How to write a good blog

As a famous author once said, ‘Nobody wants to read about stuff they don’t want to read about’. So, when starting out to write your blog post, first decide who your audience is, and think about what they might want to read about. It’ll narrow things down if you already have a specific message to get across to a specific audience.

Keyword research and optimising content for SEO

To get search engines like Google to find your post and rank it, do some keyword research to see which terms people are searching for on your blog subject. Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs will help with this.

Look for keywords with moderate-to-high search volume and low competition showing topics that readers actively seek information on. Include your blog topic in the blog title, then include relevant keywords in your article.

Include this keyword in your metadata too, which is the preview text you’ll see for articles on Google, and it includes a title (the meta title) and short description (the meta description).

Writing style

When you’ve chosen your topic, consider what angle to come at it from, and the style you think it should be written in.

This will depend on the subject and what kind of approach is most likely to engage your audience. Blog posts can be straight, humorous, gently light-hearted, even aggressive. Your skill as a writer will probably be the deciding style factor.

Craft an irresistible headline

When writing a blog post, besides strong content you’ll also need an effective headline. This is one of the most important aspects of your blog post – it determines whether someone decides to click through and read.

Use it to promise readers that your blog post will provide valuable insight, benefit them in some way, teach them something new or help them solve a problem.

Think of your blog as an ad or a poster, where on average five times more people read the headline than the body copy, so take the time to polish your headline ‘till it shines.

Write engaging content

Write clearly and without waffle. Talking about something that actually enthuses you can help to do the same for your readers. Nothing beats your own personal expertise.

If you have hands-on experience with your subject matter, write some of that into your blog. Are you a recognised expert? That’ll help. Can you provide factual data to back up your message? Better still. If you know there’s a right way to do something, put that in your blog to add value.

Create an initial outline

Plan the shape of your post. Divide your content into easily digestible portions and try to create a logical structure for the information that you can build on as you write. Creating subheadings will help with that, besides making it easier for people to read. You could maybe think of it as a menu of recipe ingredients, a step-by-step guide, or a list of tips.

The 3 elements

Blog posts, like many other types of writing, typically include three main elements: an introduction, the body text and a conclusion. In the first few sentences, you could grab your readers’ attention with a relevant quote or statistic, tell a short story, or share an interesting fact. Then set the tone for the rest with a brief summary of what you’re going to talk about in the body text.

Your conclusion could be a call to action that motivates readers to take a certain action. This includes everything from subscribing to your blog to making a purchase.

Use both internal and external links

Internal links are hyperlinks that take readers from one page to another on your website. Their main purpose is to help visitors easily navigate your website, but they can also help boost SEO.

According to John Mueller, Senior Search Analyst at Google, internal linking is super critical for SEO. It’s one of the biggest things you can do on a website to guide Google and visitors to the pages that you think are important – though what you think is important is totally up to you.

This is especially important as search engines like Google deploy generative AI results and sponsored ads before organic content. It’s becoming harder and harder to rank in search engines for even the most informative of blogs.

Images and infographics

The right images can make your blog post sing, so pick ones that add extra value to the points you’re making, rather than simply dropping something in to break up the grey lines.

Pay extra attention to your featured image – the main visual below your blog’s title. It’s what readers will see when they browse your articles from your blog’s homepage.

Infographics are also a good idea to insert within blog posts to reinforce key points or stats. These are also more likely to be shared by others online, so ensure you include your brand or some sort of watermark to ensure you get credit for your creation.

Best advice to end on?

Go online and find good blogs written by other people for inspiration.