How To Write A Blog Post
Writing about any topic or experience at a platform where people can view and comment on their opinions is essentially what a blog means. One of the most significant benefits of writing a blog is the ability to build a personal connection with your audience. No matter the topic, there’s always an audience for it, and interacting with these audiences while writing content of significance is what most bloggers do.
As easy as it sounds, blog writing can be pretty intimidating and overwhelming for beginners. It’s like learning a new sport; at first, it can be quite challenging to get it right, but once you know the right techniques, you gain expertise in no time! Before we delve into the writing aspect of blog posting, it is important to choose the type of blog that suits your writing. Selecting a blog gives your work a purpose and attracts a niche audience who will appreciate your work. It also can help you strategize on how to market your blog to a specific audience. That being said, let’s have a look at the different types of blogs:
1) Personal Blogs
These blogs are generally written to speak about their own personal interests, little anecdotes from their lives, experiences, hobbies, etc. Personal blogs typically attract an audience who share the same interests, building a like-minded community of individuals with similar thought processes.
2) Corporate Blogs
The main focus of these blogs is a particular business or company and the work they do. The reason behind writing a corporate blog is to promote or market their product/service to increase traffic. To reach a wider audience, corporate blogs use various means of blog writing to communicate, including offers, catchy mailers and more.
3) Branded Blogs
It is normally written for a community of individuals by someone who already has an audience and can influence the audience with their lead. However, to lead an audience, they build a solid relationship with them. Only then can a blogger engage their audiences with blogs that have a specific call to action. Big brands usually pay money to bloggers, who in turn will write about their products or services.
4) Niche Blogs
Niche blogs are all about covering particular topics such as politics, sports, business etc. These blogs are written by people who are either experts in their industry or enthusiasts of a specific topic.
Some of the topics are:
● Food
● Automobile
● Movies & TV Shows
● Fashion & Lifestyle
● Travelling
5) Affiliate Blogs
These types of blogs are written for a specific product or service. The idea behind affiliate blogs is to purchase the product through click to action links. Keywords play a crucial role in affiliate blogging as their search engine ranking can be influenced by placing the right keywords. A good blog post should have the perfect blend of informativeness and inquisitiveness. An excellent blog should grip its readers from the first line to the end. Establishing a few things before actually writing a blog will make the process easier.
- Decide a topic
Imagine you sat down and decided to write a blog. Writing a blog is expressing your voice to a set of readers. Your writing should resonate with your likes and dislikes and be an extension of you. Even if you are writing about sports, adding a personal touch or an experience always interests readers and makes your blog unique. - Write an outline or a framework of your blog.
Every piece of writing needs a framework or a rough idea. Once you have decided on a topic to write about, the next step is to write points that will explain the flow of your post. An outline doesn’t need to be lengthy; you must include everything that is tangential to your topic. - Use images and visual cues for better engagement
Visuals are a powerful tool that will improve audience engagement to a whole new level. Even in the most serious topics, people love some visual stimulation that conveys your message. Images are highly effective if you are writing a dry subject matter. With that being said, here are some of the things that one should definitely keep in mind before writing their blog: - Ensure you have a magnetic headline
Headlines are the first thing a reader will see even before they read the blog. Your headline should be straightforward yet add a sense of mystery that makes the readers want to go through the entire blog. Using complicated words and phrases that are not relatable to a common audience will result in lower readership. - Compelling lead that keeps readers engaged
Once the readers have read the headline, the next important thing is the introduction or the lead that will give a brief idea about what you are writing. One must put a lot of thought into writing the lead paragraph of their blogs as it provides a glimpse of how engaging their piece of work will be. Don’t take forever to reach the point but ensure you write a compelling build-up about your article. - Eye-catching subheadings
People very often have the habit of skimming through blogs before actually reading them. They read through highlighted points and then decide if the article is interesting enough. The break-up in the paragraph makes the piece more visually appealing and helps readers navigate through the blog. For example, if I were to write “headline” instead of “ensure you have a magnetic headline” for the first point, users will be perplexed as just the word headline does not give out enough information to keep people engaged. - To-the-point body
The body is the main content of your blog. It is the most important part of a topic. With the body, it is essential to establish authority by writing a one-of-a-kind post. People are constantly looking for something new – a new perspective or an idea, and as a blog writer, one should take full advantage of that fact. Avoid beating around the bush and write straight to the point. Unless you’re writing a personal story, avoid writing a story for every subheading and speak to the point. - Influential call to action.
Every blog must have a call to action that leads the readers to do some action. Whether it is subscribing to more blogs or another microsite, establish the call to action for your blog. Without a CTA, blogs seem pretty vague and unfinished. Call to action are especially beneficial for affiliate and brand blogs since it leads the users to buy a product or service.
As a writer, blog writing will help explore and improve your writing skills and explore different writing styles. It will also help you broaden your perspective and thinking about the topic you’re writing, thereby improving your knowledge about it. To sum it up, blog writing is a great way to connect to the audience and receive instant feedback for your writing. If you are a beginner, follow these few tips, take your pen and paper and start blogging!
