STARTING is 50% job done
It was Sunday afternoon. I sat in the favorite corner of my room with my laptop. I wanted to write for those who always gave me a blank look when I would tell them, “Hey you should start a blog”. Not just for SEO only,. blogging can help in deepening online reputation management strategies.
Once you know where to start, blog writing is quite easy.
So here is my story of how I write a blog post.
The first step is identifying and understanding the target audience and then choosing topics that are relevant to their interests. This step is essential whether you are an online content creator, a social media content creator, or want to establish a personal brand or wish to get started with writing.
I started typing as I had the clarity of who my audience was and knew exactly what I wanted to tell them. So 50% of my job was already done.
Instead of jumping the gun at the start with a catchy title, I created a working title, which is very important so that I could gather my thoughts about the specific topic I have selected. A working title enables and guides your blog post so you can begin your writing!
ENGAGEMENT is an Art
The first thing was to prepare the introduction to my post. I wanted it to be something unique and different, to make people scroll through and engage in reading my post, rather than getting bored in the first line.
I thought about different techniques to make it a good start. Maybe an interesting fact or statistic may do the trick? Or maybe a storyline? Something that would grip their attention, I thought. And so, I began my blog with a story and described the purpose of the post, and explained the topic so as to help the reader understand it fully.
Making it EASY for the Reader and the Writer
I remember my blogger friend giving me a few tips before I started working on my first ever blog. She advised me to organize the amount of information so that it is not overwhelming to the reader and is appealing to the eye.
Hence, dividing it into sections, sub-sections, tips, lists, etc. is a must. To make my job easy, I prepared an outline of the points I intended on incorporating in my post. This served as a number of benefits: It helped me decide the order of my points and helped me cover the important points.
Let the creative juices FLOW
With all of these instructions jotted down on paper, I began writing my blog.
The points I prepared earlier were of great help since I just ended up expanding on all of them. According to my topic, I wrote about all that I knew with additional research too.
While writing my blog post, I zoned out a little and couldn’t stay focused on my work. So I surfed through a few sites to help me continue writing.
MAGIC of Free Online Tools
My surfing got me across ‘Power Thesaurus’, a tool that provided an alternative word choice. I tried it and simply loved the way it worked.
Another tool I used was ‘Cliché Finder,’ this tool helped me in being specific with my content rather than making it sound too cheesy.
Edit, Edit and, Edit
After writing the content down, the next step was obviously editing and proofreading my post. I re-checked the format and layout of my post which is a crucial step in writing a blog post. I also checked the content on ‘Plagscan’ to make sure it is plagiarism-free.
The more you read the article the more clarity you get and you can easily do away with the unnecessary information.
So leave enough time to edit your work before you post it.
AESTHETICS make a difference
The next step was selecting a visually appealing and relevant image for my blog post. Visuals are seen to be the most responsible for the success of the content in order to get views on social media.
While editing, I divided my post into headers and sub-headers which help distinguish a new section, making it look neat and captivating. I fixed the style, making it consistent, which gave it a professional touch.
TAG the tags
My blogger friend I’d had mentioned earlier told me that the best way to help the reader browse more related content on my blog was by creating ‘tags.’ These tags represent all the main topics you may want to cover in your blog.
Tags represent words that reflect the keywords in your post.
Call to ACTION
At the end of my blog post page, I inserted a ‘call-to-action’ (CTA) tool. This indicates what you want the reader to do after reading your post. It could either be subscribing to your blog or reading a related article or asking an engaging question. Of course, you have to make sure you respond and acknowledge the comments.
In case you are offering a free value-added service like downloading an e-book, registering for a webinar, you generate a lead when the reader clicks on it as well as it offers more related content to the reader.
The NEW digital salesperson
The part of writing the blog was complete; however, making my blog visible to the target audience was the next important step to do.
To enable this, I optimized for an on-page SEO, which affects the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine result.
The page header and title is the most important on-page element. SEO targets different kinds of search: Image, Video, Academic, News, etc.
SEO keywords are used to fasten this process. It will help your site to rank above your competitors.
Keywords make it easy for them to find you. Old keywords need to be re-evaluated periodically. They can be replaced with more specified phrases/words.
With the help of the ‘Keyword Grouper’ tool, it organised a set of relevant keywords for me. I put them in order, to get SEO results!
I edited my post yet again and inserted these keywords in high-attention areas, such as the Title, Body-text, URLs, Tags, Image/Filename, etc. This makes it easily accessible and visible to the reader.
I wanted my blog post to get ranked on Google’s first page and so, I linked the keywords to other pages on the site. I created a way to optimize my blog for mobile-friendly access which makes it comfortable and readily accessible to the reader.
POLISH up.
I framed my working title and replaced it with a fancy catchy title. I re-read my writing the next day in the morning, made some minor changes, and polished it further.
And right there, I hit send. I created my blog post.
Do you do anything different? Would love to hear your thoughts or any other helpful pointers.
