How To Write The Best Blog Post (Step-By-Step Guide)

A website without a blog is harder to rank, so it’ll generate fewer leads and customers.

This is why you need to be on top of the blogging game. 

If you are new to blogging or trying to improve your skills, this guide will give you a step-by-step approach on how to write the best blog post.

Let’s dive right in!

1. Come up with a catchy title/headline

A headline is a window of opportunity to increase click-through rate and traffic.

According to HubSpot, you can increase the click-through rate by 500% solely on the blog post title. 

Notice what HubSpot says also says about headlines;

Now that you know how critical the headline is, how do you come up with ideas? Well, there are various ways. 

But before you start writing the headline, you need to find the exact words and phrases your readers are looking use, so your blog post is more likely to reach the right audience.

Learn more about this on our guide: How to do keyword research.

Use Udemy/Amazon

Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko.com, says that he uses Udemy and Amazon to create selling titles. To use this method, you need to know what you want to write about. Let’s say you want to write about content marketing. 

• Enter your keyword on Udemy’s or Amazon’s search box. 
• Look for courses or books about your keyword that people are willing to pay for and learn. 
• Look for something that has a high rating. 
• Open it and look at the table of contents, and voila! You have yourself a range of titles to use.

Originality Blog Post Ideas Generator

Originality’s Blog Post Idea Generator will suggest different topic ideas for your keyword. You don’t need to sign up to use the online tool.

Buzzsumo

With Buzzsumo, you can find the top-performing content on every platform by entering any topic, keyword, or domain. 

Buzzsumo also helps you refine your research by narrowing it down to country or date range. 

Your title’s format also determines click-through rates. It would be best if you made it compelling. 

Lastly, you need to keep your title short. 

HubSpot analysts found that catchy headlines with 12-14 words on Facebook get the most likes. On Twitter, a headline with 8-12 words will get the most shares. Here, you will need to conduct several tests to see what your audience likes the most. 

Learn more about headings on our detailed guide: how to write a good title for an article.

2. Write a captivating introduction

Out of 10 people, only 8 read the title. Even if 20% of the people who read the title open your article, it won’t make them read through your content. A captivating intro is one way to ensure that the reader completes your piece to the end. 

One of the most critical factors in writing the best blog posts is having a compelling introduction. Hooking your reader with the intro can make them stick around, generating a lot of leads. 

Neil Patel, the co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and a columnist at HubSpot (among other things), knows the importance of a great intro. As a New York bestselling author, he knows what the first few seconds after the reader clicks through could mean for his SEO, social networks, and career. 

“If you’ve followed me closely, you know that I contribute to several industry blogs as a guest blogger. I always take time to nail the introduction, because I know that it’s what keeps people reading my content. I can’t afford to put them off my good blog posts with a weak, generic, or boring intro. If people don’t read my content, it will affect my search engine optimization, my social networks, and my whole career.” says Neil Patel.

Use the PPT Formula

One way to nail the introduction is using the PPT formula. The SEO genius, Brian Dean, constantly uses it to make an attention-grabbing introduction. PPT stands for Preview, Proof, and Transition. 

• Preview- It lets the person know what to expect from your article. This way, they will know they are in the right place. 

• Proof- You can prove to the reader that you are an expert on your niche. Here, you can show your number of clients, years of experience, certs, credentials, or individual results. 

• Transition– These are sentences that motivate a reader to continue reading. 

You can learn more about writing great introductions here: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Compelling Article Introduction.

3. Use appropriate headers tags

Headings are phrases within a text used to hint at what a paragraph reveals. The Yoast Blog emphasizes the importance of using heading, saying that most readers prefer scannable content. With headings and subheadings, you can entice the reader to continue reading. 

The three main reasons you should use Headers include;

• It makes it easy for the reader to scan- A hint of the paragraph’s information make it easy for the reader to scheme. A long post with no breaks or headings is tiring to read and will increase the bounce rate on your post. 
• Enhances blog post structure and consistency- You can format your headers in the style sheet in different colors, fonts, and sizes. This will make your blog post unique and enhance the beauty of your work. 
• Improve SEO- Another important reason for using headers is for SEO. You can even use keywords in sub-titles to optimize your content. They help the search engine to recognize your content.

Look at how you can use different headers;

H1- Title of the blog post

H2- Sub-headers for the main points

H3- Subsections that are meant to be under H2. 

H4-Subsections that provide further explanation to H3.

Ideally, you should have more than three subheadings in a 500-word article. And each heading should not exceed 80 characters and can be capitalized in different ways;

• Sentence case
• Title case
• Every word except prepositions and conjunctions.

Here’s a guide that will take you through everything you need to know about headers: SEO Copywriting Basics: How To Use Headers In Your Blog Posts

4. Apply these writing tips

Incorporating practical writing tips will make your work easy to read. They make the reader enjoy reading the article, which helps generate leads. 

Effective tips you must use in your blog post include:

Write in the active voice

Writing in the active voice means constructing sentences where the subject of the sentence performs the action, as opposed to being acted upon. The active voice makes your message clearer and more direct, allowing the reader to easily understand who is doing what.

Active Voice Structure: Subject + Verb + Object

Examples:

1. Active Voice: The cat chased the mouse.
   • In this example, the cat (subject) performs the action of chasing (verb) the mouse (object).
2. Passive Voice: The mouse was chased by the cat.
   • In the passive construction, the object (mouse) comes before the action (was chased), and the performer of the action (the cat) comes last. The focus shifts from the doer (cat) to the receiver (mouse) of the action.

As you can see from the examples above, using the active voice makes your writing more direct, concise, and forceful.

While there are times when the passive voice can be useful (e.g., when the doer of the action is unknown or unimportant, or when you want to emphasize the receiver of the action), it’s generally advised to use the active voice for clearer communication.

Before diving into the importance, you need to look at how Grammarly defines active and passive voice.

Use contractions

Contractions in blog posts help your blog post have a conversational tone that connects with your readers. They’re also easier to read.

For example, write ‘you’ll‘ instead of ‘you will.’ 

You can choose whether or not to use contractions, but ensure that you stick to one writing style. Uniformity and consistency are essential for your blog. 

Here’s a video that will take you through all the contractions you need to know. 

Use short paragraphs and simple Sentences

People do not have time to go through long paragraphs and complicated sentences in this day and age. 

Keep your paragraphs short with two to three sentences. 

Neil Patel wrote as a guest blogger on HubSpot that he only writes one-sentence paragraphs. He says that it makes it easy for the reader to scan the content and increases clarity. 

Here’s an example of how Neil Patel’s forms his sentences;

Use short sentences that are easy to read. Do not pack a lot of words into one sentence, or else you will lose clarity.  

You should avoid adjectives, adverbs, and filler words. Words like really, very, actually, and perhaps make your writing complicated. 

Additionally, avoid using big words. You do not impress blog post readers with jargon. If anything, you make their reading harder.

Luckily, you can use writing tools like Hemmingway to make your writing clear. It will show you complex sentences, adverbs, adjectives, and other filler words you should omit. 

5. Write a killer conclusion

Composing a killer conclusion can be challenging. Even topic gurus can find it hard to end the article in a way that leaves the writer interested. 

Why is the conclusion so crucial?

An article by Kajabi indicates that people read articles in different ways. The most common trend is:

• Reading the headline
• Going through the introduction
• Reading the subheadings
• Reading the conclusion.

People can learn what the article is talking about through the headline, introduction, and conclusion. If you write a disinteresting conclusion, you will chase away your readers.

When writing a conclusion, you should have a goal. 

Is it to drive leads or increase brand awareness? 

Following a specific direction will give you a clue on how to end things. 

However, you do not want to seem too demanding.

Use the TAC process

To avoid annoying your readers, you can use Brian Dean’s TAC process to write your conclusion;

• T stands for Transition– Here, it’s time to let your readers know that you have finalized your blog post. 

• A stands for Ask– You can ask the reader a specific question that is easy to answer. This way, you can get a lot of engagement in the comment section. 

• C stands for Call To Action– The last thing is to leave a call to action. You can tell them to leave a comment, subscribe to your blog, share on social media or sign up for your newsletter.

Here’s an article that can give you more ways to write conclusions: 9 Ways to Crush the End of a Blog Post.

6. Edit and proofread

Editing and proofreading are two different things! 

Proofreading involves checking punctuation, grammar, and spelling, and fine-tuning content. 

On the other hand, when editing, you check the structure and language of your content. 

While editing, ensure;

• Your content focuses on your specific marketing goals.
• Your blog post connects with your target audience. 
• Your content will nurture prospects. 

While proofreading, ensure that your content is clear of glaring mistakes that make your post look sloppy. 

If you make sloppy mistakes in your content, some people will view your website as untrustworthy. 

Luckily there are some tools to help you proofread your work:

Use Grammarly for grammar issues

Grammarly offers suggestions on grammar, spelling, style, and tone to improve writing. It has a free version but to get the best experience, use Grammarly Premium. 

Use Copyscape for plagiarism issues

Copyscape is a plagiarism checker which is crucial during proofreading. Anyone can be guilty of copying someone else’s work intentionally or unintentionally. 

Checking plagiarism ensures that you maintain your brand reputation. Plagiarized content can also hurt you because Google punishes the website for it hence less organic traffic. 

Worst case scenario, you can have legal issues due to copyright infringement which happens rarely. 

Use Hemmingway to edit complex sentences

Hemmingway helps make your content clear and concise. It shows you complex sentences and passive phrases. The site gives you the option of the text while in the toolbar. 

Editing can be a tedious process. You can overlook your flaws as the writer of the blog post. So either take some time away from post before editing, or hire a professional SEO editor. 

7. Add visuals

Using image-based content in your blog posts can get your site social shares, backlinks, and traffic. 

The most common form of visual content includes screenshots, quotes, illustrations, GIFs, pictures, data driven visuals, videos, memes, infographics, and slides. 

Backlinko reports that 37% of marketers say that visuals are the most crucial part of content. 

So, why are visuals so important;

Visuals are appealing

Approximately 65% of the population are visual learners. If you omit visuals in your content, you could be losing 65% of people who click through your headline. 

Quality Images and videos make your blog post appealing hence keeps the reader scrolling. 

Posts with visual content are more appealing to share

Social media can increase traffic to your website. Most shared blog posts on social media have a lot of visual content. 

Visuals break up paragraphs

Reading a long article that doesn’t seem to end can make your site visitor feel frustrated and tired. 

Incorporating a video or image in your content can make readers stay on your site for a long time. 

It keeps your post exciting and makes your content easily digestible. 

Visuals can maximize your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts

If you use WordPress, you can edit your image and edit the alt text/title. Here, you can write a small phrase that explains the picture or blog. You can also include your primary keyword in the alt text to rank in image searches.

For example, if your post is about ‘content marketing, include content marketing in the alt text.   

If your blog does not appear on the top page, your image might. When someone clicks on that image, it will lead them to your site. 

8. Optimize your blog post to rank on Google and other search engines

What is the use of writing a great article when no one is going to find it?  

HubSpot studies show that 75% of searchers do not go past the first page of Google. This is where SEO comes to play. 

We have already covered some ways to optimize for SEO in this article. They include: optimizing images and using headers.

Other on-page SEO strategies you can use, according to Brian Dean, include;

Use short URLs with primary keyword

Short URLs perform better than long URLs. Why?

They help Google understand your page. Short URLs also make your site seem trustworthy and authoritative.

Even Google recommends using short URLs.

You can use your primary keyword as the url slug, and remove any modifiers.

Include your primary keyword in the Meta Description (MD)

A meta description can increase your click-through rate hence increases traffic to your site.

You can write better meta descriptions by;

• Adding the exact-match primary keyword and its variations
• Appeal to the user’s emotion and compel them to click.
• Write a maximum of 155 characters to fit the limit.

Include primary keyword in the SEO title tag and heading 1

You need to include your keyword in the SEO Title (which shows up on search engine results pages) and heading 1 (which your site visitors will see when they optn the blog post).

If your keyword is ‘content marketing strategy, then the title and h1 should have this keyword.

Include primary keyword in the introduction

You should also add a keyword in the intro (first 100 words). Many gurus believe that Google gives more importance to the first 200 words of your blog post.

Add links to other posts in your website 

Internal linking refers to the practice of linking one page of your website to another page on the same website. It distributes page authority by spreading “link juice” from high-authority pages, improves user experience by aiding navigation and presenting related content, and facilitates search engine crawling to comprehend the site’s structure.

By indicating content relationships and hierarchy, it helps search engines understand context. Moreover, it can reduce bounce rates by keeping users engaged with relevant content, playing a pivotal role in modern SEO strategies. Thus, internal linking is not only beneficial for users but also enhances a site’s search engine optimization.

You can add one to three links from other posts related to the topic you’re writing about. Please don’t link to unrelated posts because you only want to use links that contribute to the context of your blog post. You should also limit the number of links by sticking to the most relevant.

Here’s a YouTube that will help you know more about SEO

Final words: How to write the best blog post

Writing a blog post is like crafting a piece of art. I hope you have learned a thing or two on how you will create your masterpiece.

Which part will you improve? Is it writing engaging intros or optimizing your page for SEO?

Let me know in the comment section below.