You’re familiar with how important blogging is to the overall success of your content marketing! But it’s vital that you must master how to set up a blog and come up with awesome blog content in order for each post to reinforce your business.
Without starting a blog of your own, you’ll have no punch with your clients and subscribers, you will have nothing to share on social media, and you will surely have hardly any page to exhibit those CTAs (Call-to-Actions) that build internal leads.
What Is a Blog?
A blog is typically abbreviated for the term “Web log”. Blogs came into existence early in the 1990s as a web journal for people publishing stories, thoughts, and ideas on their personal sites. Bloggers would then share blog content with other web users.
These days, enterprises and people from all parts of the world run blogs to share criticisms, instructions, analyses, and industry scrutiny in which they are a giant authority.
After reading this tutorial, you’re going to get no reason you won’t start blogging on an everyday basis – and you’ll even do it fast. I’m about to share with you the secret formula for writing a blog post.
You should follow the 5 different types of blog posts as written below:
- The List Blog Post
- The How-To Blog Post
- The SlideShare Demonstration Post
- The Curation Contribution Post
- The News-Taking Post
1. Set up a Domain for Your Blog
Once you’re done creating your blog domain, the next step is getting a web host for your blog and its content. This entails selecting a CMS (Content Management System) and a domain registrar.
Register with a CMS (Content Management System)
A Content Management System assists you with creating a blog domain on which you’re going to really publish your blog. The Content Management System portal is made accessible to you in order to help you manage domains whereby you’ll create your personal website.
Sign up for a Sub-domain or Domain with a Hosting Company
The blog domain that looks like www.yourbusiness.com is owned by you. You continue to have possession of the domain for as long as it stays online on the web.
Want to set up a sub-domain for your website? If you literally own a pet business at www.yourbusiness.com, you could set up a blog that looks like; blog.yourbusiness.com.
Most blog hosting companies do not charge much for hosting original domains. As a matter of fact, the cost of a website might be as cheap as $2.50 per month. Below are a couple of 5 famous hosting companies to select from:
2. Customize the Theme of Your Blog
Once you’re done setting up your blog domain, the next is customizing the look of your blog to exhibit the true design of the blog content you’re about to start writing.
If you’ve been managing a blog, and are creating your first article for that blog, it’s imperative that your blog becomes consistent with this functional site, both in topic and appearance. The first two basic things to put in place straightaway are:
- About page: Instead of making this page all about describing yourself and your business, you should rather see it as the mission statement for your blog, which represents the guide to make your blog successful.
- Business Logo: This could represent your company’s logo, your brand or personal name, all of which are helping you focus readers’ attention on who you really are when you hit the Publish button. So, the ball is in your court how you want to build your blog and succeed online.
3. Figure Out What the title of Your First Blog Post Is
Prior to getting started with writing at all, you must choose an amazing topic for your blog content. That could be a general topic to begin with. For instance, if you’re a mechanic expert, you could get started thinking you are interested in writing about damaged crankshaft.
Then, as you progress with your blog research, you may have to expand your topic to “How to repair a damaged crankshaft”.
If you want to come up with a compelling and unique blog topic, then it’s achieved by:
- Adjusting the time frame
- Applying a negative/positive technique
- Modifying the scope of the topic
- Bringing in a completely fresh format
- Selecting a fresh blog audience
4. Craft a Captivating Title
Now, you could have got to draft a few number of captivating titles – simply put, the numerous methods of approaching your topic to ensure you focus deeply on your write-up! For instance, you could choose to have your topic narrowed down to “Mechanical Tools for Repairing Damaged Crankshaft” or “Likely Causes of Damaged Crankshaft”. A captivating title is so specific and, of course, will walk you through your post.
Though the captivating title may not eventually be the concluding title, it provides sufficient clues and information in order to help you turn the direction of your blog post to something more precise than a formidable, generic blog topic.
5. Write an Eye-Catching Intro
The first target should be on captivating the readers’ attention. Once the reader cannot be captivated through the sentences, or the first paragraphs of the introductory part, they’re likely to stop reading your post and click away. This can be done in a number of ways:
- Be compassionate
- Tell a joke or a story
- Captivate the reader using an amazing statistic or fact
Then, analyze the motive of the blog post and describe how it’s going to tackle a situation and problem the specific reader might be facing. This will definitely give the readers every good reason to continue reading your post and establish a signal to how this will help them revamp their lives/work.
6. Arrange Your Blog Content Using an Outline
Blog posts can, sometimes, have a compelling load of information – for the writer and the reader. The strategy is to arrange the information in order to prevent readers from getting scared due to the load or length of the post. The arrangement can take several forms – lists, sections, tips, and anything that is suitable. But the content must be well-arranged.
To perfect this particular step, the simple thing you need to do is give your content an outline. This way, prior to starting your write-up, you are already familiar with the point you’re going to cover, and the most prominent order in which to go about it.
7. Create Your Blog Content!
Now, it is time to write the post. This wasn’t forgotten at all!
Since you’ve now got your outline, you’re fully set to write your post. Utilize your outline as a yardstick and ensure to build all of your relevant and needed points. Write your content based on what you’re already familiar with, and if obligatory, perform extra research to get more illustration, information, and some data to buttress your points.
Are you having issues with looping sentences together? It’s everybody’s issue of course. It can be so challenging finding the flow for a lot of people; fortunately, there are a couple of tools you can leverage on in order to help improve your write-up. Here are some to help you get started:
- ZenPen: Are you having issues with keeping focused? Then, figure out this online intrusion-free writing tool.
- Power Thesaurus: Are you stuck somewhere on a word or words? Power Thesaurus is an awesome writing tool that provides writers with a lot of auxiliary word selections from a forum of writers.
8. Proofread/Edit Your Content and Get Your Formatting Fixed
You’re not done with all the key steps yet, but you’re almost there! The proofreading process is a crucial part of blogging – do not fail to spot it. Interview a language scholar to proofread, edit, and copy your write-up, and then consider trying a completely free Grammar Checker. And if you just feel like brushing up on your self-proofreading expertise, leverage those useful tools talked about in this guide.
Visual Appearance
Nobody admires a grisly blog post. And it isn’t just the images alone that make the content visually fascinating – it is the arrangement and formatting of the post as well.
In an ideally formatted and visually fascinating post, you’ll observe that the headline and subheads are utilized to serialize large text blocks – and the headlines are consistently structured.
Also, images should constantly have an identical, spelt-out border so they won’t be appearing like they will not be staying on the surface of the space, and that the structure should always be the same from content to content.
Keeping this steadiness will make your brand and your blog posts look more accomplished, and make it more flexible on the sight of the audience.
Featured Image
Ensure to select a visually fascinating and completely relevant screenshot for your blog content. As image-optimized posts are more prominently treated on social media, visuals have now become more important than ever for the overall accomplishment of your blog posts on social networks.
As a matter of fact, it was revealed in a study that blog posts with relevant images get 94 percent more views than those without such images.
9. Incorporate a CTA (Call-to-Action) into the Concluding Part of Your Post
In the concluding part of your posts, always insert a Call-to-Action that determines the precise action you want your readers to take after reading the post; this could include signing up for an event or webinar, subscribing to your mailing list or blog, reading further related articles on your blog, and many more.
A Call-to-Action (CTA) is also a helpful resource for those reading your blog post – leverage your Call-to-Action to offer more useful and relevant content to the topic of the blog post they just read.
10. Choose an Appealing Title
It’s now time to smarten up that captivating title of yours. Fortunately, there’s a secret formula for crafting appealing titles that will captivate the attention of your blog readers. Here’s simply what to reflect on:
- Begin with your captivating title
- While proofreading/editing your post title, keep in mind to keep the title clear and accurate
- Optimize your title for SEO by altering some certain keywords (though if natural)
- Try abbreviating it. Nobody likes a prolonged, captivating title – and don’t forget that Google loves 65 or fewer characters prior to truncating it within the search engine results pages (SERPs)
11. Implement on-page SEO Tactics
Once you’re done writing, move back and optimize your content for search vulnerability.
Do not preoccupy over how many relevant keywords to insert. If you have the chance to include the keywords you’re ranking for, and these wouldn’t put readers’ experience in jeopardy, ensure to do it.
Below is a little mnemonic of what you may or should focus:
Mobile Optimization
Now, that mobile devices are taking almost 3 out of every 4 minutes spent on the web, having a mobile-responsive site has turned into a more crucial necessity.
About five years ago, Google made changes to its search algorithm which penalizes websites that are not mobile-friendly. The following year, another update was rolled out as a separate version of its mobile-optimized algorithm update. If you want to ensure that your site is receiving the normal SEO advantages, endeavor to make it mobile-responsive.
Meta Description
Meta descriptions are a selection of keywords displayed below the title of your post in search results. They provide users with a brief, descriptive summary of the content prior to clicking through to it. Typically, Google prefers a range of 150 to 160 characters for your Meta Description and that it must begin with action words such as “Study”, “Read”, or “Learn”.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is a combination of words that connects a page to another – either on your own site or someone else’s page. Since search engines take proper note of the keywords you select for your anchor text, it becomes an essential factor for page ranking based on certain keywords.
Conclusion
While you’ve just learned 11 great ways to write a blog post, you need to keep at it in order to start getting pro blogging results in no distant time.
I would like to introduce a great online business forum to you where you’ll be able to showcase your blogging potential and come up with a better online brand utilizing its resources. Learn more about this platform here.