When writing a blog post, we must meet the objectives of attracting the reader and solving a problem. It is important that your writing is written in a search engine optimized way, using the right keywords. The structure of the text must have sections and subsections to make it easier to scan the content. Those are just some of the things to keep in mind, but I’ll explain many more.
Do you want to know how to write for your blog? Here we go!
1. Choose the topic you will talk about in your post
Think about who your audience is and find a topic that interests you and your audience.
Do some research on the topic, you can get inspiration from your competitors’ content.
2. Search for keywords
Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into search engines like Google to search for the things they want.
Selecting the right keywords will help users searching for these topics to find your web page.
There are many tools that help us find the right keywords, some of them are paid like Ahrefs or Semrush and others are free like Google’s tools: Keyword Planner, Trends or Search Console and Chrome extensions like Keywords Everywhere. There are also semi-free ones like Ubersuggest or Answer the Public.
If you don’t understand SEO (in my post “Reasons why your website does not appear in Google” you have more information on how to position your website) or you don’t want to use these tools, you can start by writing down the words that you think people would type to find information on the topic of your post.
You can also write those keywords in Google Suggest to see the suggestions that the autocomplete function shows you and add them to the list (do it with an incognito window in the browser).
Once you have your list of keywords, it is time to integrate them naturally into your post:
- In the title, the “h1” heading and in some of the “h2” headings.
- In the first and last paragraph of the text.
- Included throughout the text in a natural way, using variations such as plurals or singulars, synonyms, etc.
- In the “Alt” of the images you include in the post.
- In the meta tag “Title”.
- In the URL of your article.
Having the keywords included in your text will improve the SEO positioning of your post.
3. Types of content formats:
These are the main types of content when writing a post for the Internet:
- How-to… To explain how to do something.
- Listings. To list some kind of product or service. The best…
- Opinion or comparative. Used to evaluate the quality of some product or service.
- Entertainment. To entertain the reader and to be shared on social networks.
- News. Text written with a more formal tone, it can be used to publish it in some type of press media.
4. Content writing structure
Here is an outline of how to write content for a post to understand its structure in a more visual way.
4.1 Post title
The title must be eye-catching, clearly indicating what the post is about and including the keyword. It will be the “h1” tag.
4.2 Introduction
Start writing a paragraph of 2 or 3 sentences with an introduction to the topic.
The content should be easy to read and scan by the readers, empathize with them and encourage them to continue reading.
Include the keyword in bold at least once.
Don’t go into too much detail in the introduction, if you do there will be no incentive to continue reading the post.
4.3 Development
This part of the post can be as long as necessary, but divided into two or more paragraphs. Remember that the reader has to be able to scan it easily to get the most important information out.
Try to connect with your readers by using simple, easy to understand language that is easy to read. Paragraphs should be no longer than 4 or 5 lines.
It is good to use bold text for important keywords and make lists if necessary, that way you also make it easier to scan.
You can use graphics or images but keep in mind:
- That the images are original or you edit them to make them look original to search engines. For example by flipping them, cropping them, putting several together to make a collage or adding large text on top of them.
- They shouldn’t be larger than 100 kB. You can compress them using programs such as Gimp (free) or Photoshop, or web pages such as Kraken or Tinypng.
- The images should have a name that describes them.
- All images on your website should have the ALT tag (this is an alternative text that the browser displays when the image does not load correctly).
If you need images you can use free stock photos like Pixabay, Freepik or Pexels, or paid ones like Shutterstock.
To create graphics or other types of designs in a simple way you can use Canva.
4.4 The conclusion
Conclude the post by summarizing the contents of the post, with the key points for the reader to take notes.
You can give your opinion on the topic, hinting at what you want the reader to take away from reading your article.
4.5 Call to action (CTA)
Include a call to action. You can include a button that prompts the reader to perform some action such as leaving a comment, subscribing, buying…
5. To keep in mind when writing a post:
- Be specific when writing, don’t use vague words like amazing, great…
- In each post there should be at least three links pointing to any other page of your website.
- Use original content. It is always better if the content is original by writing the articles yourself. But if you are inspired by other articles explain it with other words, do not make a copy and paste, otherwise Google will see it as duplicate content and it will not be good for SEO.
- Before publishing your post check that there are no mistakes in the text, you can use a grammar checker, for example Languagetool.
6. Conclusion
Writing a blog can help you attract customers by providing value, communicating with them and creating a relationship of trust, which can lead to increased conversions. It also creates brand awareness and is important when it comes to SEO. Think about the topic for your new post and the keywords you will include in it and start writing articles for your blog following my outline and using the SEO and graphic design tools included in this post.