A lot of people struggle with how to write a blog. Even though blogging and content marketing have been shown to be extremely effective marketing methods, most people tend to avoid doing things they don’t like or aren’t good at. However, no one knows your business better then you do, so while you can hire someone to write for you or coach you on how to be a better blogger, it really is up to you to learn how to blog for your business. Fortunately, it may not be as hard as you think. Here are a few tips to get your blog writing started.
RELATED: How To Start A Blog: The Ultimate Guide
How to Write a Blog – The Topic
First decide what your topic will be. Some ways to come up with topics include:
- Write on a subject you have a real passion for, some aspect of your business that you love.
- Go to YouTube and identify a popular video that relates to your business. Embed it and write a blog post about it.
- Go to news websites like CNN.com and write on a breaking news story. You can use the Feedly app to help.
- Do keyword research on a particular topic and write on a high traffic keyword such as “How to Write a Blog.”
How to Write a Blog – The Research
After you have decided what the subject of your blog is you need to do some research if you want it to be found.
The Google keyword tool is free and very easy to use. Just enter what you think someone interested in your subject would look for and get a lot of keywords. Pick a keyword with lots of traffic.
If you are not very knowledgeable in the subject read some other blogs so you will know what you are writing about. Don’t just copy them. Put it in your own words. Cite your sources when you’ve used other people’s material and findings.
How to Write a Blog – The Method
When you write your blog be sure to keep your columns narrow as this makes it far easier to read. You will notice newspapers and Facebook do this.
Another tactic to make it easier to read is to break your blog into small paragraphs. Two or three lines is all you should have between breaks. Insert pictures and/or videos to make it look better and keep your readers engaged.
Try to keep your posts within 500 – 750 words most of the time. Get into the habit of reviewing your posts and actually looking for words that you can remove and sentences that you can simplify.
How to Write a Blog – Getting Traffic to Your Blog
Now that you know how to write a blog you want to get as many people as possible to see it. Traffic would take up another blog post but I will touch on a few things you should know.
A very important piece of the puzzle to getting your blog ranked on the search engines is to blog from an authority site. An authority site is a site that already gets a lot of traffic so Google views it as an important site. If you’re blogging from your own domain and business site, take the time to build links to your site from other authority sites to help your Google ranking.
When you write your blog use bold and italicize for your main keyword, and use the “heading” format style for section titles.
Once published, don’t forget to share each new post on all your social media accounts, particularly, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
How to Write a Blog – Monetize your Blog
After you learn how to write a blog and get viewers to your blog you may want to monetize it. This is tricky since it’s not always appropriate for a business to put ads or other monetization methods on a blog. If the purpose of your blog is to educate visitors and encourage them to hire you for a service, monetization may not make sense.
If monetization is an option, there are many ways to do that, from putting AdSense ads from Google where you get paid small commissions, to selling affiliate products. Most affiliate programs pay small commissions.
When you’re ready to take your blogging to the next level, check back and review some of our other articles on blogging, and feel free to leave your questions in the comments below. Thanks for reading and sharing!
For a far more thorough and updated article on starting a new blog, read How To Start A Blog: The Ultimate Guide.