Sometimes it feels like everyone has a blog these days. It’s impossible to use the internet anymore without running into at least one or two blog posts. People are writing blogs about almost everything.
From baking bread to reviewing films to offering advice on plumbing, insurance, and so many other topics, if it exists, there’s probably a blog about it.
This trend can feel a bit daunting for folks who aren’t quite confident with their writing—or who downright hate it. Well, rest assured that you do not have to be a literary genius or experienced wordsmith to write a blog, you just need some ideas, time and determination—and some valuable tips from TechWyse, of course.
If you’re not a writer and want to learn how to write a blog, continue on to the blog below for some helpful advice.
Why should I bother with blog writing?
Before we get started, you might be wondering why you should even bother writing a blog in the first place. Rest assured, this isn’t one of those things you should do just because everyone else is doing it. There are a number of reasons why people write blogs—and this is especially true for businesses.
SEO and Backlinks
By creating content that includes keywords your target audience is searching for, you're more likely to rank higher in search results. This is because search engines use algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of a website's content, and one factor they consider is the presence of keywords. So if you want to improve your chances of ranking higher, make sure to include relevant keywords in your content.
Another way a blog can help with SEO is by increasing the number of high-quality backlinks to your website. A backlink is just a link from another website to your own, and they're kind of like a vote of confidence in the quality of your content.
The more high-quality backlinks you have pointing to your site, the more likely it is that search engines will rank your site higher in the results. So by creating valuable and informative content, you can attract backlinks from other websites and build your website's authority and credibility with search engines.
Repurpose Blogs on Social Media
Like almost every form of marketing, blogging works best when it isn’t used alone. Alongside SEO, it’s also a great idea to repurpose your blogs as social media content. Not only does promoting your blog across your social channels help you drive traffic to your website and assist in growing brand awareness, but your blogs are also a great resource for social content.
Posting regularly on social media is essential, but coming up with new content can be time-consuming. When you’ve already put time and effort into writing blogs, you’ve also given yourself a perfect resource to break up and repurpose the content across multiple channels.
Provide Value to Users and Drive Traffic to your Website
By creating interesting and engaging content, you can attract visitors to your site and keep them coming back for more. This can help to increase your website's visibility and reach, and ultimately lead to more business and revenue.
Blog Writing Tips and Tricks for Beginners
1. Start with an outline
There are tons of reasons why starting with an outline is essential.
You’ve probably heard before that starting a task is the most difficult part. This is especially true when it comes to writing. Starting a blog (or any writing project) is always made even more difficult by every writer’s number one enemy: the blank document.
Staring at a blank document is a surefire way to short out your brain and make starting your blog impossible. That’s where the outline comes in. Write out your main points in point form - no one is going to read this but you, so it doesn’t have to sound good or even be coherent. Just get the general ideas out of your brain and onto the word document.
Not only does having something written make the document way less daunting, but putting out your basic points ahead of time is a great way to organize your thoughts. You can arrange your outline with the essential points you want to make and add jot notes under each point. That way, when it comes time to turn your notes into a blog, you’ve already created a handy little map of what needs to be written.
Your outline can be as bare-bones or as detailed as you want it to be, depending on what works best for you. If you’re just starting out with writing, however, it’s best to put as much info into your outline as possible. Some important information to add includes headings, subheadings, keywords, links, and a few bullet points to each section that you’ll expand upon later.
2. Don’t sweat the small stuff
“There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.” This quote from Robert Graves illustrates a fundamental truth that every writer will come to understand eventually. To put it plainly, you just need to accept that your first draft will not be perfect. And more importantly, it doesn’t have to be.
When you’re just figuring out how to write a blog, getting hung up on details like sentence structure, grammar, and even spelling throughout your first draft is a great way to kill your momentum and impede your progress.
Don’t worry about that stuff as you write your blog, you’ll fix it later. First drafts are for putting the information into the document. Later you can go back and make it sound good.
3. Editing Is your best friend
Editing can often be the most important part of writing. While outlining and writing your first draft are for getting all the information out there, editing is where you go back and make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.
Editing is not just for checking for spelling and grammatical errors you may have made (but this is important, too) it’s also when you read it over and determine if your blog has a good flow and if your point is coming across. And if it’s not, it’s for tweaking it until you get something you’re fairly happy with.
It may also be helpful to try utilizing editing tools such as Grammarly or Hemmingway during this stage. These tools can help you with the minutia of your blog writing, freeing you up to focus on the blog's overall quality rather than spending an hour trying to find every instance where you may have ended your sentence with a preposition.
4. Look for inspiration
When you’re just starting your blogging experience, it’s essential you don’t try and go it alone. There’s a whole internet out there, with what may seem like endless other blogs already written to help guide you.
If you’re unsure how to write an introduction, google it. If you’re not sure what your blog should talk about or how to organize your information, look up other blog writing examples and see how they did it.
There are also tons of great resources that will provide writing tips and tricks to get you started with blogging (much like this blog). If you want to strengthen your blog writing skills, search for content writing tips for beginners or beginners' writing exercises. You’ll find a wealth of resources put together by experienced writers to help beginners such as yourself learn how to write a blog.
5. Write the intro and conclusion last
It may feel counterintuitive to write your introduction last, but it’s the best way to ensure your intro actually aligns with what’s in the rest of the blog. Even with a detailed outline, you may wind up including information that you hadn’t initially planned to or omit things that were in your original plan.
By only writing the introduction after you’ve completed the rest of the blog, you’ll ensure you actually include relevant information. While writing your conclusion last seems to make more sense, doing them both when the blog is done will make it easier to keep the tone and style of your introduction and conclusion consistent.
How to Write a Blog: The Write Way
So there you have it - those are a few tips for using content marketing to drive traffic to your website and improve your SEO. Just remember to focus on creating high-quality, relevant content, and you'll be on your way to success!
By following these tips, you can create engaging and informative blog content that will attract and retain readers while also optimizing your website for search engines and driving traffic.
If you’re still not sure if blog writing is for you, get in touch with the content marketing experts at TechWyse. We can help create an effective and engaging content strategy that will promote your business with valuable and informative blogs.
Get in touch online or give us a call at 866-208-3095.
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Content writer needs to read this article necessary to improve their skills. Very informative article I ever cam through.