How To Write A Blog

Writing a blog isn’t that hard, is it? Most business people can conjure up a few words on their area of expertise. But does that mean your blog is:

Interesting to read?
Building your profile?
Performing well in terms of search engine optimisation (SEO)?

For many business owners, the last time they wrote anything substantial was at school. Writing for business and writing for web require a new set of skills most business owners didn’t learn at school. This article will help you get started.

Start With Your Audience

You may be an expert on tax law but that doesn’t mean your audience wants to read your opinion on every piece of tax legislation introduced since 2001. Begin by creating your customer personas. Identify:

Who are your customers? Consider their job, age, location, life stage and anything that paints a picture of who they are.
What problems/issues do they face that you can help solve?
What are their goals and how can you help them reach them?

Go back and check the topic for your blog. Does it tick any boxes for your personas? Is it important enough for them to read your article?

How Interesting Is Your Topic?

You may have a strong opinion on a particular topic but you need to step back and think about whether your customers will share your interest. To test your objectivity, do some research:

Have a look on Google Trends to check the search volume on your topic.
Do keyword search using Google AdWords keyword planner. Check the search volume for your topic in your location. You will need a Google AdWords account to access this tool.
Check the search terms visitors have used to access your site via Google Analytics or Google Search Console (particularly useful if your website has a high volume of traffic).

This blog from Google provides helpful tips on how a search engine assesses the quality of your content. While the blog dates back to 2011 (there have been many updates to the Google search algorithm since it was written), much of the advice is timeless. This will give you an indication of how interesting your topic is to others.

Write the Most Important Stuff First

At school most of us are taught to write a story in the following sequence:

Beginning
Middle
End

Or, in essay form:

Introduction
Body
Conclusion

Your high school English teacher probably had the patience to keep reading until you reached your conclusion. In business, very few readers will persevere for that long. As a journalism student, I was taught to tip the school model on its head and use the inverted pyramid model instead.

One of the first inverted pyramid leads was written after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865.

“To The Associated Press Washington, Friday, April 14, 1865 The President was shot in a theater to-night and perhaps mortally wounded. “

There is no guesswork for the reader in this sentence. Notice the opening sentence does not explain who shot the President, what weapon was used, if anyone else was injured or other facts. The opening sentence gets straight to the point and is a complete story on its own. If the reader doesn’t have the time or interest to read further, they have found out what they need to know.

The Rise of Mobile

Customers are using mobile devices more often to search websites. But mobile phone users are distracted – a text message, a phone call – so it’s difficult to hold your reader’s attention. For best results, get straight to the point.

What’s Newsworthy?

Types of Articles

There are two types of blog articles 1.Evergreen Content in evergreen articles is not sensitive to time. It is always relevant but not always urgent to act on. This article is an example of evergreen content (although it may be updated over time to reflect current practices). 2.News News content is often time sensitive and generates a lot of interest. The President being shot is a big piece of news. You should have a mixture of both news and evergreen content on your blog. Evergreen will last for longer but it may not inspire immediate action from your customers. But not every business has something newsworthy to report regularly either. Find the right balance.

News Values

There are eight main ways to determine what is newsworthy:

Impact or broad appeal – facts and events that have the greatest impact on your audience.
Timeliness or immediacy – an earthquake that happened today is interesting, one that happened 50 years ago isn’t.
Prominence – usually involves news related to someone with a high profile or public interest, such as the Prime Minister.
Proximity or closeness to home – a fire on your street is more interesting than a fire overseas. Consider proximity if your business services a particular region, state or country.
Conflict or controversy – arguments or debates increase the news value of content. Also, follow the dollar, particularly if there is evidence of wrong doing.
The bizarre – dog bites man is not newsworthy but man bites dog is.
Currency – taking into account what is trending. Google Trends is a good way to find out what internet users are searching for in your category.
Emotional – human or animal stories that touch our emotions (think of the amount of ‘likes’ puppies and kittens get on social media).

If your topic does not have one of these values, go back to your personas and think about what would be interesting and helpful for them to read.

Style

When we are taught to write at school, we are often praised for using adjectives, conjunctions, adverbs and other such grammatical tools. But when writing a business blog, forget them.You will lose your readers with long languid sentences. Your best advice is to write tightly using:

Short sentences.
Bullet points instead of long lists with commas or semi-colons.
Short paragraphs that organise your content by topic.
Sub-headings explaining the topic of your paragraph.

Once you’ve completed your first draft, re-read it. Cut out all padding words such as “that” and “therefore” and any repetitive or redundant words. Punchier writing is easier to read and you’re less likely to lose your reader.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Anyone who writes a blog wants it to be read. You can Google 101 on-page SEO tips but here are just a three to help direct web traffic to your article.

1. Research and select a keyword

You should do this before you even begin to write your article to gauge interest in your topic. Once you have your selected keyword, use it:

In the title of your blog post.
Once in your opening sentence.
For a sub-heading, if it fits well.
Once more in your article.
Include the keyword in the name for your image, alt tags and in metadata descriptions.

Of course, this is just a guide. The best way to be sure that you’ve used your keyword correctly is to use a tool like Yoast, which will tell if you if you have a ‘green light’ for SEO. Google algorithms are becoming more and more sophisticated. Google will scan your article for its relevance and readability, so focus more on writing well than using your keyword. And do not stuff your keyword into your article because your quality score and search results will be worse.

2. Quality outbound links

Linking your blog post (or other content) to authoritative sources (consider .edu, .gov sites) can boost how you rank organically on Google. When you write your blog do you research and think about external references to support your article.

3. Write at least 300 words

Your article should be at least 300 words to rank well on a search engine. But don’t prattle on for the sake of word count. Your article needs to contain interesting information that is well written. If you don’t have 300 words, go back to your research, ask yourself why you are writing the blog and who will find it interesting.

Conversion

If you are writing a blog for your business, presumably you have an end goal in mind. Consider the intent of your article. Are you trying to:

Demonstrate your abilities as a ‘thought leader’ in your area of expertise?
Generate new business inquiries?
Educate and inform your existing client base?

Once you have decided on your purpose, create a suitable ‘call to action’ at the end of your blog. For example, if you are seeking to educate and inform your existing clients, you might say: “To find out more about the new ABCC laws, read our article on …”.

If you would like to create quality blogs for your business but you don’t have the time or expertise in-house, contact us today to discuss how we can help.

Sources

Content Marketing, Digital, Marketing, Small Business

How To Write A Blog That Is Interesting To Read