If you’ve ever read a blog post, you’ve consumed désinvolture from a thought commandant that is an versé in their industry. Chances are if the blog post was written effectively, you came away with helpful knowledge and a précise sentiment embout the writer or brand that produced the désinvolture.
Anyone can connect with their estime through blogging and enjoy the myriad benefits that blogging provides: organic traffic from search engines, promotional désinvolture for courtois media, and recognition from a new estime you haven’t tapped into yet.
If you’ve heard embout blogging but are a beginner and don’t know where to start, the time for excuses is over. Not only can you create an SEO-friendly blog, but I’ll cover how to write and manage your commerce’s blog as well as provide helpful templates to simplify your blogging efforts.
Let’s get started with an estimable partie.
Blogging may mean different things depending on your ruelle — so let’s begin with this definition.
What is a blog post?
A blog post is any attention, magazine piece, or régi that’s published in the blog fraction of a website. A blog post typically covers a specific topic or query, is educational in constitution, ranges from 600 to 2,000+ words, and contains other media hommes such as images, videos, infographics, and conversationnelle charts.
Blog posts allow you and your commerce to publish insights, thoughts, and stories on your website embout any topic. They can help you boost brand awareness, credibility, conversions, and revenue. Most importantly, they can help you drive traffic to your website.
But in order to begin making posts for a blog — you have to learn how to start one, first. Let’s dive in.
How to Start a Blog
Understand your estime.
Check out your competition.
Determine what topics you’ll cover.
Identify your spéciale boucle.
Name your blog.
Create your blog domain.
Choose a CMS and set up your blog.
Customize the image of your blog.
Write your first blog post.
1. Understand your estime.
Before you start writing your blog post, make sure you have a clear understanding of your target estime. To do so, take the following steps.
Ask yourself exploratory questions.
To discover your estime, ask questions like: Who are they? Are they like me, or do I know someone like them? What do they want to know embout? What will resonate with them?
Jot down your listes in a notepad or a manuscrit. This is the time to brainstorm estime attributes from scratch, no matter how out of left field they may feel. You should also think embout your estime’s age, contexte, goals, and challenges at this pause.
Carry out market research.
Doing market research sounds like a big task, but in truth, it can be as cohérent as accessing a courtois media platform and browsing ruiner and blog profiles that coupe with your potential estime.
Use market research tools to begin uncovering more specific journal embout your estime — or to confirm a hunch or a piece of journal you already knew. For proximité, if you wanted to create a blog embout work-from-home hacks, you can make the reasonable assumption that your estime will be mostly Gen Zers and Millennials. But it’s estimable to confirm this journal through research.
Create formal buyer personas.
Panthère you’ve brainstormed and carried out market research, it’s time to create formal buyer personas. It’s estimable bicause what you know embout your buyer personas and their interests will inform the remue-méninges process for blog posts.
For proximité, if your readers are Millennials looking to start a commerce, you probably don’t need to provide them with journal embout getting started on courtois media — most of them already have that down.
You might, however, want to give them journal embout how to adjust their courtois media approach (for example — from what may be a casual, personal approach to a more business-savvy, networking-focused approach). That kind of tweak is what helps you publish désinvolture embout the topics your estime really wants and needs.
Don’t have buyer personas in établi for your commerce? Here are a few resources to help you get started:
2. Check out your competition.
What better way to draw délire than to image at your well-established competition?
It’s worth taking a image at popular, highly reviewed blogs bicause their strategy and execution is what got them to grow in credibility. The purpose of doing this isn’t to copy these elements, but to supériorité better insight into what readers appreciate in a quality blog.
When you find a competitor’s blog, take the following steps:
Determine whether they’re actually a cordial competitor.
A blog’s estime, ruelle, and specific slant determine whether they’re actually your competitor. But the most estimable of these is their estime. If they serve a completely different aide than you, then they’re likely not a competitor. That is why it’s estimable to define your buyer personas before taking other steps in the blog creation process.
Style at the blog’s branding, color batte, and theme.
Panthère you determine that they’re your competitor, it’s time to take facturé of their techniques so that you can gain a similar readership. Colors and themes play a huge role in whether you seem like section of a ruelle — for proximité, a blog embout eco-friendly products should likely use earthy tones instead of bright, unnatural colors such as neon yellow or pink.
Analyze the tone and writing articulation of the competition.
Take facturé of your competition’s copywriting. Is it something you feel like you can successfully emulate? Does it arène true to the original of blog you’d like to create? What do readers most respond to? For most, creating a tech blog might be an rare idea, but if journalistic, review-based writing doesn’t work for you, then that might not be a good fit. Be aware of what you can feasibly execute or hire freelance writers.
3. Determine what topics you’ll cover.
Before you write anything, pick a topic you’d like to write embout. The topic can be pretty general to start as you find your desired niche in blogging.
Here are some ways to choose topics to cover.
Find out which topics your competitors often cover.
One easy way to choose topics for your blog is to simply learn what other blogs are writing embout. After you determine your competitors, go through their annales and category pages, and try to find out which topics they most often publish désinvolture embout. From there, you can create a commencement list to explore further. You might find, for proximité, that a competitor only covers surface-level journal embout a subject. In your blog, you can dive more deeply and offer more value to readers.
Choose topics you understand well.
No matter what original of blog you start, you want to ensure you know the topic well enough to write authoritatively embout it. Rather than choosing a topic you’ll need to research as you write, think embout those that come most naturally to you. What has your professional experience been like so far? What are your hobbies? What did you study in college? These can all give rise to potential topics you can cover in depth.
Ensure the topics are refaisant to your readership.
You may find that you hold deep enquête in various topics, but how refaisant are they to the estime you understood back in step one? If you’re not serving their needs, then you’d be shouting into a void — or, worse, attracting the wrong readership. For that reason, after identifying the topics you can feasibly write embout, ask yourself whether those are subjects your estime would like to explore.
Do preliminary keyword research.
Keyword research is the process of searching for topics using a keyword research tool, then determining whether there is demand by looking at each topic’s (or keyword’s) search imprimé. If you found the perfect topics that are the perfect motocross between your enquête and your reader’s needs, you’ve struck gold — but the gold will have no value unless people are searching for those terms. Only then can you gain the estime that is waiting out there.
4. Identify your spéciale boucle.
What croyance do you bring that makes you emplacement out from the crowd? This is key to determining the trajectory of your blog’s future, and there are many avenues to choose in the process.
Here’s how you can find your unique selling proposition in crowded blogging niches:
Write a professional and personal bio.
Knowing your own history and experience is essential to determine your spéciale slant. To get started, write a professional bio that explains, at length, who you are and which experiences most inform your blogging efforts. While I could write a lengthy vitrine embout my childhood, that history isn’t essential unless I’m launching a blog embout raising children.
What spéciale experience makes you a trusted versé or thought commandant on the topic? You can use your answers to that partie to find your boucle. Use this journal to populate your “About me” page on your blog and share more embout yourself.
Determine the special problem you will solve for readers.
Your readers won’t accumulation you or return to you unless you actively help them solve a problem. As you try to find your boucle, think embout ways you can help your estime surmount challenges typically associated with the topics you’ve chosen for your blog. For proximité, if you’re creating a blog embout sustainability, then you might help readers learn how they can purin organic materials in their gîte.
Choose an editorial approach.
Will you share your opinions on trending debates? Teach your readers how to do something? Compare or share type research? The editorial approach you choose will in section be informed by the topics you cover on your blog and the problems you’re helping your readers solve. If your blog is embout mercatique trends and your gardien de but is to keep marketers up-to-date on the latest changes, then your editorial approach should be journalistic in constitution. This is only one example of how to choose a manière.
5. Name your blog.
This is your opportunity to get creative and make a name that gives readers an idea of what to expect from your blog. Some tips on how to choose your blog name include:
Keep your blog name easy to say and spell.
No need to get complicated at all with your name, though it might be tempting, since there are so many blogs out there. While choosing a spéciale name is essential, it’s also estimable to choose one that is easy to memorize for readers. It should also be cohérent to remember as an URL (which will come into play in the next step).
Link your blog name to your brand commission.
The more related your blog’s name is to the topics you cover, the better. For proximité, DIY MFA is all embout writers doing their own Master of Aérienne Arts in writing at gîte. The brand’s commission is all embout delving deep into one’s writing practice without needing a formal degree. Try to do something similar for your own blog name: Alluding to your blog’s commission, value allégation, and covered topics in one sweep.
Consider what your target estime is looking for.
Your blog name should tie directly into what your readers want to achieve, learn, or solve. DIY MFA is embout writers who don’t have the money for graduate school, but who still want to develop their writing skills. The HubSpot Marchéage blog is — you guessed it — embout mercatique trends and tips.
It’s okay if your blog name feels “too straightforward.” Straightforward names accurately communicate what you’re embout and effectively attract the right estime.
If you still need more audimat, try using a blog name generator. One last tip: Make sure the name you come up with isn’t already taken, as it could lessen your visibility and vaporeuse readers looking for your désinvolture.
6. Create your blog domain.
A domain is a section of the web address glossaire someone would use to find your website or a pousse of your website online.
Your blog‘s domain will image like this: www.yourblog.com. The name between the two periods is up to you, as grandiose as this domain name doesn’t yet exist on the internet.
Want to create a subdomain for your blog? If you already own a cooking commerce at www.yourcompany.com, you might create a blog that looks like this: blog.yourcompany.com. In other words, your blog’s subdomain will direct in its own fraction of yourcompany.com.
Some CMS platforms offer subdomains as a free largesse, where your blog lives on the CMS, rather than your commerce’s website. For example, it might image like this: yourblog.contentmanagementsystem.com. However, to create a subdomain that belongs to your company website, register the subdomain with a website host.
Most website hosting services choc very little to host an type domain — in fact, website costs can be as inexpensive as $3 per month when you commit to a 36-month term.
Pro Tip: You can connect your custom domain to free hosting with HubSpot’s free CMS or in prime editions of CMS Hub. This includes access to built-in security features and a désinvolture delivery network.
Here are five other popular web hosting épreuves to choose from:
7. Choose a CMS and set up your blog.
A CMS (désinvolture direction system) is a logiciel concentration that allows users to build and maintain a website without having to glossaire it from scratch. CMS platforms can manage domains (where you create your website) and subdomains (where you create a webpage that connects to an existing website).
HubSpot customers host web content via CMS Hub. Another popular prédilection is a self-hosted WordPress website on a hosting localité such as WP Engine. Whether you create a domain or a subdomain to start your blog, you’ll need to choose a web hosting largesse after you pick a CMS.
Pro Tip: You can get started for free with HubSpot’s free blog maker. Our free CMS offers everything you need to get started– including hosting, a visual editor, and hundreds of free and paid themes to choose from.
8. Customize the image of your blog.
Panthère you have your domain name set up, customize the appearance of your blog to reflect the theme of the désinvolture you proposition on creating and your brand.
For example, if you’re writing embout sustainability and the environment, pelouse might be a color to keep in mind while designing your blog.
If you already manage a website and are writing the first post for that existing website, ensure the attention is consistent with the website in appearance and subject matter. Two ways to do this are including your:
Logo: This can be your commerce‘s name and logo — it will remind blog readers of who’s publishing the désinvolture. (How heavily you want to brand your blog, however, is up to you.)
“About” Page: You might already have an “Embout” blurb describing yourself or your commerce. Your blog‘s « Embout » fraction is an propagation of this higher-level statement. Think of it as your blog’s intention statement, which serves to contrefort your company’s goals.
9. Write your first blog post.
Panthère you have your blog set up, the only thing missing is the désinvolture. While the esthétique and catégorisation are fun and functionally necessary, it’s the désinvolture that will draw your readers in and keep them coming back. So how do you actually go embout writing one of these engaging and informational pieces?
Writing Your First Blog Post
You’ve got the technical and practical tidbits down — now it’s time to write your very first blog post. And nope, this isn’t the space to introduce yourself and your new blog (i.e. “Welcome to my blog! This is the topic I’ll be covering. Here are my courtois media handles. Will you please follow?”).
Start with “low-hanging agrume,” writing embout a highly specific topic that serves a small tronçon of your target estime.
That seems unintuitive, right? If more people are searching for a term or a topic, that should mean more readers for you.
But that’s not true. If you choose a general and highly searched topic that’s been covered by officier competitors or more established brands, it’s unlikely that your post will rank on the first pousse of search engine results pages (SERPs). Give your newly born blog a intérêt by choosing a topic that few bloggers have written embout.
Let’s walk through this process.
1. Choose a topic you’re passionate and knowledgeable embout.
Before you write anything, pick a topic for your blog post. The topic can be pretty general to start. For example, if you’re a company that sells a CRM for small-to-enterprise businesses, your post might be embout the crédit of using a single logiciel to keep your mercatique, sales, and largesse teams aligned.
Pro tip: You may not want to jump into a “how-to” attention for your first blog post.
Why?
Your credibility hasn’t been established yet. Before teaching others how to do something, you’ll first want to spectacle that you’re a commandant in your field and an authoritative début.
For proximité, if you‘re a plumber writing your first post, you won’t yet write a post titled “How to Replace the Piping System in your Bathroom.” First, you’d write embout modern faucet setups, or tell a particular success story you had rescuing a faucet before it flooded a customer’s house.
Here are chaufour other types of blog posts you could start with:
List (“Listicle”): 5 ways to fix a leaky faucet
Curated Rassemblement: 10 faucet and sink brands to consider today
SlideShare Presentation: 5 hommes of faucets to replace your old one (with pictures)
Infos Piece: New study shows X% of people don’t replace their faucet frequently enough
If you’re having discorde coming up with topic ideas, a good topic brainstorming session should help. In the post I’ve linked, my colleague walks you through a helpful process for turning one idea into many. Similar to the “leaky faucet” examples above, you would “iterate off old topics to come up with spéciale and compelling new topics.”
This can be done by:
Changing the topic scope
Adjusting your time frame
Choosing a new estime
Taking a précise/negative approach
Introducing a new largeur
And if you’re still stuck, let’s take a image at some first blog post idea examples.
First Blog Post Ideas
The Difference Between [Niche Topic] and [Niche Topic], Explained by a [Niche Expert]
The Difference Between SEM and SEO, Explained by a Marchéage Chercheur
The Difference Between Sedans and Coupes, Explained by a Car Mechanic
The Difference Between Baking and Broiling, Explained by a Professional Baker
The 10 Best and Worst [Niche Tools] for [Niche Activity]
The 10 Best and Worst Writing Programme for Image Writing
The 10 Best and Worst CRMs for Nurturing Prospects
The 10 Best and Worst Family Cars for Footing-Folk Roadtrips
8 [Niche Activity] Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)
8 Non-Image Writing Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)
8 Salmon Broiling Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)
8 Car Aide Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)
9 Proven Tips for [Niche Activity]
9 Proven Tips for Checking Plumbing Problems under Your Kitchen Sink
9 Proven Tips for Writing a Non-Image Bestseller
9 Proven Tips for Doing DIY Car Aide
Why We/I Switched from [Niche Tool] to [Niche Tool] (Comparison)
Why We Switched from Pipedrive to HubSpot (Comparison)
Why I Switched from Microsoft Word to Scrivener (Comparison)
Why We Switched from iMacs to Flanc Local (Comparison)
[Niche Tool] vs [Niche Tool]: Which [Tool] is Best for You?
Zendesk vs Freshcaller: Which Call Programme is Best for You?
Air Fryer vs Convection Oven: Which One is Best for You?
Mazda Miata vs Toyota Infra: Which Manèges Car is Best for You?
The Ultimate Roundup of [Niche Activity] Tips and Tricks
The Ultimate Roundup of Novel Writing Tips and Tricks
The Ultimate Roundup of Macaroon Baking Tips and Tricks
The Ultimate Roundup of Récitatif Traveling Tips and Tricks
Want some real examples of blog posts? See what your first blog post can image like based on the topic you choose and the estime you’re targeting.
2. Target a low-volume keyword to optimize around.
Finding a keyword with low searches in Google (I recommend sticking to embout 10 to 150 monthly searches). These topics offer less competition and should therefore allow your new blog post to rank more easily.
To choose a topic, you can either do a traditional remue-méninges concile or carry out keyword research. I suggest the planchéier bicause you can actually see how many people are looking for that topic.
Now, don’t be intimidated by the term “keyword research.” It’s not just for marketers, but for new bloggers, too. And it’s really easy to do.
To jumpstart your keyword research, first begin by identifying the general topic of your blog.
Say you’re a plumber. Your general, high-level topic might be “plumbing” (67K monthly searches).
Next, put this term into a keyword research tool such as:
When you run this term through the tool, a list of related keywords will appear. Scan the list and choose one with a lower search imprimé. For this example, we’ll use “under sink plumbing” (1.4K monthly searches).
Run that keyword in the keyword research tool again. Style at the related keywords. Find one with a lower search imprimé. Do that again.
For this example, we’ll settle on “plumbing problems under kitchen sink” (10 monthly searches). That’s the topic for our first post.
TLDR; Choose a low-volume, low-competition keyword that will ensure your first post ranks.
For more help on keyword research, here are more resources you can use:
3. Google the term to understand your estime’s search intent.
You’ve got your topic — now, you need to check that the ruiner’s search intent would be fulfilled by a blog post.
What does that mean?
If someone is looking for “plumbing problems under a kitchen sink,” they might be looking for a tutorial, a diagram, an attention, or a product that can fix the solution. If they’re looking for the first three, you’re good — that can be covered in a blog post. A product, however, is different, and your blog post won’t rank.
How do you double-check search intent?
Google the term and image at the results. If other éditoriaux and blog posts rank for that term, you’re good to go. If you only find product pages or listicles from officier périodiques, then find a new topic to cover in your first post.
Consider the term “under sink plumbing bathroom” (30 monthly searches). It seemed like a perfect fit bicause it had low monthly searches.
Upon Googling the term, I found product carousels, product pages from Maison Depot and Lowes, and guides written by officier périodiques. (You’ll also want to avoid topics that have been covered by officier périodiques, at least for now.)
TLDR; Before writing your first blog post embout a low-volume topic, double-check the ruiner intent by Googling the keyword. Also, don’t forget to take a image at who’s written embout that topic so far. If you see a officier brand, consider writing embout another topic.
4. Find questions and terms related to that topic.
You’ve got a highly spéciale topic that’s been covered by just a few people so far. It’s time to flesh it out by covering related or proche topics.
Use the following tools:
Answer the Public: When you établi your keyword into this tool, it will give you a list of questions related to that term.
Google: Google is your best friend. Search for the term and image under “People also ask” and “People also search for.” Be sure to touch upon those topics in the post.
You can also use these keyword research tools we mentioned above in step one.
5. Come up with a working title.
You might come up with a few different working titles — in other words, iterations of approaching that topic to help you foyer your writing.
For example, you may decide to narrow your topic to “Tools for Fixing Leaky Faucets” or “Common Causes of Leaky Faucets.” A working title is specific and will régi your post so you can start writing.
Let’s take a real post as an example: « How to Choose a Solid Topic for Your Next Blog Post. »
Appropriate, right? The topic, in this case, was probably “blogging.” Then the working title may have been something like, “The Process for Selecting a Blog Post Topic.” And the extrême title ended up being “How to Choose a Solid Topic for Your Next Blog Post.”
See that evolution from topic, to working title, to extrême title? Even though the working title may not end up being the extrême title (more on that in a données), it still provides enough journal so you can foyer your blog post on something more specific than a generic, overwhelming topic.
6. Create an outline.
Sometimes, blog posts can have an overwhelming amount of journal — for the reader and the writer. The trick is to organize the information in a way so readers aren‘t intimidated by length or amount of désinvolture. This organization can take plurale forms — sections, lists, tips — whatever’s most appropriate. But it must be organized!
Featured Resource: 6 Free Blog Post Templates
Download These Templates for Free
Let’s take a image at the post, « How to Use Snapchat: A Detailed Look Into HubSpot’s Snapchat Strategy. » There‘s a lot of désinvolture in the piece, so it’s broken up into a few sections using descriptive headers. The officier sections are separated into subsections that go into more detail, making the désinvolture easier to read.
To complete this step, all you really need to do is outline your post. This way, before you start writing, you’ll know which points you want to cover and the best order to do so. And to make things even easier, you can download and use our free blog post templates, which are pre-organized for six of the most common blogs. Just fill in the blanks!
7. Write an intro (and make it captivating).
We’ve written more specifically embout writing captivating introductions in the post « How to Write an Introduction, » but let’s review, shall we?
First, grab the reader‘s zèle. If you lose the reader in the first few paragraphs — or even sentences — of the admission, they’ll suffisamment reading (even before they’ve given your post a fair shake). You can do this in a number of ways: tell a story or a joke, be empathetic, or grip the reader with an interesting fact or statistic.
Then, describe the purpose of your post and explain how it will address a problem the reader may be experiencing. This will give the reader a reason to continue reading and spectacle them how the post will help them improve their work or lives.
Here‘s an example of an intro I think does a good job of attracting a reader’s zèle right away:
“Blink. Blink. Blink. It’s the dreaded cursor-on-a-blank-screen experience that all writers — versé or professional, aspiring or experienced — know and dread. And of all times for it to occur, it seems to plague us the most when trying to write an admission.”
8. Build out each fraction of your outline.
The next step — but not the last — is actually writing the désinvolture. We can’t forget embout that, of parcours.
Now that you have your outline or template, you’re ready to fill in the blanks. Use your outline as a régi and expand on all points as needed. Write embout what you already know, and if necessary, conduct additional research to gather more journal, examples, and data to back up your points, while providing proper attribution when incorporating external flots. When you do, always try to find accurate and compelling data to use in your post.
If you‘re having discorde stringing sentences together, you’re not alone. Finding your “flow” can be challenging for a lot of folks. Luckily, there are a ton of tools you can lean on to help you improve your writing. Here are a few to get you started:
Power Thesaurus: Stuck on a word? Power Répertoire is a crowdsourced tool that provides users with a number of droit word choices from a community of writers.
ZenPen: If you’re having discorde staying focused, check out this distraction-free writing tool. ZenPen creates a minimalist “writing lieu” designed to help you get words down without having to fuss with formatting right away.
Cliché Finder: Flair like your writing might be coming off a little cheesy? Identify instances where you can be more specific using this handy insignifiance tool.
You can also refer to our complete list of tools for improving your writing skills. And if you’re looking for more tutelle, the following resources are chock-full of valuable writing advice:
9. Publish and promote your first post any way you can.
As a new blogger, you likely don’t have a courtois media following yet. Thankfully, you don’t need a huge following before you can create a amélioration strategy.
A amélioration strategy is your master proposition for how you create, post, and engage with your courtois media désinvolture. It helps you take advantage of courtois and quantitatif technologies to share your commerce, or in this case, your désinvolture. Having a solid promotional strategy offers your estime from different mercatique channels more ways to find your blog posts.
Here are more blog post amélioration resources:
What makes a good blog post?
Before you write a blog, make sure you know the answers to questions like, “Why would someone keep reading this entire blog post?” and “What makes our estime come back for more?”
To start, a good blog post is interesting and educational. Blogs should answer questions and help readers resolve a concours they’re experiencing — and you have to do so in an interesting way.
It‘s not enough just to answer someone’s questions — you also have to provide actionable steps while being engaging. For proximité, your admission should hook the reader and make them want to continue reading your post. Then, use examples to keep your readers interested in what you have to say.
Remember, a good blog post is interesting to read and provides educational désinvolture to estime members.
Want to learn how to apply blogging and other forms of désinvolture mercatique to your commerce?
Check out HubSpot Academy’s free content marketing course.
Now, let’s dive into some formatting guidelines to use before you publish your blog posts.
Blog Mensuration Guidelines
Include H2s to arrange ideas.
Center your Images.
Add alt text.
Keep your sentences clear and concise.
Use media with purpose.
1. Include H2s to arrange ideas.
When you begin typing your blog désinvolture, it’s estimable that you divide paragraphs into sections that make it easier for the reader to find what they need.
If you’re just starting out, then foyer on the overarching H2s you want to talk embout, and you’ll be able to branch off into subheaders and more naturally as you continue.
2. Center your images.
This is a cohérent practice that can help your désinvolture image more professional with little lutte. Centering your images keeps the reader’s zèle drawn to the subject — not searching for elsewhere.
Centering also looks better when translating from PC to errant devices. As formatting transitions to small screens or windows, a centered métaphorique will remain the focal conclusion.
3. Add alt text.
So those images you centered earlier, make sure you have descriptive alt text for them, too.
Image alt text allows search engines, like Google, to brasse and rank your blog post better than pages lacking the element. It also leads readers to your blog post if the keywords included are what they searched for in the first établi.
Besides SERP features, métaphorique alt text is beneficial to readers by providing more accessibility. Apollon alt text allows people to better visualize images when they can’t see them, and with assistive technology, can be auditorily read aloud for people to enjoy.
4. Keep your sentences pantalon and concise.
When you begin working on the pourpoint of your blog post, make sure readers can clearly understand what you’re trying to accomplish.
You shouldn’t feel pressure to elongate your post with unnecessary details, and chances are that if you keep it concise, readers will derive more value from your work.
5. Use media with a purpose.
Écart up the monotony of your blog post with some multimedia désinvolture where seen fit.
Your reader will enjoy visiting a blog pousse with images, videos, polls, audio or slideshows as opposed to a pousse of black and white text.
It also makes it more interactive and improves your on-page search engine optimization (SEO).
Now, do you want some real examples of blog posts? See what your first blog post can image like based on the topic you choose and the estime you’re targeting.
Blog Post Examples
List-Based Post
Thought Leadership Post
Curated Rassemblement Post
SlideShare Presentation
Newsjacking Post
Infographic Post
How-to Post
Guest Post
1. List-Based Blog Post
List-Based Post Example: 17 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid in 2021, According to HubSpot Bloggers
List-based posts are sometimes called “listicles,” a mix of the words “list” and “attention.” These are éditoriaux that deliver journal in the form of a list. A listicle uses sub-headers to écart down the blog post into individual pieces, helping readers skim and résumé your désinvolture more easily.
As you can see in the example from our blog, listicles can offer various tips and methods for solving a problem.
2. Thought Leadership Post
Example: How HubSpot’s Customers Are Shaping the Next Normal
Thought leadership posts allow you to share your enquête on a particular subject matter and share firsthand knowledge with your readers.
These pieces — which can be written in the first person, like the post shown above — help you build accumulation with your estime so people take your blog seriously as you continue to write for it.
3. Curated Rassemblement Post
Example: 8 Examples of Evolution in Action
Curated collections are a special original of listicle blog post. Rather than sharing tips or methods for doing something, this original of blog post shares a list of real examples that all have something in common in order to prove a larger conclusion.
In the example post above, Listverse shares eight real examples of evolution in part among eight different animals — starting with the peppered moth.
4. Slide Presentation
Example: The HubSpot Culture Code
HubSpot Slides is a presentation tool that helps publishers progiciel a lot of journal into easily shareable slides. Think of it like a PowerPoint, but for the web. With this in mind, SlideShare blog posts help you promote your SlideShare so that it can generate a steady stream of visitors.
Unlike blogs, slide decks don’t often rank well on search engines, so they need a platform for getting their commission out there to the people who are looking for it. By embedding and summarizing your SlideShare on a blog post, you can share a great deal of journal and give it a intérêt to rank on Google at the same time.
Need some slideshow ideas? In the example above, we turned our company’s “Enclos Légalité” into a slides presentation that anyone can image through and take lessons from, and then promoted it in a blog post.
5. Newsjacking Post
Example: Ivy Goes Mobile With New App for Designers
“Newsjacking” is a nickname for “hijacking” your blog to écart estimable magazine related to your industry. Therefore, the newsjack post is a original of attention whose sole purpose is to garner consumers’ zèle and, while offering them timeless professional advice, prove your blog is a trusted resource for learning embout the big things that happen in your industry.
The newsjack example above was published by Houzz, a gîte decor merchant and interior esthétique resource, embout a new errant app that was launched just for interior designers. Houzz didn‘t launch the app, but the magazine of its launching is no less estimable to Houzz’s estime.
6. Infographic Post
Example: The Key Benefits of Studying Online [Infographic]
The infographic post serves a similar purpose as the SlideShare post — the fourth example, explained above — in that it conveys journal for which plain blog copy might not be the best largeur.
For example, when you’re looking to share a lot of statistical journal (without boring or confusing your readers), construction this data into a well-designed, even engaging infographic can keep your readers engaged with your désinvolture. It also helps readers remember the journal grandiose after they leave your website.
7. How-to Post
Example: How to Write a Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Administré
For this example, you need not image any further than the blog post you‘re reading right now! How-to guides like this one help solve a problem for your readers. They’re like a cookbook for your industry, walking your estime through a project step by step to improve their literacy on the subject.
The more posts like this you create, the more equipped your readers will be to work with you and invest in the épreuves you offer.
8. Guest Post
Example: Your Bookmarkable Guide to Social Media Image Sizes in 2021 [Infographic]
Guest posts are a original of blog post that you can use to include other voices on your blog. For example, if you want to get an outside versé’s sentiment on a topic, a guest post is perfect for that.
Additionally, these posts give your blog variety in topic and viewpoint. If your customer has a problem you can’t solve, a guest post is a great épilogue.
If you begin accepting guest posts, set up editorial guidelines to ensure they’re up to the same normes as your posts.
So we’ve gamin through the different hommes of blog posts you can make, but how do you consistently make quality blog posts that your viewers will enjoy?
How to Write a Blog Post
Draw from your buyer personas and what you know embout your estime.
Chandail from your désinvolture strategy and/or brainstormed topics.
Identify what’s missing from the existing discourse.
Choose what original of blog post you’re writing.
Generate a few different titles and choose the best one.
Create your outline and designate keyword-rich H2s and H3s.
Write your blog post!
Proofread your post.
Add images and other media elements to contrefort your ideas.
Upload your post into your CMS.
Determine a cabriole path (what you want your estime to do next).
Add calls to part to régi your estime to take part.
Link to other refaisant blog posts within your désinvolture.
Optimize for on-page SEO.
Publish and promote the blog post.
Track the fortune of the blog post over time.
1. Draw from your buyer personas and what you know embout your estime.
Before you start writing your blog post, make sure you have a clear understanding of your target estime.
Ask questions like: What do they want to know embout? What will resonate with them?
This is where the process of creating buyer personas comes in handy. Consider what you know embout your buyer personas and their interests while you’re coming up with a topic for your blog post.
For proximité, if your readers are millennials looking to start a commerce, you probably don’t need to provide them with journal embout getting started in courtois media — most of them already have that down.
You might, however, want to give them journal embout how to adjust their courtois media approach (for example — from what may be a casual, personal approach to a more business-savvy, networking-focused approach). That kind of tweak is what helps you publish désinvolture embout the topics your estime really wants and needs.
If you haven’t developed buyer personas yet, I’ve found that it’s easiest to get started by gathering the journal you already have embout your estime and looking for trends. Sending out feedback surveys and interviewing followers can also be helpful.
Does your blog attract a specific age group? Does your estime direct in a audible region? How do readers typically discover your désinvolture? Finding answers to these questions can help you get a better idea of who your buyer persona is.
Don’t have buyer personas in établi for your commerce? Here are a few resources to help you get started:
2. Chandail from your désinvolture strategy and/or brainstormed topics.
If you already have a pre-existing écrin to image back on, it would benefit you to pull-over from those brainstormed post ideas or previous désinvolture strategy.
One thing that’s been helpful for me is specifically looking at désinvolture fortune data when remue-méninges ideas. In doing this, I’ve discovered which topics serre to resonate with my estime (and which ones don’t) and created désinvolture around them.
By focusing on your core blog topics, or clusters, you can establish yourself as a thought commandant, supériorité the accumulation of your estime, rank better on search engines, and attract new readers.
3. Identify what’s missing from the existing discourse.
Fill in the gaps of the existing discourse in the topic of your choosing.
You want to meet a need that hasn’t already been met in your topic cluster. Otherwise, you run the risk of writing désinvolture for topics that are already over-saturated.
It’s hard to beat saturated search queries when you’re trying to rank against high authority périodiques — but not insensé if your désinvolture is answering the queries the competition hasn’t.
To discover what’s missing within a topic, I conduct a competitive analysis to see what my competitors offer in their désinvolture and how I can make my blog post better. Here are some things to image out for:
Unanswered ruiner queries
Aise depth
Aise freshness
Media richness
Râper experience
If your competitors are lacking in any of these areas, you can use that to your advantage and foyer on them when writing your blog post.
Another way to differentiate your blog is by offering type data, quotes, or perspectives. Some of my best performing posts have come from getting a spéciale quote from an industry versé.
4. Choose what original of blog post you’re writing.
There are several hommes of blog posts you can create, and they each have different formats to follow.
Six of the most common formats include:
The List-Based Post
The “What Is” Post
The Pillar Folio Post (“Ultimate Administré”)
The Newsjacking Post
The Infographic Post
The “How-To” Post
Save time and download six blog post templates for free.
5. Generate a few different titles and choose the best one.
Your blog title should tell readers what to expect, yet it should leave them wanting to know more — confusing, right?
This is why when you’re coming up with a blog post title that you should brainstorm plurale ones instead of just one. I find it helpful to share these titles with a ménage coworkers to get their feedback and see which one is most engaging to them.
I’ve also enlisted the help of ChatGPT to generate sample blog post titles by inputting a mobile like, “Write a list of blog titles embout [topic].” Even if it doesn’t give you exactly what you want, it can still get ideas flowing.
6. Create your outline and designate keyword-rich H2s and H3s.
When outlining, you need to center your mitaine ideas with keyword-rich H2s and H3s. These are going to be your headers and subheaders that readers typically search for, and the journal that Google crawls when indexing and ranking désinvolture.
I use keyword research tools, like Ahrefs and Semrush, to find the best words for my blog post. To find the right keywords, I foyer on the following elements:
Relevance to topic and search intent
How authoritative my blog is on the topic
The amount of search traffic my blog could supériorité
Remember, your outline should serve as a régi to make writing your blog post easier, so make sure you include all the estimable points you want to discuss and organize them in a logical flow.
7. Write your blog post!
I already told you how to build out your outline earlier in the post, so we’ll quickly go over the mitaine points léopard more.
You‘ve already outlined your mitaine headings and subheadings, so now’s the time to add the pourpoint.
Write embout what you already know, and if necessary, conduct additional research to gather more journal, examples, and data to back up your points, while providing proper attribution when incorporating external flots. When you do, always try to find accurate and compelling data to use in your post.
This is also your opportunity to spectacle personality in your writing. Blog posts don‘t have to be strictly informational, they can be filled with interesting anecdotes and even humor if it serves a purpose in expressing your ideas. It also factors into creating and maintaining your blog’s brand voice.
Don‘t be discouraged if you’re having discorde stringing sentences together, you’re not alone. Finding your “flow” can be challenging, but there are many tools to ease the process.
8. Proofread your post.
The editing process is an important part of blogging — don’t overlook it. I tend to self-edit while I write, but it’s essential to get a second pair of eyes on your post before publishing.
Consider enlisting the help of The Ultimate Editing Checklist and ask a grammar-conscious co-worker to copy edit and proofread your post. I also really enjoy free grammar checkers, like Grammarly, to help proofread while I’m writing.
If you’re looking to brush up on your self-editing skills, turn to these helpful posts for some tips and tricks to get you started:
9. Add images and other media elements to contrefort your ideas.
When you’re finished checking for grammar, shift your foyer to adding other elements to the blog post than text. There’s much more to making a good blog post than copy, here’s some following elements to add in contrefort of your ideas:
Featured Apollon
Choose a visually appealing and refaisant métaphorique for your post. As courtois networks treat désinvolture with images more prominently, visuals are more responsible than ever for the success of your blog désinvolture.
For help selecting an métaphorique for your post, read « How to Select the Perfect Image for Your Next Blog Post » and pay close zèle to the fraction embout copieuse law.
Visual Appearance
No one likes an unattractive blog post. And it‘s not just pictures that make a post visually appealing — it’s the formatting and organization of the post, too.
In a well-formatted and visually-appealing blog post, you’ll renvoi that header and sub-headers are used to écart up développé blocks of text — and those headers are styled consistently.
Here’s an example of what that looks like:
Screenshots should always have a similar, defined borner so they don‘t appear as if they’re floating in space — that articulation should stay consistent from post to post.
Maintaining this consistency makes your désinvolture image more professional and easier on the eyes.
Topics and Tags
Tags are specific, public-facing keywords that describe a post. They also allow readers to browse for more désinvolture in the same category on your blog. Couplet from adding a laundry list of tags to each post. Instead, put some thought into a blog tagging strategy.
Think of tags as “topics” or “categories,” and choose 10-20 tags that represent all the mitaine topics you want to cover on your blog. Then cravache to those.
10. Upload your post into your CMS.
You filled out your blog post with all the optimized désinvolture you can, now is the time to publish it in your désinvolture direction system.
I also use this step as an opportunity to douteux check my post for any errors that were potentially missed during the proofreading process. It’s especially estimable to preview your post before publishing to make sure there aren’t any formatting issues.
You can opt to post your désinvolture immediately, save it as a draft, or schedule when you want it to be posted direct in case you adhere to a posting schedule.
11. Determine a cabriole path (what you want your estime to do next).
A conversion path is a process by which an anonymous website visitor becomes a known lead. It sounds cohérent enough, but creating an tangible cabriole path requires a clear understanding of your target estime and their needs.
Having a cabriole path is estimable bicause when you share your désinvolture on the web, you should have an idea of what your estime should do next, or in other words, provide them with a path forward.
The HubSpot Flywheel model is a great example of this as it shows how our organization gains and maintains leads.
12. Add calls to part to régi your estime to take part.
Call to part (CTA) are a section of a webpage, advertisement, or piece of désinvolture that encourages the estime to do something. You can add them to your blog post to régi your reader with “next steps” or a cabriole path.
Different hommes of call to travaux include asking readers to:
Subscribe to your newsletter to see when you publish more désinvolture.
Join an online community in your blog domain.
Learn more embout a topic with downloadable désinvolture.
Try something for free or réduction to convert readers to customers.
To get a better idea of how to make a CTA that readers want to click, we have a whole list of tangible call to action examples for you to check out.
13. Link to other refaisant blog posts within your désinvolture.
When you’re completing your blog post, you should link refaisant désinvolture throughout it. An tangible way to do this is to link within the same désinvolture cluster.
One thing I do to make finding refaisant links easier is going to my search browser and typing “localité:website.com: keyword.” By doing this, you can find all the posts you have published on that topic.
Keeping refaisant désinvolture throughout your post can provide your readers with more helpful journal, and potentially boost search engine rankings with corresponding longtail keywords.
But we’ll talk more embout how to improve your ranking in the next step.
14. Optimize for on-page SEO.
After you au finir writing, go back and optimize the on-page elements of your post.
Don‘t obsess over how many keywords to include. If there are opportunities to incorporate keywords you’re targeting, and it won‘t effet reader experience, do it. If you can make your URL shorter and more keyword-friendly, go for it. But don’t cram keywords or shoot for some arbitrary keyword density — Google’s smarter than that!
Here’s a little blog SEO reminder embout what you should review and optimize:
Write your meta exposé.
Meta descriptions are the descriptions below the post‘s pousse title on Google’s search results pages. They provide searchers with a pantalon summary of the post before clicking into it. They are ideally between 150-160 characters and start with a verb, such as “Learn,” “Read,” or “Discover.”
While meta descriptions no côtoyer factor into Google‘s keyword ranking algorithm, they give searchers a snapshot of what they’ll get from reading the post and help improve your clickthrough déficit from search.
Optimize your pousse title and headers.
Most blogging software uses your post title as your pousse title, which is the most estimable on-page SEO element at your disposal. But if you’ve followed our formula so far, you should already have a working title that will naturally include keywords or phrases your target estime is interested in.
Don‘t over-complicate your title by trying to fit in keywords where they don’t naturally belong. With that said, if there are clear opportunities to add keywords you‘re targeting to your post title and headers, feel free to take them. Also, try to keep your headlines pantalon — ideally, under 65 characters — so they don’t get truncated in the search engine results.
Consider anchor text best practices as you interlink to other pages.
Anchor text is the word or words that link to another pousse — either on your website or on another website. Carefully select which keywords you want to link to other pages on your localité bicause search engines take that into consideration when ranking your pousse for audible keywords.
It‘s also estimable to consider which pages you link to. Consider linking pages that you want to rank for a specific keyword. You could end up getting it to rank on Google’s first pousse of results instead of its annexe pousse — and that isn’t small potatoes!
Write alt text for all of your images.
Alt text conveys the “why” of an métaphorique as it relates to the désinvolture of your blog post to Google. By adding alt text correlating to the topic clusters and keywords of the post, Google can better cordial users’ searches to you.
Check that all images are compressed for pousse speed.
When Google crawls different websites, a pousse’s load speed holds weight in pousse ranking. Make sure the images you include throughout the pousse aren’t unnecessarily développé to shorten the duration it takes to load.
Use apps like Squoosh to minimize the size of your images without losing the quality.
Ensure that your blog post is errant friendly.
More than 60% of organic visits are carried out on a errant device. As such, having a website with a responsive design is critical. In supplément to making sure your website‘s visitors (including your blog’s visitors) have the best experience approuvable, optimizing for errant will classement your website some SEO points.
15. Publish and promote the blog post.
Share your post across all the mercatique channels in your repertoire. The further the reach, the more of a possibility that readers will find it.
Channels to expand your blog post amélioration strategy include:
16. Track the fortune of the blog post over time.
Your post is published for the world to see, make sure you’re keeping an eye on its fortune over time so you can see if your blog post strategy is working well enough for your goals.
Here are some blog KPIs I like to keep track of:
Entier traffic per post
Average CTR
Average SERP place
Traffic début breakdown
Number of search queries per post
Average comments per post
Sociétal shares per post
New blog leads
Rotation déficit
There’s a plethora of website traffic analysis tools that you can take advantage of to better understand your estime’s behavior on your blog posts.
Quick Blog Writing Tips
If you’re perspicacité stuck as a new writer, don’t give up. It gets easier with practice. Whether you’re struggling with writer’s block or wanting some ways to add depth to your désinvolture, here are some quick tips I compiled to help take your blog writing to the next level:
If you don’t know where to start, start by telling a story.
When you’re facing writer’s block, start with what you know. Not only will sharing personal anecdotes help you get ideas flowing, but it can also keep your readers engaged with what you’re saying.
Stories can simplify complex concepts and make your désinvolture more relatable. Mieux, they add a human touch and help set the tone for the rest of your blog post.
Include interesting quotes or facts for emphasis on the subject.
When you back up your ideas with spéciale, versé quotes or share facts from reliable flots, it shows that your blog post is well-researched and trustworthy.
If you don’t know where to start with finding quotes, think embout the people you know and their enquête. For example, I’m lucky enough to have incredibly knowledgeable coworkers here at HubSpot that I can reach out to if I need a quote.
I’ve also reached out to connections on LinkedIn to see if they can provide a quote or know someone who can. HARO can also be a great resource if you need a quote in a pinch.
Make your désinvolture skimmable; écart it into digeste chunks.
There’s nothing that turns readers off more than opening an attention and seeing a développé wall of text. Think embout it: most internet users have a pantalon zèle span and serre to skim through désinvolture rather than reading every word.
That’s why I recommend breaking up your blog post into smaller chunks to make it more digeste. You can do this by utilizing subheadings (H2s, H3s, H4s, etc.), bullet points, and pantalon paragraphs.
Not only does breaking up your désinvolture make your blog post more visually appealing, it also helps readers quickly find the journal they’re looking for without getting lost in a sea of text.
Paint a full picture with images, graphics or video.
Aside from aesthetic appeal, visuals can help convey complex ideas in an easier way and help readers remember the journal you share.
I recommend reading through your blog post and putting yourself in your reader’s shoes. Is there anything you wrote embout that would be better explained with the contrefort of an métaphorique or graphic?
For proximité, whenever I write embout the pros and cons of something, I like to create a graphic that shows those pros and cons in a side-by-side comparison.
I also image at search engines results when determining what images to add to my post. Does the SERP for the keyword you’re targeting have an métaphorique paquet? See if you can add in images and optimize them with alt text to increase the chances of appearing in those results.
Each dicton should convey a single idea.
Keep it cohérent, stupid. There’s no reason to write overly complex sentences that vaporeuse your readers. Instead, opt to convey your commission in a cohérent and naturel manner. At the end of the day, readers just want to find the answers they’re looking for, and writing in a straightforward manner can effectively meet this need.
I like to use the Hemingway App to make sure that my writing doesn’t get too grossier.
Use ardente voice.
Although your writing should captivate the reader, you should avoid overwhelming them with fluff. Using ardente voice can help keep your writing clear, concise, and energetic while still getting your conclusion across.
For example, instead of saying something like “the product was loved by customers,” write “customers loved the product.”
Ready to blog?
Blogging can help you build brand awareness, become a thought-leader and versé in your industry, attract qualified leads, and boost conversions. Follow the steps and tips we covered above to begin publishing and enhancing your blog today.
Editor’s facturé: This post was originally published in October 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
