In our previous blog, we explored some of the ways we can use content marketing to keep our customers engaged with our offerings and brand. With a variety of content types to choose from, it can be hard to get started. A good starting place for content creation is blog posts.
Blog posts are a collection of regularly posted articles that share information to your audience. Varying in length and content, blogs tend to be an informal way to keep in touch with your users. Blogs can be used to educate, promote, and push brand awareness for your company. Before we dive into how to write a blog, let’s explore some of the types of blogs we can write.
Types of Blogs
There are many types of blogs on the internet today. In order to determine what kind of content you want to create, you will need to have a good understanding of the way your audience communicates and digests content. A few types of blogs we can consider starting with are:
- Tutorial Blogs: These blogs help teach and guide readers on a topic. They can be comprehensive, step-by-step blogs or even a collection of general tips. If your customer base is interested in learning, sharing your insights through blog posts can catch their interest.
- News Blogs: These blogs aim to share recent information that may affect your audience. These updates could be directly about your company or about other important occurrences that will affect your business and customers. Keeping your audience up to date on factors that will impact them can be valuable to your readers.
- List Based Blogs: These blogs can vary in terms of topics or goals, but generally share a list of similar topics. A list of the pros and cons of hosting products, for example, would fall into this category. Informing your users of multiple solutions or things to consider through a list blog can help them make educated decisions and even better understand your offerings.
What blog type you choose to write will depend on your expertise and customer base. What information or insights do you have or want to share? What are your customers interested in? Answer these questions to better determine what kind of blog may best suit your business.
How to Start blog Post
Getting started is the hardest part of most projects and writing a blog post is no different. There are three steps we must take when determining what we are going to write:
Choose a topic
When choosing your topic, consider your ideal customer’s interests and concerns. What problems do they struggle with? Why do they purchase your products? How can you help them? By connecting your expertise to something they care about, you can define a topic that will be both interesting and valuable to your customer.
Research your topic
One thing to remember when writing blogs is that you are not expected to be an expert immediately on the topic you are writing about. Consider your knowledge when thinking about what you want to write, but also research your topic by reading similar blogs, listening to podcasts, analyzing courses, and so forth.
Note: Gaps in Knowledge can Offer Opportunities to create something Unique
An important detail to note when researching a topic is what is missing or incomplete. If there are gaps in information being shared about your topic, you may be able to fill that gap in your own writing. By providing new knowledge to the context of your topic, your blog can stand out amongst others.
Write an outline
After your have collected notes on your topic, write an outline about what you want to share and how you want to share it. Creating structure helps you both share information in an organized way, but also see visually if your ideas are connecting like you thought they would. When writing your outline, consider the structure of your blog along alongside the topic you are discussing and the solutions you are providing.
Writing your Blog
Most blogs are structured with an introduction, body, and conclusion. Following this structure can help get your started on writing a piece that is complete and easily digestible. However, there are multiple details to consider while writing your blog.
Titles & Headings
When writing a blog, you will eventually need to decide on a title for it. Titles can be determined at any time as you write your blog. Some blog titles are clear and concise, such as “How to decorate a Christmas Tree,” while others are intentionally vague, such as “10 things you shouldn’t do when decorating a Christmas Tree.” Both of these hypothetical blogs could contain the same details and insights, but they work to attract different audiences. Consider what titles would attract your specific reader base.
Beyond titles, your article may contain multiple subheadings that divide your article. Headings make your blog more palatable and easier to understand. When considering your headings, or even your title, keep in mind the keywords your audience associates with the topic you are writing about. How do they communicate about this topic? What words are they using to search information about these topics? Determining important keywords around your topic can help you not only communicate effectively with your audience, but also improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Writing Introductions
Introductions are said to be the hardest part of writing a blog. However, the main goals of an intro are to catch your reader’s interest and provide them a brief explanation of what your blog is going to be about. Your introduction could present a problem that your readers are struggling with and then explain how the following blog will provide solutions or insight into that problem. The “hook” of your intro will depend on your audience, but overall, readers should understand who this blog is for and what value it will share when reading your introduction.
Creating the Body of your Blog
The body of your blog will be where the meat of your insights reside. In the body, your audience should learn about the details or solutions your introduction said your blog would discuss. Making sure this information is easy to read and understand is key. A few factors to keep in mind to help readability are:
- Keep your sentence and paragraph length in mind:When writing the body of your text, you will want to make sure your sentences are easy to digest. Keeping your sentences short can help readers take in your topic in small bites. The size of your paragraphs at first glance can also encourage or discourage your audience from reading your blog. Use paragraphs to break up your text and keep them as small as you can, maxing them out at about three to five sentences.
- Highlight important aspects of your blog: While we want our audience to read our blogs, there are many readers who will want to quickly find the insights we are offering. Making our blogs skimmable can make them more valuable to such readers. One way we can emphasize important moments in our blogs is by bolding or highlighting them.
- Link to existing content:While reading our blogs, some readers may find themselves confused or interested in specific factors surrounding our topics. If we have other blogs or resources that can offering our audience more reading or insights, we can link those into our current blog. By linking to other content, we also add more value to the page in terms of SEO.
- Use images when needed: Images can be used in our blogs to break up text as well as provide further detail into complicated topics. For example, tutorials can be enhanced with the use of images to help guide the reader not only through words, but with visuals.
Concluding your Thoughts
At the end of your blog, not only can you finish up your thoughts, but you can also offer actions for your readers to take. If they liked this blog, what can they do next? In your conclusion, you can use Call to Actions (CTAs) to guide your reader towards a next step. These CTAs could be as simple as reading more blogs or could be a promotion for your products and services. Conclusions can also be a place to ask your users for feedback on the topic, opening a channel for communication.
Note: Consistency is Key
When writing blogs, the main thing to remember is to keep writing them! Having a regular schedule of blogs can keep your audience engaged and deepen the connection they have with your company.
Want to learn more about content creation?
Writing blogs is just one type of content we can use to connect with our customers and bring more traffic to our websites. Explore our other blogs to learn more about what you can do to improve your site! If you are interested in a more hands-on course about how to optimize your website, join the waitlist for Carrie Saunders’ upcoming course, “The Converting Website.” In this course, she will dive into important factors that aim to increase the conversion rates of your site!
