Obviously, an important part of being a blogger is writing a blog post. Whether you’re a brand new blogger or an expert one looking to improve your skills, this post will help you better understand why posts are written the way that they are, as well as what you need to do to get the most bang for your post.
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Writing a Blog Post: Tips You Need
There are some things we need to discuss, and then I’m going to share my process for writing blog posts. How you write will depend on what you write – fashion and beauty bloggers are going to have a completely different process than health bloggers, for example. But I hope that by addressing some key things before sharing my process will help you understand why I write the way that I do.
How often do bloggers post?
This depends a lot on the person and their niche.
Blogging is no longer the only long-form personal content; lots of people have Substack accounts, which require only posts and often people read them expecting essays. And people who have blogs as their secondary social media – compared to TikTok or Instagram – blogging doesn’t need to be frequent. Additionally, there are people like me who, while their blog is their primary social media, it isn’t their full-time job.
With my health lifestyle niche, all I need to do is write a post. But for people who write about food, fashion, or beauty, blog posts are generally structured around creating something else.
For example, when creating a recipe, you need to come up with the recipe, make the recipe, take pictures and/or videos of making it, and write the text that goes before the recipe itself.
When writing a post about the best drugstore foundations, you need to get different foundations, try them in different circumstances, take pictures and/or videos about the foundations, and write the post about the experience.
All of that takes a lot of time and influences how often you can create a blog post, in addition to doing similar things for other posts at the same time. And, again, it’s a lot easier to put out posts every week (or multiple days a week) if it’s your full-time job.
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What is the ideal length of a blog post?
As with many blogging things, it really depends on the niche and the purpose of the post. You don’t want to include text for the sake of having text; you want your text to have purpose. If you have a fashion or beauty blog, which is more focused on images, you don’t need to have as many words as I typically put in posts for this health blog. And if you’re writing a blog post for a business’s website, that’s going to be different than a blog post for a blog site.
I write posts that give information and advice, as well as explaining and citing my sources. They’re going to be long for me to properly make my point with sources that you can look up.
Bluehost says that the ideal short blog post length is 300-600 words, the medium blog post length is 700-1,000 words, and the long blog post is 1,200+ words.
Neil Patel says, “The ideal length for a blog post varies depending on the topic, audience, and purpose of the content. However, a general guideline is that a blog post should be between 1,000 to 2,000 words” (x).
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How long does it take to write a blog post?
This depends on what you writing about and how long the post is. I write my posts over the course of several weeks, both because they’re long and because this is not my full-time job. If it was, I’d be posting every single week and they would probably take me less time.
On May 9 of this year, I spent 2 hours writing a blog post and wrote over 1,000 words. But in my process, writing the post is only part of it, which you’ll see later in this post.
But if your blog posts are 500 words and you write like I do, you could write an entire post in 1 hour. The entire process (SEO to scheduling) might take longer than that, but you could write the post itself in 1 hour.
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Blog post format
Once again, this depends. There are, however, some things that everyone should do.
The basic blog post format is like any paper: introduction, meat of the text, and conclusion. And similar to writing a paper, you want to have a reason for writing that is solved by the end of the post.
That’s where the similarities between papers and blog posts end, though.
You want to visually break up the post. There are a couple of ways that you can do that, including in this post.
One – Use a variety of paragraph lengths. In general, blog post paragraphs won’t be anywhere near as long as paper paragraphs, but you can also have your paragraphs be 1 sentence. You want to have a variety of paragraph lengths.
Two – Use different headings and subheadings. This is helpful for a few reasons. Using headings and subheadings helps raise SEO keywords to the attention of search engines. Having many different subheadings makes it easier for the reader to skim your post, which is necessary in this age of short attention spans. Using headings also helps because my Table of Contents relies on them, which makes the post easier to navigate.
Three – Break up your post with images. And they don’t have to be images made by you for that specific post – they can also be ads or CTAs.
Four – Differentiate different bits of text. As you can see throughout the post, I link to my other blog posts that people might want to read. But in addition to using the link, I also italicize them so your brain recognizes they are different types of text.
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My process
Obviously, everyone does things differently, but I hope that sharing my process helps illustrate the different steps involved in writing successful blog posts.
Decide What To Write About
This is the very first thing I do – figure out what my blog post will be. As you’ll note on my site, I alternate writing about health, lifestyle, and blogging. After that, I decide what the specific blog post will be. I have running lists of ideas for each topic, and go from there. If nothing is catching my inspiration, I look at one of my many lists of blog post ideas for something to ping my creativity.
If you’re looking for some ideas, I have a lot for you!
- 164 blog post ideas
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- How To Brainstorm Blog Post Ideas: 12 Questions To Ask Yourself
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Tips for Successful Blog Posts + Blog Post Prompts You Need
Research SEO and Decide on Keywords
First: what is SEO?
Moz says SEO – or search engine optimization – “is the practice of improving your website’s content, structure, and visibility to rank higher on search engines like Google.” (x). There is a LOT more to it, but what it means here is that I find some terms that people are searching for and incorporate them naturally into my posts.
I like to research SEO and decide on keywords before doing any writing. I do this because sometimes different keywords help shape the direction of the post, and that is easier to figure out before I’ve written anything.
Basically, once I know what the topic will be, I start by inputting that in Ubersuggest’s keywords idea search. This will then give me keywords based on autocomplete, related keywords, keywords that are questions, keywords that are prepositions, and keywords that are comparisons. It also shows the search volume per month and the competition for those keywords.
I generally select 5-10 terms to incorporate into my post. One term is the focus one, and that’s the term that I use for the title, URL, etc. The other terms I use throughout the post but not nearly as frequently.
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Outline Post
I always find it easiest to outline my posts before I start writing. This makes it easier for me to write what I find compelling in the moment and to also understand how much I need to write.
It’s also helpful for me to understand how much research I need to do and what about. Organizing my thoughts that way helps me accurately plan and figure out my process for that particular topic.
I’ve shared this free blog post template before. All you need to do is click “File” and “Make a copy” to add it to your Google Drive. Don’t have or use Google Drive? From “File” you can click “Download” and download it as a Word Doc.
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Write the Post
This is pretty straightforward! It generally, though, takes the longest amount of time.
Having the outline makes it easier for me to sit down and write, and not only because I know what I’m going to write. It makes it easier for me to write the post over the course of several weeks, which is ideal because not only do I have a full-time job, but I have a life. I have friends and family and 10+ chronic illnesses. Having the outline makes it easier for me to write here and there and to focus on the parts of the post that I’m in the mood to write that day.
This is especially necessary given how much research tends to go into my posts. If I don’t have the time or energy to write a research-heavy section, having the outline means I can focus on the other areas.
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Create Images
I like to do this at the end of my process so I can create images applicable to what I’ve already written. Additionally, I like to use SEO terms in my images. That way, the title of the post and image have an SEO term, and the alt text of the images has an SEO term. Unless it’s for a personal post, all of my images look the same and use the same font. In personal posts, the first image looks like the others, but the other images in the post are pictures I’ve taken with the website name at the bottom.
While I used to make my images in Photoshop Elements, I mostly use Canva now. This is because my Photoshop is out of date, and I don’t plan to get a new version. First of all, I need a new computer, so I’m not going to pay for a new Photoshop edition before that. Second of all, I plan to get a Canva Pro account when I get a new computer.
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Transfer to WordPress
This is not just copying the text from the Google doc to WordPress, my blogging platform. It’s also uploading the images, adding ads, adding CTAs, updating post settings, and the plugins for the post.
When I upload the images, I add the alt text mentioned before. This is the text describing the image, which is used for screen readers. Unless the picture in the image is necessary for understanding the post – such as a screenshot of analytics or the covers of books featured – I type the text in the image, including my website URL. I also title all of the images in the media portion of my website, and I use the title of the blog post they’re uploaded to.
CTAs are also known as Calls to Action. In this case, I’m referring to the images throughout the post that prompt you to do something. This includes signing up for my newsletter in exchange for a free download, as well as advertisements for my workbooks.
The post settings include identifying the title, category, and tags for the post, as well as the URL. The title and URL generally involve the key SEO term for the post.
The plugins are most often related to SEO. Among other things, the Yoast SEO plugin I have enables me to identify the post’s SEO title (if it’s different from the other title) and write a summary of the post. It focuses on, you guessed it, SEO. It lets me know if the summary should be longer or shorter and if I’ve used the key SEO term at the right place. I prefer to use the same title of the blog post as the SEO title, although I didn’t use to do that. Basically, if you came across the blog post in a search engine, you’d see the title in the search engine results.
Another plugin that is sometimes used at this time is related to nofollow links. This is a setting that makes every link in the post a nofollow link, which need to be used in sponsored posts.
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Preview the Post and Edit
I specifically say preview because I like previewing the post in a new window. I find it more helpful to see how the post looks without being distracted by typos and grammar issues in Google docs and WordPress post creation windows by Grammarly. Thanks to Grammarly, copy-editing issues are generally caught earlier. But I need to see if I’ve fully answered the questions and other issues brought up by the post topic without being distracted.
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Finalize and Schedule Post
This includes making sure everything is ready to go as well as actually clicking “Schedule.” Think of it as double-checking you have your keys before walking out the door. I scroll through and make sure I’ve added every element, identified the correct day for it to be posted, turned on the correct settings, etc. And then I click “Schedule”!
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Schedule Social Media Promotion
This really requires a full post … so it will be one! But this is the final step: schedule social media promotion of the post.
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Like this? Share it! Then check out:
Blogging 101: Terms You Need To Know, The Best Plugins for a Blog in WordPress, Best Social Media for Bloggers: How To Manage Your Social Media, 15 Best Blogger Tools To Try
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
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