The Ingredients that Make a Good Blog Post
Writing a good blog post has its rules. It’s like following the recipe for your favorite cake – it has ingredients and directions that you must follow so that you get the results you want.
What are the ingredients for a good blog post?
Writing a good blog post has its rules. It’s like following the recipe for your favorite cake – it has ingredients and directions that you must follow so that you get the results you want.
What are the ingredients for a good blog post? The right topic and idea, of course.
How do you find the right topic or idea? Think of the following:
- What are the questions that people always ask in your field?
- What does your buyer persona want to know in each of the legs of the buying journey?
- What are your competitors doing? What do they write about?
- What is the chatter in your industry?
- What are your readers commenting about?
The above questions will give you a list of the ingredients or ideas for your blog posts. Once you have these, what are the directions you have to follow to write a killer piece?
- Make the title accurate – the post’s title should be short, to the point and unambiguous. Don’t try to be too clever or witty. Make sure it summarizes what the post will talk about. Don’t mention yourself or your company but a problem or challenge and its solution.
- Have structure – remember the rules for writing essays in high school? Your first post’s paragraph must provide the value of the entire piece, explain why your readers should read it. Then go to the body and the description. And then close with a summary that restates the main values.
- Be concise – don’t overdo it. The post should not be long and should have as much white space as possible. Use bullets, bold text, headings to introduce each subtopic, visual cues that will help your readers scan the text quickly and decide whether the information is relevant.
- Use visuals – images must be relevant and placed at the beginning of the post so that readers can relate to the subject matter right at the beginning.
- Use in-page SEO – what is the title? What is the URL? Are you using H1 for the headline? Alt text for the picture? Follow SEO rules if you want your post to obtain exposure.
- Insert links – link to webpages, to other posts or other channels you use. Don’t be afraid to give credit to others and link to other bloggers or professional channels.
- Insert a call to action – even though you want to steer clear of marketing, do not detach the post from your value proposition. Insert a call to action in it, a banner at the end or at the side, a hyperlink to your website or social channel, or encourage readers to leave a comment.
- Share – last but not least, share your blog post in all distribution channels that may be relevant for your buyer personas.
Once you have the ingredients in place and follow the instructions for the mix, your blog post will be as readable as your favorite cake is yummy.