How to Write an Effective Blog Post – Tips for Beginners

While summing all the content you come across on the internet as “blogs” will be an understatement, it does occupy a major part of it. As of 2022, there are over 600 million blogs published on the World Wide Web. However, not every blog showcases the best standards, and hardly a few actually realize their goal of ranking high on the SERPs.

Hence, it is not only imperative for you to have a dedicated blog section on your website, but its content should also boast high quality. Quality blogs do not just help you target keywords, but you can create them for generating leads as well.

So, arranging a string of words will not fetch you the results you desire. Thus, before you venture into writing them, you must learn how to write blog posts. That way, you can create effective content which will perform better on the SERPs.

What Makes a Good Blog Post?

Though good and bad are generally subjective, there are set rules that distinguish the two under search engine optimization. For example, in the case of blog posts, Google expects you to create content that is:

• Unique
• Informative
• Readable
• Authoritative
• Useful
• Engaging
• Answers the search intent

However, since you also have to please the general readers, ensure that your content is interesting to them as well. So, a good piece of blog content is something that pleases both readers and bots, resulting in enhanced traffic.

How to Write a Blog Post?

The key steps to creating a high-quality blog post are stated below. If you combine them with your writing capabilities, you can create posts that will positively perform on the SERPs and win your audience.

These steps are:

Step1: Know Your Target Audience

Google always encourages you to create posts for the audience and not merely to rank high. However, if you do not have a defined target audience, you are simply churning out write-ups that benefit hardly anyone.

Hence, the foremost step towards creating content that search engines will appreciate is locating your target audience. Ask yourself questions, like:

• Who will benefit from your products?
• What types of people are interested in businesses similar to yours?
• Whom do you want to come across your content?

Conduct thorough research to get answers to all these questions. Understand this is not something you can keep for the future. Detailed target audience research is necessary even before you write your first blog post.

Step2: Select Topics from Your Audience

If you are writing for your audience, it only makes sense that you write on topics that resonate with the majority. Hence, you should incorporate topic research with your target audience survey.

A great way of finding topics that your audience would be interested in is through social media forums that they frequent. For instance, you can check Reddit threads, Facebook groups, etc., and see what they discuss.

You can also simply ask your existing consumers on Twitter, Instagram, etc., their areas of interest and then frame concepts around them. This will not only make them feel heard, but they will also visit your site again for more relatable content.

Step3: Research and Create an Outline

Once you have a particular topic in mind, the next step is to gather relevant information on that. However, like the two steps discussed above, this research should also revolve around what your readers would want to know.

If you are wondering “how to write a perfect blog post,” it is by keeping everything about your content focused on your visitors. Along with that, you will have to research information that is not usually talked about. This will make your content unique and attract more readers.

After you have collected enough information, do not jump into writing the blog posts just yet. Instead, create a clean outline. This will help you understand which information to incorporate and which you can omit. Moreover, it helps you create a proper flow that will keep your readers hooked to your content.

Step4: Draft the Final Post with Required Information

Now, you can write your blog posts with all the creative ideas you have in your mind. However, it is best to create a wireframe for your blog before you actually put detailed content in it. This continues with the notion of outlining the topic.

Usually, a blog consists of:

H1 – Headline

H2 – Sub-headline

H3 – Headline under sub-headlines

But there are H4, H5, H6, etc., as well.

So, how to write a blog post structure?

You need to go through several competitor sites to see what approach they have used while tackling the same or similar topic. Then, create a new wireframe that is similar but has elements unique to it as well.

Once you have a structure in place, you should proceed with drafting the content with all the necessary information. You will see that writing the entire blog post becomes significantly smoother with pre-structured content.

Step5: Proofread and Edit Your Final Post

As already discussed above, your content should be logically correct and boast superior grammar to be “effective“. Hence, a write-up about “how to write a blog post effectively” is incomplete without discussing the necessity for thorough proofreading.

After you are done writing the content, go through it to check all the errors you have made, such as typos, grammatical errors, or skipping a word or two. Apart from proofreading, you can also edit the draft and reframe sentences to make it more impactful.

Remember, when you publish something online, both the search engines and your audience scrutinize its every aspect. So, you should make this a habit while writing any of your content. This way, what you post is always high-quality and free of mistakes.

By following these steps, you can write blog posts that will receive recognition from both readers and bots. However, in the current day and time, every other website owner is using these.

Tips to Make Your Blog Post Effective

If you want to dive deeper into the topic of “how to write a blog post for SEO,” read the following:

1. Write Compelling Headlines

Headlines are the first thing that a reader comes across. Therefore, if you do not create an attractive headline, there is a high chance that a significant amount of searchers will not want to read your blog post.

The headline should align with what your target audience is searching for and provide them with an insight into what to expect. You can also use power words like Best, Beginners, Advanced, Guide, etc., to attract the readers.

2. Add Subheadings and Shorter Paragraphs to Break up the Page

Subheadings and shorter paragraphs will help your readers scroll through the content and understand what topics you have covered. They might be looking for something specific, and by dividing your content into small paragraphs, you help them find that easily.

When searching for “why to take a vacation,” a blog from the first page looked like,

While a blog for the same topic on the 10^th page looked something like,

As you can see, one is neatly divided into smaller portions with sub-heads, while the other is a long chunk that is hard to go through at a glance. This also explains their ranks on the SERP.

3. Always Create an Interesting Introduction

After the headline, what your readers will read is your blog’s introduction. If it does not pique their interest, they will click out of your page and increase its bounce rate. Hence, you should create an impact from the very first sentence.

You can start with a quote, question, or general statistics depending on what you are writing. The goal is to tease a notion and ask them to read the rest to understand it completely.

4. Incorporate Images to Improve Visual Engagement

Though this is a guide on how to write a blog post, it must be noted that incorporating images are also important. For example, if you have a certain word constraint and want to discuss something deeply, an image can help you explain a significant part of it.

Moreover, interesting images improve visual engagement and attract the readers’ attention.

5. Optimize for Search Engine Rankings

Search engine optimization is the crux of creating an effective blog post. Since the primary effect of optimization is better SERP ranking, it will expose you to a better audience and garner more attention.

So, when writing any blog post, do not forget to implement SEO best practices on it. The best part is that when you do so, you will see many parameters are naturally getting covered under it.

6. Focus on Creating Compelling CTA

A CTA or call-to-action will convert the readers into your customers. So, if you are learning how to write an effective blog post for your business, you must put a CTA. This can be as simple as linking your email or writing a detailed sales pitch.

If you sell products, a CTA like “buy now” or “shop now” also works wonders. If you offer services, a CTA like “Contact Us” or “Get A Quote”, etc will do magic.

7. Make Your Blog Posts Sharable

In the day and age of social media and smartphones, people tend to share content and spread it across new audiences. So, you should, too, take advantage of this trend and create blogs with such interesting information that your readers are bound to share it.

CMSs, like WordPress, let you add clickable options at the end of your blog. Further, if necessary, ask your readers to share your blog creatively.

8. Try to Tackle the Best-Performing Topics of Your Competitors

Another approach you can take while writing your content is keeping an eye on your competitors and what they are doing. Also, see which topics are performing well for them and tackle them on your website.

Give your audience something new on that very topic so that even if they read what the others have written, it will seem lacking in some aspects.

9. Always Frame to Portray the Search Intent in the Best Possible Manner

Everything else will not matter if you cannot best reflect your audience’s search intent in the content. When writing, frame a question in your mind and write the blog as if you are answering that.

However, the bots do not understand that. So, you will have to incorporate words and phrases associated with your topic to help search engines understand what your content is about.

Conclusion

Hence, if you want to create an impactful blog post, it is crucial that you conduct thorough research on multiple aspects. Moreover, when talking about content marketing in the present day, you need to present something new in every content you produce. Always try to please your readers and mold your blog according to the current trends. Now that you understand how to write blog posts do not waste time and start researching.

Would you like to add anything to this discussion? Let us know in the comments below.