et’s be honest, there are many guides out on the internet that can teach you how to write a blog post for your businesses website. Many of these guides are similar, and if you’ve read one of them, you’ve essentially read all of them.
This article will help you focus on the established ideas for writing a blog post.
Writing for a customer's need
A customer will read a blog post if the blog post benefits the customer, and there is value/ knowledge to be gained. We want to write to help them and to understand how we can help them; we need to understand the concept of "searchers intent".
Searchers intent is the reason why people typed into Google their search query. To have insight into why the customer is searching will allow us to write to suit the customers need.
For example, a person may search “ceiling fan guide”; the intent of this search is for some informative content, so writing a blog to respond to this demand would be beneficial for the person. Having content that people engage with and find helpful is likely to improve your rankings on Google, so keeping in mind searchers intent is key to writing a successful blog post.
Choosing keywords to match searchers intent
We’ve established that searchers intent should be a focus when writing a blog; we want to showcase the blog to the designated audience. This is done by carefully selecting keywords. Adding to the example of ceiling fan guide, you could employ “long tail” keywords, which are three or four words related to the searchers intent. In that particular case, you could target “how to choose ceiling fan”, as it is related and would be easier to rank for.
Writing the actual post
Here are some questions that I like to ask myself when writing a blog post to help me achieve a higher quality blog post:
- Is this what the user would want to read?
- Should the writing be formal or informal? Would that tone suit the target audience?
- Are you saying something unique?
- Do you offer a fresh perspective?
These are all valuable questions to ask, as it forces one to be cynical with their work. Be critical of what you have written, and it will help you write in a more engagingly and precisely.
A final thing to consider when writing a blog post is a sage piece of advice from Michael Scott from Dunder Mifflin, as told by Dwight Schrute of Dunder Mifflin:
"Michael always said, K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid. Great advice, hurts my feelings every time."
While this quote is from a discontinued mockumentary TV show called “The Office”, it holds a simple truth - always try to convey your ideas in the simplest way possible. The reader shouldn’t have to spend time trying to understand a blog post; the blog post should be written concisely and in an easy to understand manner.
If you’re looking for help on keeping it simple, Scott Adams wrote an excellent blogpost with fundamentals to concise writing.
Meta Description and URL
A meta description is a 160 character excerpt that describes the content of the page. It appears the Google results page.
If you don’t embed a meta description into your page, Google will choose, with their algorithms, an excerpt from your page that they believe best describes your page. Don’t leave it to Google - write and embed a meta description into your page.
Additionally, making your URL for a specific blogpost shorter is beneficial for the following reasons
- It makes the page more shareable - no one wants to share a long URL because it may look odd
- It looks less spammy
- It helps with rankings
- It helps set expectations with users
For example, this:
/the-ultimate-guide-to-choosing-the-perfect-ceiling-fan-for-your-home
could be shortened to this:
/ceiling-fan-guide
Takeaways
In keeping with the principles of Michael Scott, when you write your next blog post, you should
- Be aware of searchers intent
- Use keywords to match the searchers intent
- K-I-S-S
- Do not neglect technical aspects
Do this, and watch your blog become successful.
Created by Zak on 07/01/2020, last edited on 20/05/2021.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
