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It’s useful to know a few things when entering the world of blogging and writing a blog post that people can’t stop reading! Let’s start this journey together so you aren’t wasting time or resources or doing all the guesswork yourself! 🚀

Today, we’re going to learn how to write a blog post that’s not just informative but also super fun and binge-worthy to read. Whether you’re a newbie blogger or a seasoned pro, these five steps will help you craft useful and captivating articles that your readers will happily continue reading for hours on end.

But first, why blogging?

Picture this: your company’s very own corner of the internet, buzzing with activity, brimming with valuable insights, and radiating with personality, people can’t help but want to stick around and become fans, customers and advocates of your work. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, that’s the power of a company blog! 🌟

Having a blog isn’t just about sharing random thoughts or showing off your writing skills (though those are pretty cool perks too). A company blog serves a myriad of purposes, all of which can supercharge your business and help you stand out from others in your space. It’s like having:

• a direct line of communication with your audience,
• a platform to showcase your expertise,
• a magnet for attracting new customers,
• a system to answer all the most common questions your customers need answers to before they will take action, and
• a marketing channel you fully own (unlike social media)
• top results in search because of all the targeted content you share

A blog has all of these benefits rolled into one shiny brand package.

Take, for example, the legendary blog of Buffer, the social media management platform. Buffer’s blog isn’t just a treasure trove of social media tips and tricks (though it’s definitely that too!). It’s a hub of knowledge, a beacon of transparency, and a testament to the power of marketing done right. With a blog that’s chock-full of useful resources, insightful case studies, and delightful anecdotes, Buffer has cemented its reputation as a thought leader in the realm of social media.

As we tell our clients, your website is the primary place you update first, before email and social media marketing. If you are spending resources on the latter before you update your website, well that’s like driving a shiny new car while your house is in disrepair!

Your website is your home on the internet. Make it work for you!

In fact, if you decide to have a blog you will actually in turn make your life much easier in creating content for your email newsletter and social media. Your blog is the castle upon which all other content is built. From your blog posts – you can then share highlights on your newsletter, and snippets on social media. Without a blog, companies simply struggle with creating content, and the content they do produce has no sticking power – social media posts disappear in hours, email newsletters hit spam. But your blog is always online and ready to serve. It shows up, even when you are asleep. There’s power in that, so why ignore it?

Your company blog is the hub of everything you do, the single source of truth for your brand.

– Magnetic Brand Studio

So, listen, if you’ve been on the fence about starting a blog for your business – big or small – consider this your gentle nudge in the right direction. Trust me, the rewards are well worth the effort! Now, without further ado, let’s dive into the five steps to writing a blog post that’s not just informative but downright irresistible to readers! 🚀

Step 1: Dive into Research (Become a Detective!)

First things first, let’s put on our detective hats and do some sleuthing! 🕵️‍♀️ Every great blog post starts with thorough research not only into your topic, but the minds of your reader. But hey, don’t worry, it’s not as boring as it sounds! Think of it like exploring a treasure chest of information. Start by diving into your industry or topic of interest. Look for common questions people ask or problems they need solving. Websites like forums, social media, product reviews, and good ol’ Google are full of valuable insights.

Now, here’s a hot tip: Find the questions NOT being answered. The hard questions, the common myths, the misconceptions, the stuff said behind closed doors BEFORE they decide to invest. It’s what people are saying to friends and family about a product or service, the quandaries they are having with it that compel people to start researching and stumble on your blog.

Next, Zero in

It’s best to get specific! Don’t be too general in your research. Everyone has already answered the main questions. Unless you have a different viewpoint or can do it better than the big leaders, you want to narrow into a particular aspect of a topic. You really want the post to be super useful to a segment of your audience, not necessarily your whole market. For example, if you’re writing about nutrition, instead of just considering writing about “nutrition tips,” try something like “nutrition essentials for people trying to lose weight.” Sure not all your clients are trying to lose weight. But your blog will have lots of articles, so let this article address this one main problem specific to a certain segment of your audience. For example, we helped one client who was having trouble standing out in a sea of dietitians in her state. She liked being referred by doctors and found client referrals valued her work. She also knew there was a high demand for weight loss advice, but knew that topic was well covered. So we did some brainstorming on content for clients who just had surgery. Because the client was so specific, we could go a bit broader in our post on ‘The best diet after gastric bypass surgery’. See the difference? The more specific you get, the more targeted and helpful your blog post will be! And were any of the thousands of dietitians writing about this? None. Yet a simple search in google revealed that clients were looking for answers to this question. Guess what? She’s number 1 on google search for that topic because of it.

Speaking of Google, have you ever noticed how it auto-suggests topics when you start typing in the search bar? Pretty neat, huh? Those auto-suggestions are like little gold mines of ideas! They give you a sneak peek into what people are searching for and what targeted questions they have. So, next time you’re stuck for ideas, why not use Google’s auto-suggestions as a springboard? You might just stumble upon your next blog post topic!

Step 2: Find the Golden Questions to Answer

Now that you’ve gathered all this awesome info, it’s time to sift through it and find the golden nuggets. 🌟 These are the questions that pop up again and again in your industry. You know, the ones that your clients ask you kind of sheepishly, like they are embarrassed to admit they need to know this or they have the attitude like, “I’ve always wondered about this ….” Or, ‘This might be a stupid question but ….” They often reveal mindset obstacles that keep them from making an investment.

Let’s take a peek at a golden nugget in the realm of writing blog posts:

One common question that often sparkles brightly in the minds of aspiring bloggers is, “How do I write a blog post that people will actually want to read and isn’t a waste of time?” They’re curious about the secrets to crafting compelling content that keeps readers coming back for more. Because the main pain point is they really don’t have the time. So they want to make it worth their time investment. And we agree, we really don’t want our client wasting their time, because then they won’t get results from their blog. That’s why our blog helps our clients save time. If you have the time to post on social media, you have the time to blog and more importantly blogging will help you post on social media. It’s strange how people forget about their house in favour of the shiny new car (aka social media platforms). People forget about their websites and focus on updating their social media, because that’s where they feel seen. Yet strangely, their social media posts only get seen for a few hours, and their emails might not be opened. Then they say things like, ‘I don’t know what to post, so I just post something similar to what I see others in my industry doing.’ As if that is a sure path to stand out 🙄

The secret to a good social media account? A buzzing blog!

This is the golden nugget in our post here, or the main takeaway. It references the real quandary in people’s mind, things they might reveal to a friend or Google, but not us since we of course, are biased. And hopefully, persuasive. That’s what you want your article to be. A compelling blog post article isn’t just about the mechanics of writing, it’s real purpose is to move people along the customer journey : from people who are only just starting to know they need this service or product to becoming repeat customers and finally diehard fans that tell others about you and do your marketing for you. A good article delves deeper into identifying the emotions in the reader and propels them to keep reading. They feel like, “Hey this article is reading my mind. I was wondering about that, and they’ve hit it on the head. I better keep going to see what else they have to say…”

Now we aren’t asking you to become mind readers. The fact is, you already are a mind reader! If you have clients and customers, you already know why they come to you, why they buy from you. If you have expertise in your field, then you likely know the mental and emotional concerns your clients have.

And guess what?

Your blog is the perfect place to explore these thoughts, beliefs and concerns at different stages through the buying cycle and to help them unblock these obstacles so they can sail faster towards working with you.

So it’s more than weaving words together in a way that sparks interest, entertains, or enlightens. The number one key to weave these golden threads is that it is Super Useful To Them. It’s expertise only you know. It’s so basic to you as experts that you forget people need to know this in order to continue on their journey to solving this problem they have. You have to go back to the beginners mind, the start of the journey and what obstacles did you hit when you first got started? What were the deeper problems you felt too shy to talk about? To scared to ask someone so you turned to google? By addressing these concerns in your blog post, you’re providing valuable insight and catering directly to your audience’s very specific needs.

Then when you supercharge it with your own or a client’s story (you don’t have to name the client), your post becomes irresistable to read because humans love stories. Isn’t that why we subscribe to so many streaming services?

That’s why we’ve shared some client stories in this post, because you are more likely to be similar to them and interested to hear some examples of how blogging helped their business! I mean getting to number 1 in google is a business’s dream. People searching in google have huge buying intent. They aren’t there for socialising.

So, next time when you’re on the hunt for those precious golden nuggets to keep a readers attention in your blog post, keep an eye out for those queries that arise in your client conversations or the side conversations with friends about your work. These capture and highlight the ongoing, real-life problems of your audience. Actively listen to their pain points, their mental and emotional blocks, and their resistance then explore it a bit deeper in conversation and see how helpful it is. If its helpful to one client or customer, it’s probably helpful to many! Clients often will subtly tell you what blocks they need to clear in order to move forward. You might find, if they trust you, they willingly tell you what’s holding them back. Whether it’s unraveling the secrets of eating after a painful stomach surgery or demystifying writing blog posts that impact your business’s bottom line, these golden nuggets will guide you toward creating content that truly resonates with your audience and keeps them coming back for more of your knowledge and insights.

Step 3: Write for the Web (Keep Your Words Simple!)

Alrighty, time to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard in this case! When writing for the web, you wanna keep things easy and conversational for the reader. Forget those long, complicated sentences you learned in English class. 🤷‍♀️ Instead, opt for short paragraphs, positive language, subheadings to break up your text and images with captions to support the important takeaways at a glance. And don’t forget to sprinkle in some brand personality! Your readers wanna feel like they’re chatting with a trusted friend, not reading a stuffy company manual. Get on the reader’s level and keep things simple and jargon-free.

Did you know that according to a study by Nielsen Norman Group, most users only read about 20-28% of the text on a web page? That’s right! People are busy bees, buzzing from one thing to the next, so you gotta make every word count. By keeping your writing concise and scannable, you’re not just catering to short attention spans, but you’re also increasing the likelihood that your message will be absorbed and remembered. So go ahead, let your words and expertise shine, delighting your audience with every sentence. Like music there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end and they all weave together seamlessly to create a positive brand experience! 🎶

Step 4: Let Them Scan First, then Read (Make it Snackable!)

Picture this: your reader is scrolling through their phone while waiting for the bus. They stumble upon your blog post and decide to give it a read. But uh-oh, it’s a giant wall of text! 😱 Ain’t nobody got time for that! Make sure your blog post is easy to scan by using headings, subheadings, bold fonts, italics, bullet points and eye-catching visuals. Oh, and don’t forget to break up your text into bite-sized chunks. Remember, you want your reader to gobble up your content like it’s their favorite snack and they keep scrolling to see what you’ll serve next!

As the famous writer Ernest Hemingway once said,

“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”

Ernest Hemingway

In other words, the structure of your writing matters just as much as the words themselves. By crafting a blog post that’s easy to scan, you’re not just making it more visually appealing, but you’re also enhancing the overall reading experience for your audience.

Here’s an example of how you can structure your blog post to make it more snackable:

• Use headings (H2) and subheadings (H3, H4) to break up your content into digestible chunks.
• Incorporate bullet points or numbered lists to highlight key points.
• Bold important phrases or keywords to draw attention to them.
• Include data, studies, and quotes to support your statements. By doing your research for your reader you are saving them much time and energy in fact checking.
• Include relevant images or graphics to complement your text and add visual interest. Use good captions to reiterate key information.

By following these simple formatting tricks, you’ll transform your blog post from a daunting wall of text into a delightful buffet of bite-sized information that’s easy to consume and digest! 🍽️

Step 5: Unlock the Power of Keywords (They’re Like Magic Words!)

Last but not least, let’s talk about keywords. 🎩 Think of keywords as magic words that help your blog post get discovered by search engines and the people asking google for information. Google’s aim is to provide the most relevant and high-quality information. So by following our specificity rule, and adding in your own expertise and supported research, your blog will soon become a key voice in your industry.

Keywords are like little breadcrumbs that lead readers straight to your doorstep.

Do some research to find out what keywords people are using in your industry, and sprinkle them throughout your blog post. Just don’t overdo it! Nobody likes reading a blog post that sounds like it was written by a robot. You can kind keywords right in Google search – with the auto-suggest, as well as the section at the bottom ‘People also searched for’… Pay attention to the number of results. This will tell you the volume of articles on that topic. Then don’t forget to add in your specific words and keyphrases, and you’ll start to see less results and more opportunity.

For instance, if you’re a skincare shop in Los Angeles, some keywords you might want to include in your initial research “best skincare products in Newport Beach,” “nearby skincare products,” see what comes up and what information they are or aren’t offering. Perhaps you’ve had a multitude of clients coming in with dry skin because it’s autumn. Now narrow in your search such as “skincare for dry, stressed skin” and to make it more relevant, add in location and even the season. So the search becomes “best skincare products for dry, stressed skin in California” By incorporating these keywords naturally into your content, you’re not only improving your chances of ranking higher in search results but also attracting potential customers who are specifically looking for what you have to offer.

Here are a few more examples of how you can strategically use keywords in your blog post:

• Location-based keywords: If you’re a local business, include keywords that mention your city or neighborhood. For example, if you’re a coffee shop in Seattle, use keywords like “best coffee in Seattle” or “Seattle coffee shops.”
• Common search queries: Think about the questions or problems your target audience might have and incorporate relevant keywords into your content. For instance, if you run a pet grooming business, you could include keywords like “how to groom a dog at home” or “tips for keeping your cat’s fur healthy.” If you specialise in natural products, you can get even more specific such as “tips for keeping your cat’s fur healthy naturally” or “how to groom a dog at home with non toxic products”
• Long-tail keywords: These are longer, more specific phrases that people might use when searching for something online. They often have less competition than shorter, more general keywords. For example, instead of using the keyword “travel europe,” you could use a long-tail keyword like “family-friendly vacation destinations in europe.”

By strategically using keywords in your blog post, you’re not only making it more search engine-friendly but also ensuring that it reaches the right audience and provides them with valuable information they’re looking for. So go ahead, sprinkle those magic words throughout your content and watch your blog soar to new heights! 🚀

So now you know more about writing a blog post that shines bright and draws in readers to your world.

But hey, why stop here? If you’re hungry for more tips and tricks on how to write successful blogs for your business, look no further! Our team is here to help you unleash your creativity, captivate your audience, and take your company blog to the next level. So don’t be shy—reach out to us today and let’s embark on this worthwhile blogging journey together with some tailored advice specifically for you and your audience! 🌟