Brainstorming your target audience is similar to creating a buyer persona for your company. Plus, this will give you an idea on what kind of content you want to produce. Once you've started a blog, you'll want to churn out high-quality, consistent content on a regular basis.
This isn't always easy. Creating content is a time-consuming task. You want to ensure your content is something your readers would be interested in and hopefully can help with your SEO — more on that in a minute.
To begin brainstorming content, consider what your competitors are doing. Look for gaps in their content that you can fulfill. Additionally, you should also do SEO research to verify that users are searching for and interested in the topic you want to write about. In order to host your blog, you'll most likely use a CMS. A CMS is a tool you can use to design, manage, and publish on your website. Once you've decided to start a blog, figure out if your current CMS has all the capabilities of hosting a blog.
If not, you'll want to review CMS options that might integrate with your site or look for an entirely new CMS to migrate your site on. You can try out our CMS here. Just like creating a business, you can't create a blog without a strategy in mind. Your strategy should answer questions like:. Then, create an editorial calendar to keep you organized and on track. A calendar will help you track what posts are coming up, ensure writers are meeting deadlines, and assure you have enough content ideas for the foreseeable future.
When you're writing your blog posts , it's important to consider the article structure. For instance, are you using subheads to break up the post so it's easy to digest? Are you using bullet points and images that make the post easy to scan? These are important factors that will help keep your reader on the page. Additionally, you'll want to make sure that you're using calls-to-action CTAs , that will guide the reader on what you want them to do next.
This is how you can start making money and generating leads from your blog. Another element of blogging is marketing and promoting your blog posts. It's like the age-old adage -- "When a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Consequently, if you write a blog post but nobody reads it, will it have a positive impact on your company or brand?
Probably not. That's why you'll have to market your posts. You can use social media, SEO, your website, or your email newsletter to reach current and potential customers.
Like I mentioned above, you want people to read your blog posts. One way to do that is to get organic traffic through SEO. If you want your blog to be successful, learn how to research keywords, how to rank in search engines, and how to build an SEO strategy.
Your blog posts should be interesting to everyone who reads them, and especially for customers who read every single post. For those that are active followers and ambassadors of your blog, you should use a variety of blog post styles so your blog doesn't get stale.
Consider using how-to posts, list-based posts, or thought leadership. Producing blog content consistently can be hard. But you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you write a blog post. You can update old blog posts to keep them accurate and comprehensive. Additionally, you can use other content of yours, perhaps a YouTube video or a podcast, and repurpose the content into a blog post.
To understand your audience, run a competitive analysis on your top blog competitors. This will help you identify trends, uncover gaps in the content in your industry, and give you ideas on topics and ways to promote your blog. With a blog, the sky's the limit -- and so are the benefits for your business. Editor's note: This post was originally published in February and has been updated for comprehensiveness. For example, you can post your cornerstone content one day, post your first blog post the next day, and keep posting blog posts once a week.
Now you can repeat the same process. If you have more blog posts that you can write related to the first piece of cornerstone content, you can keep writing to them. Or, you can create a new in-depth guide and start creating articles around it. This step is a personal choice, and you will have to decide what approach works best for you.
The headline, or title, of your blog post, has to capture the attention of potential readers. People may see it in their social media news feed or search results. Make sure that you include the main keyword phrase that people might use when searching for the topic you are covering. The headline you use will play a critical role in getting more visits and social shares.
Good headlines make people take action because they show one of the following:. The more something is used by the public, or the more that influential people use something; the more likely it is that people will want to imitate it.
Here is a cheat sheet you can use that will help you to come up with headline ideas. If you want your blog to thrive and grow, then creating quality content is the answer. Design a strong content strategy that will keep your blog posts oriented on your niche topics, and you will attract a loyal readership. Focus on quality over quantity, even if you have to sacrifice frequency.
Your readers will appreciate you for it. In the meantime, I came across your blog and found that you have written thoroughly about the subject. Thank you so much. It is helpful for the beginners like me.
Thanks for sharing this brilliant post, I just bookmarked this post for future reference. Really love your work have…learned so much. Your site is certainly one of the best sites for newbies to learn about blogging. Thanks so much for sharing such a great amount of awesomely useful knowledge. I have learned so much from your guides to build my own blog. Write a captivating intro. Make the introduction easy to read, interesting from the start and something that really connects with your target audience.
Try to identify an experience or capture something that is completely relevant to your audience. I was searching about writing blog content and just found your blog. You have written a great article about content writing. I will apply all these tips while writing my blog post. Thanks for sharing.
Excellence and more insights to know about the content marketing in SEO, thanks for the great information. Your email address will not be published. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email. FirstSiteGuide is supported by our readers. When you purchase via links on our site we may earn a commission. Read More. Pre-launch content : Static pages — such as About, Contact, Services, etc.
A blog post that attracts clicks, likes, and shares. A blog post that gets read all the way through — and has a real effect on readers, whether that means driving conversions or establishing you as an industry thought leader. Lucky for you, Zen Media is here to help! There are nine key elements that are essential to the crafting of an effective blog post.
Your blog title must be interesting. But developing your title based on a few simple tips can make all the difference in the world. For example, research has shown that including numbers in a title has the power to draw eyes and clicks.
Whatever the reason, numbers work — which is why list posts are so popular. That first paragraph is all-important in determining whether readers will leave the page within seconds, or stick around to read the whole thing. What exactly constitutes a hook? Try a question — they draw people in because once a question has been posed, our natural response is to look for an answer. Another approach is to tell a story.
Experiment with various hooks to see what works best with your particular audience. Reading the text on a screen is different from reading it on paper. Whereas a magazine article can have long paragraphs and complex sentences, blogs need to be visually broken up in some way, to create plenty of reassuring white space around and between the lines. One way to accomplish this is to use bullet points.
The exact figures presented in these headlines are all framed within a context of providing actionable advice to other marketers and startups.
Another common technique is posing a question in your headline. Done well, this can be extraordinarily effective, as it is in these examples:. So get to it. Be sure to actually turn your computer on before you start writing. Similarly to headlines, there are two main approaches to writing a blog post. You can either sit down and write an entire draft in a single sitting my preferred workflow , or you can chip away at it gradually over time.
There is no right or wrong answer here — only whatever works for you. Even if you work more effectively in short bursts, try to maximize the amount of writing you get done in those sessions. Get as much done as you can in a single sitting even if you prefer to draft a blog post over three or four writing sessions. Like most skills, writing becomes easier and more natural the more you do it. NOTE: A lot of people struggle with writing introductions. A great strategy is to write the introduction last.
Just get into the meat of the blog post, and worry about the introduction later. Here are five easy ways to write a great introduction. Writing for the web is an entirely different animal than writing for print. One of the most important reasons to include images in your blog posts is to break up the text. Many people scan blog posts rather than pore over every word, and interspersing images throughout the copy will make your post seem less intimidating and more visually appealing.
Everyone likes a good laugh, and a well-chosen image can help lighten the tone of your posts and inject some much-needed humor into a piece. Actually writing a blog post is hard. Editing a blog post is harder. Although sentence structure and grammar are both very important, editing is about seeing the piece as a whole and, sometimes, being willing to sacrifice words and the hours it took to write them for the sake of cohesion.
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