Generally speaking, there are two types of content that people post to their blogs. Articles and infographics. It is also possible to link to videos and podcasts, but traditionally blogs are written content. If you have a video content strategy (and the skills required to deliver it), please go ahead and create that content. Differentiating yourself from the pack should always be the goal. However, for most people starting a blog, it’s easier to focus on the simpler types of content such as written articles.
This article will cover my personal approach to writing blog posts. I say that this is my approach because some of my practices go against conventional wisdom. However, I feel that it works well for me, and that is why I am sharing my personal approach rather than recycling ten widely known ‘best practices’.
Planning Your Blog Post
Writing a high-quality blog post begins with excellent planning. The need for a plan is why creating a Content Strategy is so important. Content Strategy helps you understand your audience and their needs. Your content plan and strategy always outlines which blog topics will be most effective. Once you have selected an excellent blog post topic, you have the potential for an article to go viral, but at this stage, it is only potential. The next step is turning that potential into a superstar!
A Word About Research
Next comes the research phase. The amount of research you perform will depend on the topic that you’re writing about. Most people recommend doing a lot of research – the more, the better!
I agree that some research is important since your content needs to be accurate. However, I disagree with the ‘more is better’ approach. If you’re writing about a subject which you already have a good level of knowledge and understanding of, I recommend limiting your research to the bare minimum!
Hear me out.
Personally, I feel that limiting my research helps my creativity. I believe that I’m less likely to recycle existing ideas or accidentally copy content (it happens). The lack of research forces me to examine what’s already in my mind or create brand new ideas myself.
Naturally, if you’re going to limit the research, you need to be extremely confident that what you’re writing about is accurate. If you’re writing about an unfamiliar topic, you absolutely have to do a lot of research to make sure you’re not writing “b*llsh*t”.
I’ll put a necessary disclaimer here:
This approach is something that works for me, and I only do it when I am confident about the subject. I would never dream of instructing my team to limit their research before writing a blog post for a client. It is my approach to writing the content published under my own name. I’m sure that many people will disagree with this approach, and that is ok. Don’t follow this advice if you’re not comfortable with it. Horses for courses.
The Blog Content Itself
The next stage involves writing the content itself. I shall not dwell on this section because it is self-explanatory, and everyone has their own approach to content writing. Some people like to plan out several bullet points representing what they will cover and then make sure that they tick off each point off one by one. Other people like to start writing and see what happens.
You can probably guess that I fall under the latter category. That doesn’t mean that I don’t spend a lot of time changing the content after I have finished the first draft. Often the final article reads completely different to what I originally wrote down.
I’m a firm believer that there is not just one way to write a good article. In school, I was the sort of person who got good grades by leaving the studying to the last minute. I didn’t do this because I was lazy, far from it, in the days before an exam I would study 16 hours a day non-stop. This approach just worked for me far better than the traditional way of studying in advance. Whenever I took the extreme last-minute studying approach, I received outstanding grades while whenever I studied the ‘traditional way’ I did not perform as well. Writing is similar, find an approach that works for you and then own it!
“Extra Extra Read All About It”
I recommend leaving the headline for after you have written the content. Again, this goes against a lot of traditional advice since many people believe that you need to have the headline planned first. I believe it makes more sense to write the headline after you know exactly how the content reads. Leaving the title to the end means that it is more likely to match what you’ve written!
I always remember a couple of important tips whenever I write a headline.
1. Your headline has to be grabby – It must hook your audience with something intriguing and make them want to read more. For example, I have titled this post “Writing Blog Posts Like a Rockstar”, that is more intriguing than “How to write a good blog post”.
2. Never overpromise and underdeliver – There is nothing worse than when a headline makes a promise to the reader which the content fails to deliver. When I was first trying to start up my own business, I watched many videos from fake gurus promising “How to quit your job in 30 days guaranteed”. If you were unfortunate enough to watch these videos, you’re treated to 60 minutes of someone repeating the most generic advice imaginable about creating an information product and then it ended with a sales pitch. I assure you, these headlines do nothing else besides proving that you’re a lier.
You’re probably now asking yourself, is the headline of this blog post misleading?
Am I a Rockstar?
No, I had a lot of guitar lessons as a teenager but I never practised so nobody is going to pay to hear me perform. However, I do consider my strategy for writing articles unorthodox perhaps even rebellious to the status quo. So as far as blog writing is concerned, what could be more Rockstar than this?
Lose Some Weight!
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time” – Mark Twain
Once you have written the content, you need to go through it and remove as many words as possible. Remove all the sections where you repeat yourself and remove all unnecessary words such as “very”.
I actually recommend that you search your article for the word “very” and remove it entirely. There is always a much better way to express yourself than saying “very“. It is almost always completely unnecessary!
While you’re cutting down on the word count you should also proofread the content. If you’re not a confident proofreader, you can ask someone else to check your article for you. However, I would prefer that you practice and improve your proofreading ability. I used to be a terrible proofreader because I always missed things. But the more I practised, the better I became. It may take time in the beginning, but it’s a skill worth having if you want to have a successful blog.
Select Images
You need to include images in every blog post. Ideally, you would use your own unique images. However, not everyone is a photographer. Fortunately, there are millions of royalty-free images available on the internet from websites like Pixabay, Shutterstock, Pexels, Unsplash, Freeimages etc.
Curating the best images for your content is a skill in itself, and you’ll get better with practice. I always feel that the best images mix humour with relevance.
You can also support your articles with infographics. You can release each infographic as a blog post by itself as well as in articles. However, infographics need to be well designed. Some basic tips are to focus on a single topic, keep them simple, use plenty of white space, make it an acceptable length and use appealing aesthetics.
Blog Post Search Engine Optimisation
The final step is to optimise the content for search engines. A how-to guide for optimising your blog posts for search engines is worthy of an article of its own, so we can’t cover everything here (keep an eye out because I’ll be releasing such an article shortly).
A high-level list of what you need to do includes, strategically placing keywords in the title, heading, URL, image tags and meta tags. You should also add links to your website and other relevant websites. It also includes means writing enjoyable content (fortunately you’re doing that anyway) and encouraging people to share it.
Rock On!
If you follow the steps covered in this article you’ll be well on your way to writing blog content like a rockstar. Of course, you should only follow the advice that you think will work for you.
This is my personal method of writing, it’s not the universally agreed best to write a blog. I offer the advice for your information not because I think I have a secret method that is much better than everyone else. Some of these tips might work for you, others will not. You’ve got to march to your own drum.
I initially wanted to write this article as a high-level overview. I now realise that I could probably write an entire article for each section of this post because there is so much to cover. So look out for those articles in the not too distant future!