Planning Your Blog Post // 10 minutes
We are going to go over the steps for planning a blog post efficiently. These are the tasks you should complete before writing even a single word of your post.
Proper planning helps you to create an article that reads better, and therefore, is easier for the reader to understand. It also makes the writing process a lot more seamless and organized.
How To Plan Your Blog Post Step-By-Step:
1. Pick your topic
- Do some keyword research to find the best term to target for your article.
- You can use a tool like Ahrefs to see this information.
- If you are having trouble, check out this article that goes over the process of choosing the right keywords.
2. Begin to research any areas about the topic you don’t know about or you’re unsure of
- If you are experienced and knowledgeable in your topic, try finding a few statistics to back up your point, rather than finding a ton of unnecessary information you may already know about.
3. Write all of your notes/research down in a separate document.
- Log any important information about your topic, and include any informative links to other websites that can help your article to your research document.
4. Outline your article by section using you Research Document
- Break your article down by 3 to 10 headings or “points” that you want to cover, and make quick notes under each individual heading.
- Include barebones notes about what you are going to talk about.
- Think about the order in which you want your sections to appear.
Take this article for example: https://www.curacaoliqueur.com/articles/essential-tools-aspiring-mixologists
You would write your title:
Essential Cocktail Preparation Tools for Aspiring Mixologists
Followed by your individual headings/talking points (sandwiched by an introduction and conclusion):
- Introduction
- A Jigger
- A Shaker
- A Strainer
- Bar Spoon
- Muddler
- Etc
- Conclusion
P.S. Always remember to fact check afterwards! Make sure your information is factual and true. We don’t want to spread false information!
Writing An Introduction // 5-10 minutes
Your introduction is the first bit of content that your reader is going to see. This is where you draw the reader in and hook them to your article. You want to make a good first impression, agree with the readers problem, and show them a solution. That is the purpose of an introduction. Now, will go over the different aspects that make an introductory paragraph work.
1. Make your introduction short and sweet. Briefly cover what you will be talking about through the article in an elegant fashion.
2. Write an introductory sentence that starts off the topic and lets the reader know they are in the right place – and that you’re going to answer their question. Be quick and decisive in telling them your stance on the issue at hand. You should relate to the reader, and then show them a solution to their problem right away.
- Check out this article from The Express about weight loss. They quickly get into how a balanced healthy lifestyle can lead to weight loss, and how you can begin that journey by monitoring your consumption of a single food group. All within the first few sentences, so the reader can easily tell if they are in the right place or not.
Spark an emotional response from the reader in those first few sentences so they stay hooked into your article. This can be positive or negative, they just need to be drawn in.
Crafting the Body // 20-30 minutes
Your body paragraphs are the main bread & butter of your blog posts. They will encompass around 80% of your content, and will be the force used to drive home your points. You typically want to include anywhere from 3 to 10 paragraphs throughout your article.
1. Layout each point you will be talking about using your outline from the research document.
2. Start to write each paragraph: My personal advice is to write out your paragraphs without being too critical of yourself – write as if you were talking to a friend or teaching a fun lesson at a bar, people like personalities.
- You have lots of time to go back and reread your work to see what needs to be changed or fixed.
3. Use 3-10 supporting facts and statistics to back up your work: Always make sure to include a link back to where you found the information (cite the source).
Keep paragraphs and sentences short: You can keep your paragraphs to one or two sentences if you feel like it!
Neil Patel’s articles tend to feature a one-sentence format that is easy to read and follow along with
5. Maintain a conversational tone throughout the article: try not to sound like a robot, writing exactly how you’d talk in a conversation. One way to do this is by using conjoined words like “Don’t”, “You’ve”, and “Can’t” – as these are more informal and natural.
6. Include Images to enhance the post: images do wonders to blog posts and can bring a chunk of words to life. Utilize imagery anywhere you can and always include at least one image in your post.
7. Add some humor to your post where you see fit: not every blog is supposed to be super professional.
- See a perfect opportunity for a good joke? Throw it in!
- Bad pun? Better put it in bold!
8. Avoid Repetition! Don’t overuse or repeat words and make sure you aren’t using stats more than once. Another thing to look out for is starting your sentences with the same word over and over again… this looks odd and can throw readers off.
- Use CTRL+F to find every instance of a keyword or phrase inside of a document, and use CTRL+H to Find & Replace certain values in the document.
9. Read your post aloud to check its flow: poorly written articles won’t read well when spoken out loud and is an obvious red flag. Rewrite any sentences that have flow problems to make your article more cohesive.
10. Have someone else review your work: if you’re ever doubtful of the quality of your work, have a friend or colleague go over your article and provide feedback on where you can improve.
11. Don’t be afraid to cut content out or rewrite sections: sometimes it takes us some time to notice the mistakes we made in our articles. Don’t be afraid to go back and make last minute changes to your work if needed.
Include A Conclusion // 10 minutes
Your conclusion is what finishes off your blog post. It should quickly cover all of the points you went over in your article. You can even include another table of contents (some readers like to read the conclusion first before anything else). Its highly recommended that you put some effort into your conclusion instead of saying “thanks for the read, see ya later!”. Make sure the reader is satisfied, and ready to come back to your blog for more content.
1. Use this section to wrap-up what you’re talking about: include a basic list of the sub-topics you covered and briefly go over what your post talked about.
- You can always add a table of contents section in the introduction and the conclusion paragraphs. This will give the reader an easy reference point to find the different subtopics in your article.
2. Make sure the reader is satisfied: Have you answered all the questions the reader might have had throughout the article?
3. Offer additional resources at the end such as contact information, product information, or links to other posts (but try not to get too “sales-y”).
4. Your conclusion should rectify everything your article talked about, and leave the reader feeling fulfilled by your work.
Wrapping Up
In this article we talked about the different ways to step up your blog writing game, and gave you the skills required to write a blog post in under one hour. And this is without using Jasper or any other AI writing software. We talked about how to plan out your article in an organized fashion, and how to layout all of that information neatly. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start writing! Being a good writer takes practice, and becoming an efficient writer is even harder. But with this guide, you should be able to reach that one hour mark in no time!
Or you could skip steps and hire a content writer that suits your needs!
