steps to Create an Awesome Blog Post.” Easy and exactly the kind of steps a blog writer would be looking for.
Try to avoid excessive click-baiting, however. Readers don’t like red herrings.
Write Your Post’s Body and Make it Persuasive!
While the headline is what hooks the reader, the body of your post is what makes them stay on that hook. Every bit of writing in your post should persuade the reader to keep on going and should be worth their time reading.
While you’re writing, keep the following in mind:
- Is this post likeable?
- Am I being genuine?
- Is my writing confident?
If you keep that list in mind while writing, your readers will keep reading.
Know Your Audience
After half an hour of writing the first post for your entrepreneurship blog, you realize that it’s a bit of a dense read. There’s a lot of long sentences and some word that you haven’t used since that one twelve-page essay in high school!
Always remember to write for who will be reading and to make sure that your audience will understand. You don’t need to fill the post with ten-dollar words: you need to write content that your readers will understand.
Entrepreneurship and marketing blogs should use words that entrepreneurs and marketers understand, but also remember to keep it basic enough for the average reader to keep up with. There are lots of tools such as the Hemingway Editor that are available to make sure your awesome blog post has good readability.
Give Your Awesome Blog Post some Narrative Flair
Readers like a good story. Feel free to throw in that story from the marketing seminar or business conference last year if it’s relevant to your post.
The best advice for adding flair to your awesome blog post is to write like it’s a picture. Be descriptive, throw power adjectives and verbs to communicate your meaning.
You’re not writing a textbook, you’re writing a blog.
Add A Clear Call To Action
The last few lines of your post should be a summary conclusion and a call to action. This can be a newsletter or email sign-up form or a more straightforward call to share your awesome blog post.
Calls to action can also use a guiding question as their starting point, with the actual action being the answer to that question.
Think about something like this: “What’s your favourite awesome business blog? Want to find out how to write your own? Subscribe to my newsletter below!”
Edit Your Post, Then Edit It Again
Congratulations! The first draft of the awesome blog post has been written, and now you have a big, beautiful chunk of text that takes up far more space than you ever expected. Time to edit your post!
Editing isn’t solely about shrinking down the size of your post, though. It’s also about making sure that it reads right. Reading your post out loud can help find parts of your writing that are mixed up: If you stumble over yourself while reading it, give it a quick edit to fix that block.
After that first edit, give it another once-over yourself in case you might have missed something. If you can get a peer or colleague to look it over, do that too! A fresh set of eyes always helps.
Format Your Post For Easy Reading
Reading massive blocks of text can be really straining on both the brain and the eyes. After you’ve done some editing, see how well it’s spaced out. Try and clump separate different ideas under different headings and space out the paragraphs that are slightly different to make them more distinct.
Another word of advice: Your paragraphs can absolutely be one sentence if it makes sense.
Bullet points and numbered lists can also make more informative sections of your posts much more readable. They also have the added perk of standing out from the rest of your paragraph and catching the eye of the reader.
Optimize Your Post’s SEO
Your post should have optimal SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. This will make it more likely for your blog to be found if someone searches for it on the internet.
Lots of blog websites have integrated add-ons, like Yoast, to do this for you. They help you establish keywords and phrases that will make searches favour your post more than others.
Add Interesting Images To Your Post
A picture is worth a thousand words and that goes for your blog post as well!
Websites like Canva give you access to the tools needed to make engaging graphics and images for your blog.
It always helps to get a splash of colour or a relevant image in your blog to help support the writing, and it gives the reader a break from the text.
Conclusion
Let’s round up our steps:
- Make an Idea Bank
- Create a Plan of Release
- Make an Outline
- Write an Eye-Catching Headline
- Write your Body and Make it Persuasive
- Know Your Audience
- Give it some Narrative Flair
- Add a Clear Call to Action
- Edit, then Edit Again
- Format it for Easy Reading
- Optimize the SEO
- Add Interesting Images
These twelve steps will help you to make your own awesome blog post and will help you keep them coming once you’ve got that first one out the door.
I hope that these tips will keep your writing clear and engaging, and your readers coming back for more!
Wondering how to get some more spring in your start-up blog’s step? The Easy Blog Post Checklist for Entrepreneurs is a quick checklist to optimize your posts.
