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5 Simple Steps to Writing a Killer Blog Post The ability to write a killer blog post that provides value to readers is a vital skill for any blogger whose eyes are set on the prize – optimum conversion. Ideally you want to publish a legendary post that will drive in droves of traffic, win your readers’ hearts, and in the process, make tons of sales from it. But it’s easier said than done. You’re in luck, though, because this step-by-step guide to writing a killer blog post will help you understand this process, and by the end of it, you should be well on your way to happy, effective blogging. Are you blogging your passion? Neil Patel, co-founder of Kissmetrics, points out that the best way to blog is to blog your passion. If you create a website and blog about real estate while your true love is Internet Marketing, you might not give it your best shot, and you’d probably get little satisfaction from it. Besides, blogging your passion allows you to concentrate on learning anything and everything about your industry, which consequently leads to higher quality content and ultimately, greater satisfaction and conversion among your readers. Benefits of killer blog posts Here’s why writing a killer article is good for the internet humankind: • • • • • • • Readers find great value; they learn more and get inspired Readers share your article on social media You get a lot of natural back links Search engines will love your post Lots of traffic will stream in Your popularity as a blogger grows There will be higher conversion rates, so you’ll make more money How to write a killer blog post So now that you know why you need to write this kind of stuff more often, here’s a quick guide on how to do it. 1. Pick a suitable topic Obviously, you need to pick a topic that’s relevant to your niche. If you’ve been listening carefully, you should know by now what your audience wants. If you’re scarce on ideas, the best place to find inspiration is other blogs in your industry. Check out all the topics they write about, note them down, and you’ll soon be able to generate your own ideas from these topics. Keyword research is also an important step when deciding on which topics to write about. You can use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to research on the popularity of certain queries. Formulate some long-tail keywords around these so as to come up with headlines that are optimized for search engines. However, an SEO headline isn’t good enough if it’s not compelling enough to grab the attention of your readers. Your super-duper blog post may just be a complete waste of time if you can’t write a headline that draws readers to it. Capture these in your killer title: • • • A catchy title that puts humans first before search engines The main keyword – preferably, a long-tail keyword Leave out special characters and inappropriate punctuation 2. Write your sub-headings Sub-headings will provide the outline for your content. Think about all you want to talk about in that post, and then come up with sub-headings that clearly describe each section of your post. Breaking a blog post down into several parts is an effective strategy for writing faster while understanding the main points you must highlight in your post. Not breaking your blog down into sub-headlines, on the other hand, is a surefire way of losing your visitors the moment they land on that page. That’s because most readers on the web have no time to read long posts, so they just scan through sub-headings to see if it’s worth reading in the first place. 3. Filling in the content At this point, you shouldn’t worry too much about the grammar and spelling errors that you make as you type. So write freely, because you don’t want to disrupt your flow. It’s also easier to incorporate humor in your posts this way and you can be sure that your readers will be glued to your post up until the end. As you write, don’t forget to include some of the keywords that you’d like your post to rank for. Be patient as you write; write slowly, but don’t edit on the go– there will be plenty of time for that. Don’t try out fancy words just to sound sophisticated. Remember, your readers are interested only in the meat, or content, not your mastery of the language. 4. Editing and optimization It’s now time to edit and spruce up your post. This is a four-part process that will require you to: - Add/remove points – add those points that will add some punch to your posts and delete those that add no value. While at it, sprinkle in the keywords if you did not do so in step 3. - Back it up – time to establish your credibility by backing up the facts you’ve put across in your post. Do a Google search to find several relevant sources to link to. - Tweak the flow – you might need to take a few minutes off before reading the post to see if it flows fine and makes an easy ready. Add transitions and restructure the sentences where necessary to improve the flow. - Edit grammar and spelling – you might have done this while editing the flow, but it’s still an important step in ensuring your article is error-free. Proofreading and publishing Before hitting that ‘publish’ button, it is absolutely necessary that you proofread your post one last time. It’s best to reread it after you’ve taken a little time off so that your mind comes in with a fresh perspective when reading the post. This will help you spot and correct the errors that you may not have spotted in your previous editing, so that you can finally publish a near-perfect post. As a final note, adding images to your blog posts will help enliven them especially if the images bear close relevance to the content. Avoid using stock photography as it’s always screaming “Over-used filler content!” You can create your own images, infographics, or just pick a nice creative commons image on Flickr.