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How to write a good blog post:
Tips and tricks on how to write a blog post fast and make sure it’s perfectly optimized
Are you a beginner blogger wondering how to write the perfect blog post? Or maybe you’re a seasoned blogger who would like to learn more tips on how to write a blog post fast.
Either way, knowing how to properly structure and write a blog post is essential if you want to make sure that your blog posts are perfectly optimized for your readers, as well as for search engines.
In today’s post, I am going to be sharing everything I have learned about how to plan for, structure, and write a good blog post.
Everything you’re about to read here I’ve learned through trial and error, advice from other bloggers, and courses I’ve bought on the topic.
When it comes to SEO, I learned everything I know from Debbie Gartner, who has amazing resources on SEO. The one I personally purchased form her is Easy On-Page SEO, and it was worth every penny.
I’d definitely recommend you check her resources out if you’re interested in learning more about SEO.
If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog and stumbled upon this post, I have a free 7-day blogging course for beginners you can enroll in right below!
Before we get into the post, I also wanted to share with you an interesting article on how to find the perfect web host for your blog or website. With so many hosting platforms out there, it can definitely get a little overwhelming.
Hopefully this research will give you a better understanding of web hosts and you will be able to make an informed decision on the perfect host for your needs. Check out the article here.
With all that said, let’s jump into how to write a proper blog post.
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How to write a perfect blog post
Start with the basics
Whatever niche you’re in, writing a good blog posts starts with thinking about a problem you can help your readers solve.
After all, you should probably write about something that people are going to search for. If not, then you probably won’t get many visitors to your site.
A great way of finding out if your idea is worth writing about is by doing a little research. Type in your topic into Google’s search bar and see what pops up.
Using a keyword tool like Ubersuggest is also important, as it will tell you what related keywords you should use throughout your post to rank well in search engines.
Now that you’ve got your blog post idea and related keywords, let’s move on to the next important part.
Related read:
50 blog post ideas for lifestyle bloggers
Your blog post title
You might be thinking that writing fancy, attention-grabbing titles works best for SEO, right? Well, it turns out that’s not necessarily the case.
There is a H-U-G-E difference between titles for SEO and titles you write on your pins on Pinterest.
SEO is more to the point. Think about what you type into Google searches. Is it more along the lines of “How to make bread” or “The only bread recipe you will ever need”?
Of course, it’s the first option. Nobody is really typing all that extra stuff into Google.
Leave the catchy, attention-grabbing titles for Pinterest, where they’re actually needed.
Writing your blog post
The writing process is different for everybody. I, personally, know that I’m going to focus on 3 things in the body of my blog posts.
- Catchy, keyword-rich introduction
- Main body separated by headings
- Conclusion that includes a call-to-action
Let’s break this all down.
Your introduction
Remember when we talked about keywords? A good SEO introduction has a variation of your keyword in it. Of course, the introduction can’t just be a bunch of keywords stuck together to make a sentence.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to writing a good introduction is writing it in a way that attracts the reader, as of course you want whoever reads your post to stay on the page and read until the end.
Another reason why you want people to stay on your page, besides reading all of your hard work, is because of SEO.
If someone clicks on your post, skims the beginning and decides it’s not worth their time, and then clicks out of your post, that sends a message to Google that this post isn’t good enough to be featured in searches.
Making sure that you write an attention-grabbing introduction is, therefore, a pretty big deal!
The main body
Please, please use headings. Breaking your post into different parts using headings is so much more user-friendly. This way it’s easy to navigate your post and easy to read it.
And as we saw before when I talked about your introduction, you really want to keep your readers happy if you want to rank high in searches.
Another thing to remember when writing the body is to make your sentences on the shorter side. Long sentences tend to confuse readers.
In addition to writing short sentences, don’t write long paragraphs. Unlike essays, blog post paragraphs ideally shouldn’t be longer than 3-4 sentences.
Again, this is all to keep your readers happy. The easier your post is to read, the longer they will stay on your page. The longer they do that, the better for your rankings. It really is a win-win situation.
A very big thing to remember is that writing a good blog post for SEO is a lengthy process. Meaning, you ideally want to be writing anywhere from 1500 to 3000+ words.
The reason for that is, again, to have people on your site for a longer amount of time.
You want the most of your writing to be in the main body of your post. If you write a too-long introduction, your readers might get bored and click off. And it’s not really necessary to write a lengthy conclusion either.
Speaking of the conclusion, that’s what I am going to get into next. Here we go.
The Conclusion
I don’t really do a whole lot with my conclusions except maybe stress on a point I already mentioned in the post, but I do do one thing every time.
I make sure that the conclusions in my posts have a call-to-action at the end. A call-to-action will guide the reader as to what to do next.
There are a few ways you can go about this:
- Adding an opt-in form which leads your reader to download something for free, which would then add them to your mailing list.
- Asking an open-ended question, which is great for getting comments on your blog posts.
- Interlinking. Adding related posts is a great way to reduce your bounce rate.
After you’ve written your post
You might be thinking that this is it. You have written your beginning, middle and end, and you have keywords throughout your post. What more is there to do?
Well, writing the post is only half the journey to a well-written blog post.
What you do after you write your information can have huge results for your traffic and your blog, so don’t skip this step.
Interlinking
I talked briefly about this in the conclusion, but we are going back to interlinking.
Go through your whole post next and see where you can add related posts between your sections.
For example, if you mention self-care briefly somewhere in your post, add a link to a self-care post of yours right after. Remember to click on “Open in new tab”, to keep your readers from being bounced to another post without first finishing reading the one they’re on.
Images
Adding images can definitely make it easier to read your blog post. Add an image after every few sections of your post to break up the wording a little.
I think you can by now see that keeping people on your post as happy and interested as you can is absolute key to ranking well in search engines!
The images I use on my posts are all stock photos. I’m no photographer, so I choose to purchase my photos from reputable stock photo sites instead.
Here are the stock photo memberships I have and thoroughly recommend:
- Ivory Mix
- PixiStock
Another quick tip when it comes to images: Stock photos are usually very big in size. Adding them to your blog posts as they are will probably slow down your site, especially on mobile. You don’t want that!
Therefore, make sure to resize your images before you add them to your posts. I use Canva Pro for this, but I’m sure there are other, free websites to do this!
Pinnable images
Don’t skip this step! Seriously, adding pinnable images is going to help you so much with getting your content out to more people.
Adding two pinnable images, one somewhere in the beginning and one at the end is ideal. You can also add a little reminder for people to pin your images as a nudge for them to actually do it!
Anyone who knows me knows that I love Pinterest and gush about it all the time. It brings me the most traffic out of all my other referrers.
If you’ve been wanting to learn more Pinterest tips to grow your own blog traffic, I have a free Pinterest cheat sheet you can download right below! It contains 40 quick tips on how you can optimize Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog.
Affiliate links
Next, go through your post and add affiliate links where you can.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money blogging, and I make a pretty good sum from it every month!
In fact, you can read exactly how much I made blogging in my recent income report post.
Looking for more ways to make money blogging? I explain how you can monetize your blog here.
Disclosure
When promoting affiliate links, you need to disclose it properly on all your posts that contain them.
I used to write an affiliate disclosure on each post until I downloaded a plugin that automatically places it at the top of all my blog posts. Both ways work, but make sure it’s there.
Proofread
Before you publish your blog post, you will of course need to proofread it.
I tend to read as I go, but even then I catch mistakes when I’m doing my final read.
You definitely don’t want to miss this step!
Publish or schedule
And finally, after all your hard work, you are ready to either publish your post, or schedule it for later.
I used to be big on scheduling in advance, and that helped a lot when I was working a lot more. These days, I mostly publish whenever I write a post.
Link your new post in older posts
I forget to do this 80% of the time, but it’s so important!
When you’re done with your blog post, go through your blog and paste the link to your new post in any older posts that relate to it!
This will make readers who are on those older posts of yours potentially click on this new one. And who doesn’t want that?!
Final thoughts
So there you have it, guys! This is everything I know about how to write a killer blog post. Once you do this a few times, it gets easier and much faster than the first time.
Of course, other bloggers might have their own techniques on how they write blog posts, and that’s okay! It’s all about what works for you. If you’re seeing good results with SEO the way you write your posts now, then that’s awesome!
But if you want to try out some new things when it comes to your posts, I hope you take a few of these on. I’m sure you’ll see good results!
Related reads:
Income Report For May
My Favorite Blogging Resources
10 Blogging Mistakes You Need To Avoid
10 Mistakes You Are Making On Pinterest
How I Grew My Blog Traffic By 80% In One Month
Before you go, tell me, what is something you make sure to do in every blog post? Has this post taught you something you didn’t know before? Let me know in the comments!
As usual, if you enjoyed this post, please pin it to share with more bloggers!
Very helpful and straight to the point tips! I think the hardest part for me when creating blog posts is making them 2,000 words (time consuming) but doing keyword research first before even writing is very smart!!
Oh I definitely can relate! It’s hard stretching out a post that much!
I really hope that this post is seen far and wide and helps many fledgeling bloggers who need to know the basics! Wish I’d have read something like this back when I first started!
Rosie
Thank you!
A well laid out plan for writing blog post. I can already see what I am not doing already. Will inculcate it in my writing immediately.
Thank you! I’m sure you’ll get great results!
These are very helpful, I just learnt that there is a plug-in that automatically place affiliate disclosures on your post. Lol, I do this manually and it’s a lot of work. Thank you for sharing all these. Super helpful
Haha don’t worry, I only very recently found out about these plugins!
Some really great tips here especially for beginners x
Thank you!
Great tips for beginner bloggers or people looking to improve their blog!
Lauren | https://www.laurenyloves.co.uk/
Thank you Lauren!
I love this post. I try to go through all the steps but, you’ve added a good few more here! There’s so much to do!
Al x
There really is! It does get better with practice, though 🙂
These are all such great tips! I didn’t really realize you should create a basic title for SEO and a more catchy title for Pinterest! Thanks so much for sharing all these tips and tricks!
I also had no idea until very recently! It makes a lot of sense though!
Thank you for this post, it will really help me out. I’ve even signed up for your course!! 💖
Thank you! I hope you love it as much as I do 💞
Great tips!!! These will come in handy on my next blog post!👍🏽
Happy to hear that!
I love this neat list to writing a good blog post. Even though I mostly write poetry, I delve into actual posts to and this is filled with good reminders, such as the pinnable images I often gloss over . . . I love that this is friendly to beginner bloggers or people, like me, who need a few reminders now and again. 🙂
I think that with your poem posts you could bring a lot of Pinterest traffic by pinning graphics that have your poems on it! Just something to think about if you’re not already doing it 😊
Hey! 🌸 Great post! You’ve shared lots of valuable and helpful information that I find to be helpful for both new & experienced bloggers! Thank you so much for sharing! I hope you have wonderful week ahead! If you get a chance, I’d love for you to stop by & visit my post too!
https://jessalittleshirtshop.com/blogs/news/10-reasons-to-have-multiple-income
Thank you, Jessica! Going to look at your post now!
This is a really helpful post that’s nice and easy to understand! I think there’s always room for improvements in blogging, so I’m excited to implement some of these. Thank you 🙂
There’s so much to learn, isn’t there?!
omg this post is jam-packed full of so much information! I’ve defo improved my SEO game since I started, although, I do tend to struggle sometimes including the keyword in the first bit of the introduction! Thanks for sharing all this helpful info!! 🙂
My pleasure!
Great post! I love your tips, since they’re very practical and to-the-point, and the build up of the article is really handy as well! Thank you!
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Great post! I’m definitely going to have to try the Ubersuggest and see how I get on with that. I just struggle with the idea of using keywords and making my posts SEO friendly but in turn ruining the post for readers if that makes sense? I’ll save this post to refer to before I post, as a checklist if you will 🙂
I definitely can relate! I usually re-write sentences a couple of times to make them sound good for SEO but also be user-friendly as much as possible. 😊
So very new to all this and so much to learn. And realized I have a very long way to go before my blogs are as good as some that I have been reading.
Baby steps! You’ll get there in no time 😊
This is a great post, that I will defo be saving for the next time I sit down to write. I think everyone can learn a lot from this whether they are just starting out or have been blogging a while – I know I’ve spotted some new tricks!
Emily xx
http://www.underthescottishrain.com
Thank you! I’m happy you learned something new!
Great advice here, even for someone who has been at it for a while.
Sometimes it is so easy to get wrapped up in the topic that the basic’s can easily be overlooked.
Thank you for sharing x
I can definitely relate to that! Thanks for stopping by. 😊
Thanks for sharing these tips! I love to write, but the concept of blogging/SEO/keyword optimization is all so new to me!
It takes a bit of time to learn a lot of these things! I didn’t pay attention to SEO for the longest time.
Some really great tips in here! I’ve been blogging for a few years now but there are always ways to improve, and you’ve given me a lot to think about and incorporate from now on. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much!
I never thought to go back and update old posts to link to the new one. Why I don’t know LOL Also, I went and checked out Ubersuggest and it’s SO helpful, thank you!
Oh don’t worry! I know all about it and still manage to forget to do it half the time. 😩
Very clear and helpful. Thank you so much!