How to Start Writing Blog Posts That Rank High

Blog Posts – Whether it be your own blog, discussing your favorite topics, or highlighting your expertise in your business, publishing content is a very effective way of sharing your knowledge with the world.

In order to start writing blogs, it is necessary to understand a few things:

What Makes a Good Blog Post?

Well, a blog is commonly formed by four parts:

1. Header: Includes the title
2. Sidebar: offered to assist the reader or draw them onto other blogs to read
3. Body: This includes the depth of the blog, or you can say the main aspects of the blog
4. Footer: Page numbers

A good blog post does not fall short of including the general elements of an essay or an article. Not everything demands top-tier writing skills, but the general elements of readability, and easiness, matter.c

How to Write Blog Posts – Elements to Blog Post

Below is the outline that helps bloggers compose a well-written, effective blog post that shares knowledge, information, or entertainment:

• Brainstorm Blog Topics
• Keyword Research
• Define Your Audience
• Create An Outline
• Blog Title
• Meta Description
• Write an Engaging Introduction
• Captivating Headers
• Design
• Blog Domain
• Choose a Blog Template
• Device Translation
• Include a Compelling Call to Action
• Actionable Advice
• Editor’s Note

1. Brainstorm Topic Ideas for Blog Posts

To look for new topics, there are multiple sources to help you stack a good number of blog post titles:

• Browse other blogs by Google searching your title of choice and see what your competitors write about the same category
• Use Google Trends to find out which topics are of interest
• Current events and recent stories related to your organization, company, or business allow for an overall grand perspective

How to Write Blog Posts

When you find topic’s that are seemingly interesting and spark your interest, paste them onto Google docs to help organize your content, whether it’s by relevancy or angle.

Play around with your topics in various ways:

• How-to posts: instructs the readers how to do something clearly (with steps)
• Curated List: offering a set of recommendations
• Tips and Advice: providing expert guidance and resources
• Definition-based: helping with explaining terminologies and topics
• Top-Trends: highlighting currently popular trends
• Personal or Business Updates: unveiling something fresh and recently unknown

2. Keyword Research

Blogs include keyword research which are crucial for SEO. As a new blogger, keep in mind that the more specific the phrase or word is, the more closely it’ll match your audience’s intent the higher you rank on search engines.

Keyword research tools such as Ubersuggest and SurferSEO plugin assist when writing a new blog.

Once you’ve selected your keywords, you can use them to help you shape the structure of your content, aligning with your topic and overall intent gravitating to your readers attention.

3. Define Your Audience

The average reader spends about 37 seconds reading a blog post, which allows us to conclude that the reader’s attention spans for approximately 30 to 40 seconds.

Audience

Your target audience holds the most power and ensuring that you’re speaking with the right terms and terminologies ensure a clear communication stream that offers personal and meaningful conversation once delved into.

To determine your audience, build your user or buyer persona, which is what the ideal customer or reader you intend on attracting.

Focusing on pain-points allows for a way to deal with the struggles that they are facing, and offer tailored solutions, which speaks directly rather than offer unclear, general content.

Use online forums to find main questions that are asked by your audience, since it will help you in creating content that piques your audience interest.

4. Outline Your Blog Post

An outline offers writers the capabilities of narrowing down what they intend with their blogs.

Outlines help you plan what to include whether it’s the word count, titles, headers and body. They also allow for an opportunity to draft before submitting, that way any errors can be edited and fixed.

You can say, an outline offers maximum organization for any blogger with a content schedule.

5. Blog Posts Title

Your title is what it all comes down to. When googling a word, phrase, or question, your blog title may draw readers or revert them from visiting your blog.

With search engine results pushing your blog post to the top of the page, it’s up to your title, to sell what you have to offer.

6. Meta Description

Meta description is a couple of words, ranging from 150 to 200 words summarizing what your blog refers to.

It’s offering all 1,000+ words, in a very concise way to share the idea of what you’ve written about.

7. Create a Captivating Introduction

Quality blog posts always start with an introduction that stands out.

Your introduction holds the most power and similar to clicking on a site and dictating if you should browse through the pages, the introduction plays the same.

Whether it’s the blog post title, or the first sentence, readers need to be blown away and shown value in what they’re about to read.

8. Captivating Headers

Headers are the names of each chapter or section that your blog posts have. Similar to novels or autobiographies, headers on a blog let the reader know what they’re about to go over.

It also assists readers in navigating through your blog. Some readers may be interested in certain aspects, but not all.

A great headline may even have your readers interested in going in depth, rather than just skim the surface.

Writing headlines can be done before or after. It mostly depends on bloggers or writers writing style. Headers are also used for SEO. Including keywords found within your research phase grants higher ranking on SERPs.

9. Design

With the verbal content present on your Google Docs page, you also need to focus on the visual assets that can increase your search engine optimization.

The layout of your website is of the essence. When you start blogging, your design can unconsciously let readers know how deep you thought about their experience.

With a thought out user experience that offers 99.9% uptime (like GuruDesk) you can rest assured that your site won’t lose customers due to its unavailability.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your blog:

Images

As important as it is for writers to include block of writing, it is important to include relevant images that assist in making your blog more appealing.

Add images after the headline for a clear direction of what your readers may come across.

By using a featured image, prominently displayed with a piece of content, offers a visual representation of the content. It is selected to give a quick overview of what the content is about.

To assist in SEO optimization, be sure to optimize the visuals by compressing them through a compressor such as Caesium. Be sure to include alt-text to make your visuals accessible to everyone, regardless their impairment.

Bullet points

Though it being a simple tool, the use of bullet points and lists, will offer a breakdown of chunks of knowledge offered in your blogs.

This in return offers a more digestible, easy to read content. With easy readability, your blog post will rank higher, therefore granting you more clicks and views.

If the information is too compressed and excessive, it will have a negative impact on your audience, leading you to lose them. 

10. Blog Domain

Blog writing could be a function of your website, or it could be an extension; as in a page located on your website.

It is vital that your blog posts land on a domain that follows your company, business or is a stand alone, a blog domain of its own.

Search engines can therefore find your website, or blogs easier through the use of your domain.

11. Choose a Blog Template

Whether you’re using WordPress, WooCommerce, or have a separate hosting service (hopefully provided by GuruDesk) using demo themes or creating them on your own make your job a lot more simple.

There’s a variety of the best of WordPress themes which cater to those intending on free or payed themes, to make your blogging page more appealing and help in expressing what your field, genre of choice is.

12. Device Translation

If you already have a hosting provider, chances are they offer device optimization to ensure that your blog translates well regardless of the device they use. Not only does this help search engines, but it also helps your readers enjoy your blog anywhere, regardless of the device.

As with every blog, stressing on the importance of your website translating well from one device to another is of maximum importance.

Article View

Whether its blog posts, news stories, or articles, article view optimizes images and tests for your mobile screen. It offers distraction-free, easy to read format designed to deliver the best reading experience…which also impacts your audience’s user experience positively.

13. Include a Compelling Call-to-Action

Call-to-action is a marketing term which prompts an immediate or encouraging response or behavior. It can be in a form of question or statement.

The perfect blog post includes a call to action to assist the reader in knowing what to do next.

14. Actionable Advice

Advice holds more power if it is actionable. Advice is one thing, but good advice is measurable by how it enables decision.

Actionable Advice gives your readers a valid reason to do some form of action. You can think of this with examples such as:

• Spend time with the ones you love
• Life is not about success. Don’t let it run your life

15. Editors Note

The editors note includes information about you and your company or organization. Whether it be the first blog post or the 50th, it is necessary that in a few sentences, you include where you started, where you’re located, as well as what recognition you’ve received.

This is your abridged version of the “About Us” page on your website.

Content Marketing

Include a featured image, which is an image that is used to represent a piece of content.

Displayed prominently on the top of your page or post, typically a blog post or article, it intends to capture your reader’s attention and provide visual assets to the content found on your website or social media platform.

To maximize traffic, you can also share the featured image used on your blog on Facebook groups,  to ensure reach. 

When you Market your content on social media, it is important to manage your schedule. Having a new blog post every couple of days, entices your readers, having them await your next feature.

Content Management System

A content management system is a system that allows its users to create, manage and modify their content on a website without the use of a coder or coding.

One of the best CMS found today is WordPress. With many pros, WordPress allows you to establish your blog for free, add themes to increase the chances of your blogs visibility and more. It is viable and important that your blog posts are hosted and saved within to ensure maximum use.

Don’t forget to backup your content, to avoid losing anything in case of issues that may arise.

What is a Blog Example?

For a good blog post example you can scroll through our blogs to get a basic understanding of the outline, formatting and layout.

What are the DON’Ts of Blogging?

As with everything, we’ve offered you the do’s when blogging, but the don’ts are measures to avoid to prevent readers from dozing off in the next blog post:

• Don’t ramble with run-on sentences. You’ll drag your readers on lengthy texts and no one likes that.
• Don’t try to cover too many topics at once. It’s too overwhelming and misleading
• Don’t write blog posts with profanity or unprofessional language
• Don’t use other people’s content without permission or credit
• Don’t give up. It takes some time to build a loyal reader fanbase.

How to Write Blog Posts – Guest Blogging

Guest bloggers typically write on topics that are relevant to the website or industry, with the aim of reaching a new audience, building brand awareness, as well as establishing oneself with the hopes of connecting to a new audience.

Guest blogging is important for the blogger as well as the host website in the sense of ensuring that all content be original and restricted to the guidelines offered by the host website.

Blog Post Ideas

We understand the overwhelming sensation that came over you while reading this blog and we are here to help simplify everything that you will need. Here are some blog post ideas to generate a great blog post:

• Movie Reviews
• Music Reviews
• Arts and Culture
• Information Technology
• Hosting Services (find more on GuruDesk)

How to Make Money Blogging 

In order to monetize your blog, you need to identify your niche, write for that audience specifically, publish new content regularly, and promote your blog via social media and other channels.

It takes time and effort to build a blog into a profitable business, so patience and perseverance are also crucial. Here are some of the most common methods used by bloggers to monetize their sites:

Affiliate Marketing:

Through affiliate marketing, you can earn a commission on sales of products or services that are related to the topic of your blog. 

Sponsored Content: 

With “sponsored content,” businesses will pay you to write about their services on your site. 

Advertising:

You can monetize your blog by displaying advertisements such as Google AdSense and earning a commission on the number of times your readers click on or view those ads. 

Digital Products:

Producing and selling digital products like ebooks, courses, and printable that are relevant to your blog’s topic area is a great way to monetize your writing. 

Consulting or Coaching:

Services in the form of consulting or coaching can be offered to blog readers if the blogger has a high level of expertise in the field. 

Membership Site:

You can charge your readers a monthly or annual fee to join your membership site, where they will have access to special content and resources related to your blog’s topic area. 

Freelance writing: 

If you’re a good writer, you could offer your services to related blogs and websites.

Write Blog Posts with GuruDesk

With the basics passed onto you, choose a hosting provider offering you a safe platform for your content. Ensure that your site is optimized by having a user friendly UI/UX design, which will help in performance, speed, and uptime.

GuruDesk offers 99.9% uptime which allows for minimum downtime and ensures your site is always available.