How to build a blog post
We’ve been talking about blogging for the past few weeks, and maybe you’ve started to blog on your company website.
You know the advantages that blogging provides, such as providing fresh content to help increase your SEO and to help form relationships with potential and current customers.
But we haven’t covered the basic building blocks of a blog post.
Let’s start at the beginning. You’ve already brainstormed your topics so let’s get writing.
Headline
This can be one of the most difficult parts, but it’s also one of the most important. People have very short attention spans, and they decide if your article is worth reading based on the headline. Copyblogger says that about eight out of ten people will read a headline, but only two out of ten will continue to read the rest of the blog post.
People are looking for answers to their questions, so your headline should be very specific about what problem your blog post will solve if you want them to continue reading.
Remember that titles can help with SEO, so you need to include a keyword in your headline.
Introduction
There are many ways to start a blog post, but it’s important to have a strong lead. The lead is the first or first few sentences of your post. It should be strong and capture your audience’s attention so that they want to keep reading.
And like the headline it should be specific and answer who, what, when, where and why.
Body
There are more blog styles than I can cover in this article, but we will touch on a few.
- List post. Like the name says this post will provide a list some that touch on your topic. The great thing about list posts is that they are easy to scan. Remember when I said that people have short attention spans? A list post is usually very succinct and quick to read.
- How-to post. This is one of the most popular styles because it answers a very specific question that someone has Googled, such as “how to iron a silk shirt” or “how to tile my bathroom floor”.
- Profile post. A profile post can feature a company, a person, a product or anything else. It can be a great opportunity to interview one of your customers and let them tell their story about how your product or service helped them.
- FAQ. This is another style of post that is very helpful. You can use the types of questions you typically get from clients and customers, and provide answers right on your website.
Now that you’ve written a draft, it’s time to put it aside before you review. Try to give it a day before you start to edit. It’s easier to review once you’ve had a chance to let your brain work out some of the problems in the draft. Drafts are not supposed to be pretty.
Publish and Promote
Once you’ve completed editing it’s time to publish and promote. Spread the word through your social media channels to let the world know that you have a new post to read.
I hope our month long blogging series has helped you get started. But if you are still looking for help, please let us know.