Blogs are powerful. They give companies and individuals the opportunity to convey their expertise and personality to their audience. When they are full of relevant, useful and engaging information blogs build confidence and trust. A good blog will make the reader want to come back for more.
We all have our own style and that’s a good thing. It’s also good to have a structure and ask yourself some questions before you write your blog post. Here are some tried and tested questions for you to consider . . .
Question 1: Who’s your audience?
Before you start, you need to have a very clear understanding of your target audience. What do they want to know about? What will be of interest and make sense to them? Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself the kind of questions that you would like answers to.
Question 2: What’s the topic and title of the blog post?
You need to come up with a list of topics. Its always good to have a list of them and just write one when the mood takes you. It’s recommended to write one soon after you are finished some work relating to the topic point as it can give you some great insights.
Question 3: How do you grab the readers attention right from the start?
We are all very busy and suffer from information overload so we need to grab our reader’s attention. So jump into a story, ask an interesting question and answer it, make it relevant to the customer and share interesting facts, stats and other important information. Describe and explain the purpose of the blog post and explain how it will address a problem the reader may be having. The reader needs to feel that it is worth their time reading the blog and that it will make their lives better.
Question 4: Have you a structure for your blog?
There is no ideal length for a blog post. Short or long works so long as it is interesting, relevant and adds value to the reader. It’s important for the writer and reader not to drown in too much information. Break up longer posts into short paragraphs, lists, and so on. Know the points you want to cover in the blog post, have one idea per paragraph and make sure that the blog post has a nice flow to it. Ask yourself would you read this if you were in the readers shoes? Refer the reader to other interesting articles or further resources.
Question 6: What is the Call to Action?
You need to make it very clear at the end of your blog post what you want the reader to do next. What’s the call to action? That could be to subscribe to your blog, request more information, download a guide you have created and so on.
Finally – Just Start Writing!
Just start. Don’t worry if the first pass is not perfect. A few tweaks and it can turn from good to excellent. Blogs are an ongoing investment. Building a successful blog takes time and one blog post wont necessarily change the world, though it might. Have patience and persistence. You need to continue to work at it. Keep writing interesting blogs posts and the results will follow.
Just start writing!