Want to learn how to write an amazing blog post? Of course, that’s why you’re here. Writing is a skill, and like other skills, you can learn and master it. But it sure takes a lot of time to master the art of writing.
Anyone can write, but the quality is what matters the most. Writing engaging blog post is one of the many problems new bloggers have to face. After all, as a blogger, writing is the only way you can connect with your readers.
It’s simple – good blogs have good blog posts while your average blog has average blog posts. The quality that you see in the popular blog posts is a result of the practice of many years. It’s doesn’t mean newbies can’t write good blog posts.
Like every skill – writing also has some basic rules which apply everywhere. If you apply these basic rules in your blog post then it’ll be much better. Only after some months of writing, you can develop a writing style.
Writing an amazing blog post isn’t a skill you can learn, but you should if you wish to be a successful blogger. Or else, your blog will be lost in the millions of blogs that are published daily. You won’t want that to happen. Right?
So, here are some tips which will help you to craft a perfect blog post. (Remember to apply these tips.)
20 Things To Remeber For Writing A Perfect Blog Post
Know About Your Audience
The first thing you need to do is to know what kind of audience you’re going to target. Only when you know for whom you have to write you can start writing a blog post. Many bloggers write for everyone, that’s why they fail. Targetting everyone is just stupid.
You have to know your readers persona i.e, in simple words understanding your readers. For example – I’m a blogger, in this blog, I blog about blogging so my target audience is bloggers who want to learn about blogging. It’s as simple as that.
Whenever I write I keep in mind what new and professional bloggers alike want to learn. I write for them, I think of myself as a reader and if I like what I wrote then it’s good. Knowing the target audience (or niche) is essential for a blog post’s success.
Brainstorm Your Ideas
When you’re new to blogging it’s very easy to come up with new blog post ideas. But as time passes these ideas slow down, you just can’t think of something to write even if you want to. It’s a problem that all bloggers have faced, yes even the pros.
As a fellow blogger, I know almost every blogger goes through the pain of not getting ideas for blog posts. Putting content on blogs is important for that we have to beat the writer’s block, and brainstorming ideas are one way to do it.
Now the questions arise – How to brainstorm ideas for a blog post? How to get new blog post ideas daily?
No need to fret, here are some ways in which you can easily brainstorm ideas for your blog post –
- Read other blogs – See what other bloggers in your niche are writing about.
- Search on social media – Find what’s trending in your niche and write about it.
- Use blog idea generators – Make use of blog content ideas generators to get new content.
- Take notes – Amazing ideas can come to the mind at any moment, always have something to note down your ideas.
These were some ways in which you can brainstorm ideas for your next blog post. There are a lot of topics to write about in every niche. All you gotta do is get some quality time to focus (don’t get much distracted.)
Keyword Research Is Critical
Now, it’s important to do keyword research after you have got ideas for your blog post. Many bloggers who overlook this and end up getting nil organic traffic to their blog posts. Ignoring keyword research is the reason some sites with high DA don’t get much traffic.
Unless you are fully dependent on social media traffic don’t even think of skipping it. Then even if you are getting all of the traffic from social media following this step will make it easier for you to do SEO in the future.
Doing keyword research takes time but it can be cut down with some tools. There are many keyword research tools to help you out. Some of the tools you can use to do keyword research are SEMRush, Ahrefs, KW Finder, Long Tail Pro, etc.
Do Proper Research about Your Topic (And Link out to Sources!)
Whenever I write any blog post, I always have 3-4 tabs to check how others have written about the same topic as mine. Most of the bloggers who write themselves do this, there’s no sin in checking what your competitors have written (and learning from them).
However, many bloggers don’t like to link out to sources. Thinking that giving a link to a competitor might increase their rankings. That’s a wrong way to think, yeah there’s competition for sure but credits due where it’s due. You just can’t copy someone else.
Even if there’s competition linking out to bloggers in the same niche builds relationships. And, in any business having relationships with influential people is beneficial even if they are your competitor. There’s also another benefit of linking out.
People love reading articles that are backed by proper research. If you want to be established as a professional blogger who knows what he (or she) is doing then you have to live by the data. Superficial claims aren’t going to take you anywhere.
Decide What Kind Of Blog Post You Want To Write
Finally confirmed what you have to write about. Great! What’s next? The next you gotta do is to decide what type of blog post you are going to write. There are many kinds of blog posts which get lots of traffic and engagement.
It’s clear that some types of blog posts are more popular than the rest. If you want to generate buzz among your readers you have to give them what they want the most. The kind of blog post you should publish depends on what kind of blog you’re working on.
The most popular kinds of blog posts that work on almost every niche are – list posts, well-researched articles, how-to guides, etc. You should publish each kind, check out which performs the best out of them and publish more of that kind.
Doing this will help in getting your blog post more engagement. You will learn what kind of blog post performs best for different audiences. It also helps in promoting your article through paid channels like FB Ads, Google Ads, etc.
Eye-Catching Headline Is Essential
Let’s get to the actual work now… The first thing that determines an article’s success is its headline. If it ain’t good then your visitor won’t even bother reading the first sentence. To grab your readers attention having an amazing headline is a must.
You know why viral sites like BuzzFeed get so many social shares? The answer is clickbait headlines, even if they can be irritating they do work well. However, you don’t need to go full clickbaity there are many other ways to create attention-grabbing headlines.
The few sure ways to make these eye-catching headlines are –
- Use Powerful Words – Power, Guarantee, Plus! etc. are some words which always get attention.
- Ask Questions – Asking questions to your audience can get their mind to think more about your blog post.
- Point Out the Negatives – This is used by many news media sites to get clicks. Is there any need to say?
Any, many other ways… Whatever you do make sure to put amazing headlines on your articles. Else, your article will suck from the start. Nobody reads an article which has a BS headline. (Just to be clear I’m repeating this again.)
Make An Outline For Your Blog Post
Most of the bloggers just write in the way they feel it’s right. They think the way they are writing is always right. But it’s not, one of the biggest writing mistake bloggers do is they write without having an outline for their articles.
Ask any professional writer, one common advice you will get from every one of them is to write in a proper format. And, to have a proper format (about which we’ll come to later) you need to make an outline. So, how to do it?
Here are some steps to create an outline –
#1 Get the headline right – We have talked about it and you know that eye-catching headline is essential.
#2 Write the takeaways from the blog post – Find the main points you’re going to write about.
#3 – Divide each takeaway into parts – Self-explanatory right? No one wants to read huge walls of texts.
Making an outline makes it easier to write anything. You know exactly where to put the content. Here’s an article from the Co-Schedule blog that will help you to craft a perfect outline – The 10-Minute, 10-Step Solution For The Best Blog Outline.
Write an Intro (That’s Attractive)
You know what your readers will look at after the heading? Yeah, you’re thinking about the right thing that’s the intro of your blog post. It’s the intro that hooks the readers into any articles and. It should be good enough that your readers read it completely.
One simple technique you can use to get your readers hooked is the AIDA Formula. It’s a formula that many bloggers like Brian Dean, Neil Patel use to get people to read all of their articles. This formula can also be learned (like everything else).
So, what’s the AIDA Formula? The AIDA (acronym) stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. It’s a very old yet one of the most effective copywriting technique which is not only limited to digital marketing, even big companies use it.
Want to know more about it? There no one better to explain about copywriting then one of the best copywriting blogs i.e, CopyBlogger, they have written a blog post specifically about this – Introducing the A*I*D*A Formula for Blogging.
Add Main Points i.e, Takeaways
It doesn’t matter what kind of blog post you write if you want to make it more attractive consider adding key takeaways that you readers can easily remember. Adding takeaways to your blog posts makes it much better especially if it’s a long article.
There are many places to add these takeaways, but usually, these are added at the end in the form of conclusion. You can even use them inside your points in a bulleted form. These can also be converted to sub-headings.
Takeaways are the main points that one should remember. Many bloggers also add takeaways at the end of a sub-heading with attractive colors, that’s how the pros do it. You should also try to do the same, it will surely make your article more value-packed.
Use Long-Tail Keywords
Most of the bloggers target to rank for short tail keywords i.e, phrase words like start a blog, blogging, etc. Even I’ve done it. What many of the bloggers ignore are long tail keywords, that’s why they are never able to get much traffic.
Long tail keywords, in general, are three to four phrases long. For example – “How to start a blog” is a long tail keyword. There is a very big difference between short and long tail keywords. There’s also a difference in conversion between them.
Finding long tail keywords is also necessary, you should follow this step while you are doing keyword research. Again there are some free and paid SEO tools to help you out. The ones we recommend are – Long Tail Pro, KW Finder, SEMRush, etc.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or a pro if you are ignoring long tail keywords you’re bound to miss on lots of quality traffic. And a loss in quality traffic means you will definitely miss out the revenue you will make. So, ignore them at your own risk.
KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid)
I believe in KISS i.e, keeping it simple, stupid. Complicating blog posts by using difficult words is not a good idea, your readers are looking to know about things without opening a dictionary. Would you as a reader want to read to complicated stuff?
I guess the answer would be NO. Making complicated stuff easier for your readers should be your aim, if you do so they will come and again to read your blog posts. You should make content so easy to understand that even a kid won’t have trouble to grasp it.
The top bloggers like Neil Patel understand it completely, they make content in such a way in which everyone can understand. The top bloggers don’t put large paragraphs together, rather they divide them into short parts.
While it may seem to be irritating to some to read, this works. You should also try to provide easy solutions to complex problems. There’s no need to use big words, small words also work well and with them, you’ll also be able to connect with your readers.
Use LSI Keywords for Better-Optimized Content
Apart from the long tail keywords what most of the newbies ignore are LSI Keywords. When used correctly these LSI Keywords can help to boost your rankings. LSI Keywords or latent semantic index based keywords are synonyms of your main keywords.
Or simply, these are keywords related to your main keyword. You know that you have to target for a keyword (either short or long tail) to get it ranked. Right? But you can’t (and shouldn’t) stuff keywords to your content.
This is where LSI Keywords come to the rescue. We all know keyword stuffing can lead to a Google penalty. With these LSI keywords, you won’t have to worry about it. You can use them (naturally) and see their effect on your rankings.
So, how to find these LSI keywords? There are a lot of ways but the ones we think the best options are using google suggestions and using SEO tools like SEMRush, KW Finder, etc. It won’t take much time to find them and including them in your articles.
Don’t Repeat Anything
Isn’t it irritating when most of the bloggers just repeat things again and again to make their content longer? I find this the most irritating thing ever, and always try that I’m not repeating stuff (to make my content longer).
Sure, sometimes this is important if you want your readers to remember something. But not all are doing it for their readers. This is mainly done because longer form content tends to rank better and bloggers just want to exploit it.
If you as a blogger, are always repeating stuff then it’ll make your content less interesting. You should try to add something valuable and unique to your content which isn’t on other blogs. Making interesting content is an essential part of content marketing.
Add a CTA (Call-To-Action)
Before we come to this point, I have some questions for you – Why do want to have visitors on your blog? What do you want to make them do? Many of you will answer – to make some money through display ads, affiliate marketing, etc.
80% of the bloggers’ blog for money. If you’re only displaying ads then you don’t need to do much, however, if you’re doing affiliate marketing or want to sell your own products it gets a little complicated.
You have to sell your products without making the blog post all about yourself. Also, you need your readers to take action. This is where adding a CTA (click to action) buttons come to the picture. CTA’s influence your readers to take action.
If you want more affiliate sales, email subscribers, own product sales then having a CTA is a must. The whole point of your blog post should be that your readers take some action. If they come to your site and do nothing, you should improve on your blogging skills.
Don’t Forget about On-Page SEO
SEO is vital for a blog’s growth, If you want to run your blog for a long time it’s important to learn and implement SEO. However, you also need to think about SEO while writing a blog post. SEO is of two types – On Page & OFF-Page.
While the OFF-Page SEO can be taken can of later, you need to work on On-Page SEO even while writing a blog post. There are a lot of things to consider while doing On-page SEO like keyword density, image optimization, Heading tags, etc.
You also need to make sure you have done proper internal linking. When writing you should make sure you use short or long tail keywords, LSI Keywords, etc. Also, make sure that your site is loading fast. (It’s also a ranking factor.)
These aren’t all things that come in On-Page SEO. It’s a big topic and requires a fully detailed article to explain. For beginners – keyword density, site speed, heading tags, internal links, etc. are the things which shouldn’t be ignored.
Images & Videos are Exciting!
Ok, I know you would have heard it more than a thousand times – “An image is worth a thousand words”, this quote is 100% right. Images are damn exciting, they play an important part to get more readers and sticks them to your blog.
Nobody wants to read walls of text, bloggers such as Neil Patel have an image on their blog posts just after 100 to 150 words. They know that images make every article better. Even if you want to get more visitors you’ll need an attractive featured image.
But wait… Do you know what’s even better than images? Yeah, that’s engaging videos. Not only your readers will spend much time on your site when you add videos, but there are also some instances when blog posts with videos rank higher on search engines.
Write Like You’re An Expert (Even If You’re Not)
“Fake it till you make it”, nobody’s born an expert on any topic. They have to learn and implement, after a while they will reach a level where they will no longer be a fake. This also applies in everything (blogging too).
If you aren’t confident yourself you won’t ever be able to achieve your dreams. You won’t become a successful blogger if you don’t think and act like one. People will always try to exploit your image and by not being confident they will crush you.
You should also try to write like an expert on your topic. I know it’s hard if you’re not one, even at the beginning I did the same. If you want to write like an expert you have to read other blogs, books and then develop your own writing style.
Developing your writing style will take some time as you have to do it daily. One thing is that you shouldn’t quit at the beginning, it’s the hardest. So, develop a habit of writing and you will improve. (Even if it’s at the small pace its still improvement.)
Your Font Style Should Be Great
Another thing that many bloggers ignore i.e, their font style. There are some good fonts and some bad fonts to use for your blog. Generally, most of the bloggers (including me) use a combination of 2 fonts – one for headings, other for main text.
There are some prerequisites before selecting your font style. The fonts you want to select should be easy to read. Ariel font is regarded as the most easily readable font, you should select something like that. Font size is another thing to consider.
Your fonts shouldn’t be too big or too small it should be perfect according to your blog’s layout. Once you have selected the right fonts, you’re good to go. This should be done way before publishing your blog posts i.e, at the time of installing your WP theme.
Most of the premium WordPress themes come with in-built customization of fonts. However, if you’re using a free theme or your theme doesn’t have much font options you can download the Easy Google Fonts plugin, with it you’ll be able to change fonts easily.
Proofreading & Proper Formatting
On one of the above points (#7), I talked about having a proper outline for your blog post. Apart from that you also must follow a proper format for your blog post. The points which you are gonna explain should be in the right format.
So, what’s the proper formatting you should follow? First, you should start with an intro, then add the featured image before a subheading, now put the main points and at last write a conclusion. Most of the blogs follow this format.
You have written your blog post, great. But before that wait, there’s much more to be done… Before publishing any blog post you have to proofread your content for spelling error and to check whether it’s readable or not.
Most of the bloggers I know only rely on proofreading or grammar checker tools but that’s not a way to be 100% sure. These tools are not humans so even if your grammar is shown absolutely correct you must read it all by yourself again.
Accept that: There’s Nothing Such as a Perfect Blog post!
It may feel self-contradicting but you have to admit there’s nothing such as a perfect blog post. The information you write today won’t be the same as in 5 years ahead, it will change so you will have to change your content.
There is only a well-optimized blog post, not a perfect one. Suppose, you create a blog about digital marketing, however, the techniques you wrote about have changed, you will have to update that article. Do anyone need change a thing that’s perfect?
I say no, to be perfect is to stop growing or evolving. So, you must write after all your writing style will also change, you will also add more content to your blog post (or change it). What matters the most is you give it all that you’ve got.
Final Thoughts…
There you have it, these are the 20 tips you should follow for creating the perfect blog post. If you follow these tips I’m sure that you will be able to win the battle for your readers’ attention. It will be a difficult battle but the taste of victory is satisfying.
Only when you’ve mastered the art of writing you will be able to get recognized as a successful blogger. For that, you must practice daily, and write a minimum of 500 words. After some time, you will be able to write a thousand words in some hours.
It’s said that to master a skill you need to practice it for 10,000 hours. This applies here too, but it’s possible to become a great writer in some years. And if you’re good at English it will take even less time.
For writing good blog posts you should make use of content writing techniques. Once you have got experience, writing articles which are loved by readers will become 2nd nature for you. (i.e, it will come naturally.)
So, what are your thoughts about these tips? How many words do you write daily? What are your biggest problems when it comes to content creation? Let us know in the comments below.