How to Write a Blog?

Intro on how to write a blog

Once you’ve taken the right steps to start your blog, it is time to start writing. As with many things in life, writing is easy to do, but tough to master.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be Shakespeare to write good blogs. Knowing about best practices and being a bit creative will do for most of us.

In this article, we will tell you all about them by taking a tour from the introduction to the very end, i.e., the conclusion.

Use Strong Intros

Introductions are very important in two main ways. They ensure the reader that the piece is exactly about what he/she is looking for. Second, and interconnected, you engage with him/her and give them enough to stay and read more.

There are several ways to form them, but they will depend on site/content-related issues. However, one common rule is to clearly state what is the piece about and be short.

As for “hooking” your audience, you could use rhetoric questions or mention eye-catching facts. You can also do storytelling (more on that in a few sections below).

If the tone of your site allows, ideally aim for having all these aspects in your piece.

Know Your Audience

One of the main factors that affect how you write (or do anything really) is your audience. You cannot simply do whatever it is that you desire if it’s not somewhat appealing to your audience. This doesn’t mean that you are subjected to “its tyranny”. As audiences can be very flexible and interested in broad topics. Having said that, the question now is “how can I get to know my audience”?

First, if you already started your blog you should have a pretty sound idea of your target audience. We got a whole article explaining every step to take to start blogging, but on this, we argued two things. Do market research by using online tools like Google Trends. And also, we recommended studying the competition. It could sound overwhelming but that is not the case, trust us.

To be clear knowing your target audience does not tell you all about the real audience. Shortly let’s assume this. You know the topics and have target people in mind. but such people’s preferences in tone and style could vary from what you expected.

To make sure you really know your audience; you got to experiment and actively respond to their feedback.

For example, let’s say that you know your audience wants tips for playing pianos. So you decide to write detailed info about building muscle memory and a sound technique. But they rather looked for a casual, short article on how to play popular songs. In this example, there are differences in style and topic between you and them. And certainly, you will notice them by looking at the traffic or time spent on your web.

For these reasons, it is important to always keep your audience in mind.

Create Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is one that stays relevant/profitable for a long time. The beauty of it is that there are topics that by themselves maintain their importance. For example, “how to iron clothes with a normal iron in 5 min”, there is always an interest for it. This example also shows that it doesn’t need updating. Irons have been used for decades and it is not rocket science, nothing changes much over time. Other topics need updates from your part to keep them relevant and “evergreen”. For example, “how to use Tiktok to sell better”, here tips will change as new trends and changes emerge.

One simple way to find an evergreen topic to write about is to think: “what is important nowadays”. You may think of health, information, relationships, business success, etc.

Fortunately for you, since they’ve always been relevant, they will remain like that.

Then only narrow the topic depending on your niche and you got a great starting point.

Lastly, some examples include history, tutorials, and FAQs.

Use Buzzwords

Buzzwords are popular words/phrases that tend to have technical origins/meanings. But they are used everywhere by most people with ease for example to “think outside the box”.

However, some buzzwords depend on a specific sector and may not be used publicly. Think of “brick-and-mortar” vs “holistic” techniques. Some of these words can be attractive adjectives. For example, who doesn’t like a “dynamic, robust” anything?

Now, they are important for you because they engage readers more and could be used anywhere in the piece.

Some examples are: “hacks”, “you-your”, WH- questions, “effective”, “smart”, “critical”, or “huge”. Others are: “surprising”, “free”, “new”, “proven”, “easy”, “secrets”, “The”, “yes”, “never”, “instant”, “convert”.’

Care About Grammar

As said in the introduction, you don’t have to be an artistic genius or the most prolific writer that has ever existed. But ignoring readability best practices will be a huge mistake.

Let’s face it, we (people) don’t like to see errors, we prefer everything neat and clean every time. If you have grammatical errors, your audience will react in a bad way. They may think that your language command is not great (which could be excusable for some). But they could also believe it shows a lack of interest/dedication on your part. They may say that you ought to take enough time and do all steps necessary to avoid them.

If in your audience there is a group of people like the latter, which there always is, then you lose them. And given how competitive the online world is, most likely they are not going to come back.

So, do everyone a favor and do comprehensive proofreading every time you write for your blog.

Tell the Story

Similarly, as human beings like perfection, they also like stories. Because this has been proven by endless studies, most people and businesses use it. Storytelling is self-explanatory and can be used from the start of the piece. What is not very clear for some is how to tell a story about something that doesn’t have one.

For example, say that you are writing a review about 3 cameras, which story can you tell if you haven’t even bought them??

Do not worry, you could talk about your experience while doing research. Or most attractively, use some nice fiction. By that, I don’t mean lying by saying “my aunt once wanted to buy these 3 products”. I mean you saying “people are looking for them…. later they found x…. but they were surprised by… Even better, replace people with you, and you got a killer article in your hands.

Now, narrowing storytelling like this does not serve it justice. There is so way more to it, from the artistic to technical perspective. For example, those from the narrative standpoint will say that you need a central message. And for sure, those of you that write more lyrically ought to see storytelling in this more nuanced way.

The purpose to put storytelling in the way I did is to highlight how accessible it can be for everyone. The salience and complexity of it will vary depending on your target audience and niche.

Use Strong Conclusions

Conclusions can take various forms; they could serve as a summary of key takeaways. Others could be more detailed, also talking of implications. Some could be framed by giving answers to already established questions. Or be as brief as 2 sentences.

The way you end up writing it will depend, but all conclusions share somethings. A strong conclusion always gives a sense of closing, which is valuable to the reader. Even if it was philosophical, it must signal takeaways and their importance.

A call for action, encouragement to share or do x, spark discussion, could also be used.

Lastly, for your interest, you can add info hinting at some of your articles, like a “…but there is more”. But don’t be misleading or make your audience feel they read it only to find out the value, was “somewhere else”.

Thanks for reading this article, we expect it has been helpful. We wish you good luck.

Diego Castrillon Levoyer

International university student, Online Marketing enthusiast, and Content-Creation fan. Current affairs passionate follower, cosmopolitan par excellence, a natural learner, and cool-headed person. An avid research writer partnered with Duomly’s crew.

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