Writing a good blog is a skill in itself. It brings more relevant visitors to your website. It is an effective way of marketing that has proven itself time and again. By sharing your expertise on relevant topics within your field of expertise, you create trust with the readers of the blog.
But how do I write a blog? Below I have drawn up a step-by-step plan to help you structure your blog. Use the tips to beat your competitors and to score even better in Google.
Why should I write a blog?
Writing a blog takes time, but it can bring a lot to your website. Discover here the three reasons to start blogging:
1. Become visible and findable in search engines
In the Netherlands, 93% of internet users start their search in Google. By having a relevant blog, you make your website visible and findable in Google. It is important that you have qualitative content on your website. This way, visitors find your website faster and you generate more visitors, which increases the chance of conversions.
2. It enhances your status and builds trust
Through quality blogs, you establish yourself as an expert in your field. If you have several interesting blog articles on your website, this will attract visitors who want to know more about one particular subject.
3. More visitors result in more conversions
One blog will bring in more visitors. But what about multiple relevant blogs? This will generate even more visitors and increase conversions. Conversion is defined as the percentage of visitors who actually complete a transaction. For this, a number of relevant blogs have to be written first. This means that the blog needs to have a good content and it needs to be about a subject that suits the website. Below you can read the 14 steps for a relevant blog.
How to start writing a blog
A blog is a short article that you place on your own or another website. In it you share your expertise or experiences. To be easily found, it is important to use at least 300 words in a blog. In addition, blogs usually contain relevant pictures and answer a question from the target group. If you don't want to miss a single step for a strong blog article, follow these 14 steps:
1. Determine the target group
Before writing a blog, it is important to know which target group you are writing for and adjust your writing style accordingly. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Does my target group require a formal or informal tone?
- What is my target group interested in?
- What is the education level of my target group?
- What is the age of my target group?
When you know what the target group is interested in, you can easily create multiple blog topics that match their interests. If you are writing for a less educated target group, it is important to avoid difficult words. Finally, with regard to age, it is important to know whether the target group prefers to be addressed with 'you' or 'you'.
2. Create a catchy headline
The title of this blog is what brought you to this page. If the title is bad, no one will read your blog, no matter how good the content is. The headline attracts traffic to a website. Spend a lot of time writing a strong headline. You can get a lot of inspiration by searching the internet for blog articles that score high in Google.
Start by coming up with the title. This is how you delineate a subject and ensure that the blog is limited to one topic. In general, lists work well in titles. For example, '10 tips for divorce' or 'Top 10 ways to get rid of wrinkles'.
Finally, a title that begins with 'why' works very well. It asks something of the target group that they themselves were not aware they wanted to know the answer to.
3. Use appropriate images
When you click on a blog post, the intention is that the visitor will read the entire article. To ensure this, it is important that when the visitor opens the page, the article immediately looks attractive, so that you increase the chance that they will read the whole article.
Further on in the article, you will read that headings and whitespace ensure that texts are pleasant to read. Only text in a blog article is considered unpleasant and puts off visitors. The use of images improves the readability of the blog because it provides variety in the content and supports the text. Besides images, videos are also a strong addition.
4. Give the solution
To provide value to readers, you can offer a solution to difficulties that your target audience is experiencing. Try to give answers to those kinds of questions in the blog posts. And preferably concrete tips and advice that they can put into practice immediately.
5. Make the text readable
When writing a blog article, it is important to make sure that the text is easy to read. You have already read that images improve readability. You can do this by using enough blank lines, headings and images. By using headings, you can make a blog article clear and therefore a visitor can easily navigate through the text. Many visitors are looking for information on one subject and will not read all the text in your blog. To make sure that the text reads well, add blank lines. Nobody likes long stretches of text that are poorly formatted or not at all. So use a blank line every five or six lines of text to make sure it doesn't look like one big piece of text.
6. Without structure, you lose readers
After you have thought out and developed the previous five steps, you now want to start writing the text. Once you have written the text, you need to provide structure to the story. Headings can provide this. By dividing your text into paragraphs, you delineate one part of your story, which keeps the blog post well-organised. It gives structure to the text. And if you add a subheading to each paragraph, you make it even clearer for the visitor. This way you show what the main line of the blog is. The reader scans the titles and decides for himself whether the text is worth reading. Almost all readers scan the titles and headings.
7. Call to action or call-to-action
After the visitor has read the blog, it is important to entice him to take an action. Include this at the end of the article. This prevents the reader from wondering what to do after reading.
8. Examples prove your statements
Your blog article contains many facts, figures and studies. To strengthen the story and gain trust, add examples about the information in the blog. First, you show exactly what you mean and provide proof that it is true.
9. Link to other blogs
When you have several blogs, you can refer readers to more information on the subject. You do this by referring to other blog articles. This way you make sure that other articles get attention. Do you want more information about marketing your content? Click here for the blog on content marketing.
10. Learn from other blogs
The internet is full of strong blog articles that score well. Don't try to invent the wheel yourself and look for examples you can learn from. Look carefully at the structure of how an article is set up and at its level.
11. Use keywords
Find a keyword or search term with high search traffic. You can do this for example in Google Keyword Planner. Include this keyword in the title of your blog and in the URL. You can read more about how SEO works in this article: 'What is SEO? If you are going to do keyword research with Google Keyword PlannerYou will discover that certain search terms generate a lot of traffic. You are certainly not the only one who notices this and there is probably already a lot of content on your blog topic. Focus on the search terms that are relatively easy to find and that are being searched for.
12. Use heading tags
By means of H1, H2 and H3 you tell Google what the data in the page is about. This structure is similar to a table of contents in a book. With H1 you indicate the title of the page and you use it only once. H2 and H3 are intermediate titles and serve as paragraphs.
13. How to navigate a blog easily
In the year 2018, it is important to make it easy for users to navigate through a blog article. Again, this can be compared to a book, namely by placing a table of contents at the beginning. By doing so, you give readers the opportunity to navigate directly to the information they need.
14. Be patient
After all, it takes a lot of time to write a blog article. Especially if it is an article of about 2000 words with which you want to score high in Google and which takes a lot of time and energy. Be patient and try to keep the quality high.
Want to know more?
Want to appeal to your target group with relevant content? Our content seduces your target group. Our online professionals will gladly tell you more about the possibilities for your organisation. If you want more information about content creation, please contact us. contact on.
