You see it all the time in Facebook updates, Instagram captions and Tweets.
“Check out our link in bio to read the latest blog.”
“Click below to read the latest updates in our most recent blog!”
“New blog post! Read more at www.________.com/blog!”
The fact that people promote their blog posts isn’t groundbreaking news. Businesses owners, no matter the size of the business, want you to visit their blog. Ironic, since you’re reading this on The Modern Connection’s blog, right?
Someone has taken the time to pour their heart out into 400+ words and they want eyes on their work. Done right, a blog can only help your brand’s overall digital presence. But those keywords, “done right”, are really important in this case.
But what makes a blog worth reading and what will get people to stop scrolling and navigate on through to your website? We’ve come up with 4 steps that can help streamline the blog writing process and make it an enjoyable experience for both the writer and the reader.
Coming up with a topic
Everyone has a process. In 6th grade, my language arts teacher told us that we should write first and come up with a title later. That just didn’t make sense to me. Somehow, coming up with a title was equivalent to coming up with a topic in my mind. Having a title to look back on made everything more cohesive during the writing process. But that’s just what works for me. If you would rather follow the advice of my language arts teacher, I know plenty of people that it has worked for!
Be strategic about choosing a blog topic. Topics can fall into two categories; evergreen and topical (meaning timely or relevant content). And if it is thought out really well, even topical content can be repurposed.
Before you settle on a topic, be sure it makes sense for your target audience. Is there a demand for what your blog topic would cover within your target audience? If you were an interior designer, would these paint tips help you? If you owned a construction business, would these fast facts about bulldozers be of use to you? Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes when selecting a topic and keep them on while you write.
Outlining your post
Map out your blog into headings, subheadings or bullet points before writing. This will help keep you on track when writing and the reader on track when reading. It’s so easy to get lost on a tangent when writing, so having subheadings preformulated to guide you back to your original writing path is necessary.
While you’re outlining, be sure to keep in mind the kind of images, graphics, videos or illustrations you plan to include. A great graphic can also be a source of inspiration, so building a blog topic around a chart or an infographic could also help in creating an outline within your topic.
Continue to keep your target audience in mind
When you started your business, pinpointing an ideal customer, buyer persona or a target audience was probably part of the branding process. When crafting captions for Instagram or publishing something on Facebook for your business, your target audience should always be top of mind. It is, afterall, your ideal customer that you are ultimately always trying to reach.
The same is true when it comes to writing your blog. The same people that you are trying to garner likes from on your social media platforms are the ones that you should also want to have reading your blog.
Let the blog offer some kind of value to your audience. Whether it be tips, tricks, suggestions, recipes, guides, or lists, always make sure that your audience can immediately identify the value in reading your blog.
Most likely, you’re the expert on the subject, so be sure to use vocabulary that is digestible and easy to understand. Providing examples is a great way to make the topic more relatable.
Enhance readability
Coming up with a great topic and writing are a huge part of blogging, but ensuring easy readability is essential. You can have great content, but creating a reader-friendly format is the cherry on top.
Mention your keywords early on in the blog so both readers and search engines know what they are looking for. Hyperlinking to other pages on your website or outside sources, using bold text and italicizing font are all part of enhancing readability.
To avoid information overload, the human eye is trained to scan large bodies of copy to pick out key points before you even start reading. This is where strategic formatting comes in handy.
Avoid large blocks of text that are multiple lines long and instead opt for 1-3 sentence long paragraphs that are spaced out. Content is much more approachable when formatted into conversational bits.
A lot goes into writing a sincere blog post. It can take several hours to really flesh out a genuine, cohesive piece of writing that is worth reading and that is targeting the right people. So whether you’re writing to provide inspiration, to entertain or to educate, your blog post’s success comes down to its topic, talking points, targeting and readability.
Not quite ready to tackle the art of blogging? We’ve crafted blogs for a multitude of audiences and we would love to chat about what that would look like for your audience! Contact us today to get started!
