Nowadays, pretty much anyone with an internet connection can become a blogger – in theory. But in reality, writing blog content is a far more complex process. There are plenty of factors to consider; the increasingly shorter attention span of online users, structuring your work correctly, ensure your blog stands out from the competition, mobile users, and of course, how to optimise your content for search engines.
But don’t let that put you off; our step-by-step guide should get you pointed in the right direction and well on your way to writing successful blog content.
Title
When choosing a title for your blog post, you need to tick three key boxes:
- It should be informative: It should tell the user exactly what they stand to gain from reading your post.
- It should be eye-catching: There’s a LOT of content online, so no matter what you’re writing about, the chances are your audience will have several variations to choose from. A punchy, enticing headline will capture users’ attention and make sure your blog post stands out from the competition.
- It should be concise: Don’t make your headline too long. Google will only display a certain amount of pixels so, if your title is too lengthy, it’s likely to be cut off and important messaging could be lost.
Formatting
So now you’ve got a catchy title, let’s look at how to structure your blog post. Formatting your blog post correctly will make for a great user experience, which should be a key goal of any piece of content you produce.
Meta description
This will provide a short summary of what your blog post is about and appear beneath the title of your blog post in Google search results.
A well-written meta description can have a huge influence over whether or not a search engine user clicks through to your landing page or not. If you don’t specify a meta description, Google will simply use the first few lines of your post in its place, whether it’s relevant or not, so missing this step can be a wasted opportunity to drum up some more traffic to your site.
Use subheadings
Breaking up your content with subheadings called header tags will bring structure and context to your article, benefitting readers and search engines alike. From a user’s perspective, breaking your content up into digestible chunks will make your post more enticing and far more enjoyable to read, making for a better user experience. Informative and keyword rich subheadings will also provide search engines with a better indication of how to index your page.