8 steps to writing a blog that resonates with and inspires your target audience
27 March 2023
The goal of writing a blog should be to create content that resonates with your audience and inspires them to take action. In this post, we’ll break down some of the most important elements of a successful blog, from conducting research to publishing your blog, and give you actionable tips for improving your content.
What steps are involved in writing a blog?
There are several steps to consider when writing a blog, to ensure that the content is high-quality and engaging for your target audience:
- Identify who your target audience for your blog is and what they’re interested in reading.
- Brainstorm potential topics that would be interesting and add value to your target audience.
- Conduct research to gather data, statistics, and other information to back up the topic you’ve settled on.
- Use the information that you’ve gathered to create an outline for your blog, organising the main points with a clear structure.
- Write the first draft of your blog using your outline.
- Edit and revise the content to improve clarity, coherence, and readability.
- Add visuals that help illustrate key points and make the blog more visually appealing.
- Do a final proofread to catch any remaining errors, and then publish it on the desired platform.
We’ve gone into more detail on each point below.
1. Know your target audience when writing a blog
Determining your target audience is a critical step in creating a successful blog. By understanding your target audience, you can create content that is tailored to their interests and needs, which will increase engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
Start by creating a persona or profile of your ideal customer, based on factors like age, gender, interests, and behaviours. This will help you understand their motivations, pain points, and needs, which can be used to create content that resonates with them. If you have a content strategy in place, you should already have customer personas.
There are many ways to gather information on your target audience for your customer persona, such as:
- Conducting market research is an effective way to gather information about your potential audience. This can include surveys, focus groups, and other methods that allow you to gather feedback directly from your target audience.
- Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to gain insights into your website traffic. This can help you understand who’s visiting your website, what content they’re engaging with, and how they’re finding your site. You can then use this information to create content that’s tailored to your audience’s interests and needs.
- Using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can provide valuable insights into your target audience. You can use the analytics tools to gather information about your followers, including their demographics, interests, and behaviours. You can also use social media to engage with your audience directly to get feedback from them.
- Speak to your existing customers and analyse the data that you already hold. The customers you already have are likely to have similar traits to your target audience.
- Ask friends and family who fit your ideal customer profile questions about their content consumption habits, interests, and behaviours.
- Perform online research to find out information about your ideal target audience. There are lots of insightful reports into areas such as demographic, media consumption, and online behaviours that can help inform your persona.
2. Choose a topic for your blog post
You need to find a balance between what the target audience wants to read, what’s timely and relevant, and what aligns with the goals of the blog when choosing a topic.
The first step is to consider the target audience and what they might be interested in reading. What are their pain points, goals, interests, and challenges? This can help guide the topic selection process.
It’s essential to stay up to date with the latest industry trends, news, and updates. This could involve monitoring industry publications, following relevant social media accounts or blogs, and attending conferences or events.
Brainstorm your list of potential topics, and consider what’s currently trending and what you know about your target audience. Try to generate as many ideas as possible and jot them down, even if they’re a bit off the wall, as they can be refined later in the process.
Research what topics your competitors are covering. This can help identify any gaps or areas that haven’t been covered yet or inspire new angles or perspectives to explore.
Finally, choose a topic that aligns with the overall goals of the blog. For example, if the goal is to drive traffic, you might choose a topic that’s popular or has a high search volume. If the goal is to establish the blog or author as a thought leader, you might choose a topic that’s timely or controversial.
Make sure that you align your blog to your SMART objectives in your content strategy.
3. Conduct research when writing a blog
The research process is about gathering reliable and relevant information from a variety of sources and evaluating it critically to ensure that it supports the goals of your blog.
Before starting the research process, it’s important to define the goals of the research. This will help you focus your efforts and ensure the information gathered is relevant and useful. The research goals could include gathering statistics, finding supporting evidence, or getting a better understanding of a particular topic.
It’s crucial that you use reputable sources when conducting research. This might include, academic journals, government publications, and reputable news outlets. Interviews can be a valuable source of information, particularly if the topic is complex or if there are few other sources available. It’s important to evaluate sources critically to determine their reliability and accuracy.
Surveys and polls can be useful for gathering data and opinions from a large number of people. Online survey tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms make it easy to create and distribute surveys, and social media platforms can be used to reach a wide audience.
As you gather the information, make sure you take notes and organise it in a way that’s easy to reference and use. Then, once the research is complete, evaluate the information gathered and determine how it can support the goals of your blog. This might involve discarding irrelevant information, making the data into meaningful insights, or using it to support a particular argument or point.
4. Create an outline when writing a blog
Creating an outline is about breaking the main topic down into smaller, more manageable pieces and organising them logically and coherently. Your outline should provide a clear roadmap for your blog post and makes the writing process more efficient and effective.
Things to consider when creating your blog outline:
- Identify the main topic which should be a clear and concise statement of what your blog post is about.
- List your key point that supports and elaborates the main topic. Organise these into a logical order so they flow smoothly from one point to the next.
- Create a working title that reflects the focus of your blog post.
- Start fleshing out the key points with more detail. This might involve providing supporting evidence, examples, or anecdotes that illustrate the point.
- Consider the introduction and conclusion. The introduction should grab the reader’s attention and provide a preview of what’s to come. The conclusion should summarise the key points and provide a takeaway message or a call to action.
5. Write a draft blog post
Writing your draft blog post is about translating the outline into a fully formed piece of content. It’s important to write in a clear and concise style that’s easy to read and understand.
Start with a strong hook when writing a blog
The first sentence of your blog post should grab the reader’s attention and encourage them to keep reading. This could involve using a surprising fact, asking a thought-provoking question, or sharing a personal story that relates to the main topic.
Write in a clear and concise style
Your blog posts should be written in a clear and concise style that’s easy to read and understand. This means avoiding complex sentences and using simple, direct language.
Use a conversational tone
Your blog post should be written in a conversational tone that’s easy to read and engaging. This means using contractions, addressing the reader directly, and avoiding overly formal language.
Use subheadings and bullet points
Subheadings and bullet points can help break up the text and make it more readable. They can also help guide the reader through your blog post and highlight key points.
Provide supporting evidence
Any claims made in your blog should be supported by evidence. This includes statistics, quotes from experts, or examples from real-life situations.
6. Edit and revise your blog
Editing and revising are important steps in the writing process that can help improve the quality of your blog post. It’s crucial that you don’t skip this step as it can help make improvements that will make your blog clearer, more engaging, and more effective.
Here are some tips on how to approach this step:
- After writing your blog post, take a break before editing and revising, and approach with fresh eyes and a clear mind.
- Check for clarity and structure, making sure your blog post is easy to read and follow, and that the content flows smoothly.
- Check for grammar and spelling errors. Use spell-check tools and grammar checkers and read through the content carefully to catch any mistakes.
- Cut any unnecessary words and phrases that don’t add meaning or contribute to the overall message to improve the clarity and readability of your blog.
- Use an active voice to help make your blog post more engaging and easier to read.
- Add transition words to help connect ideas and make your blog post flow more smoothly.
- Get invaluable feedback from others such as friends, colleagues, or online communities on ways to improve the quality of your blog.
7. Add visuals to your blog post
Humans are visual creatures, and our brains are wired to process visual information more quickly than text. By including visuals in your blog post, you can capture the reader’s attention and make your post more engaging.
Visuals can help illustrate complex ideas and make them easier to understand. For example, an infographic can help explain a process more visually and intuitively than text alone. When information is presented in a visual form, it is often easier to remember. Including visuals in a blog post can make it more memorable and help it stand out in the reader’s mind.
A long block of text can be daunting to read and can make the reader lose interest quickly. By including visuals like images, videos, or infographics, you can break up the text and make the post more visually appealing and easier to read.
Visuals can also help convey emotion and mood. For example, a photo of a happy family can evoke feelings of joy and warmth, while a photo of a stormy sky can create a sense of foreboding and tension.
8. Finalising and publishing your blog
Finalising and publishing your blog is the last step in the writing a blog process. Here are some tips on how to ensure your blog is ready to be published:
- Make sure you do a final proofread and edit it carefully. You can use online tools like Grammarly to help with this process.
- Optimise your blog for SEO by including relevant keywords in your content, meta tags, meta descriptions, and image alt tags. This will help your blog rank higher in search engine results and drive more traffic to your website.
- Preview your blog before publishing it to make sure that it looks and reads the way you intended. Check that your formatting is correct, your images are properly aligned, and your links are working.
- Once you’re happy with your blog, it’s time to publish it on your site. Make sure to promote on your social media, email newsletter, and other channels to drive traffic and increase engagement.
- After publishing your blog, monitor its performance using analytics tools like Google Analytics. This will help you track metrics like page views, time on page, and bounce rate, which can provide insight into how your audience is engaging with your content.
How does a blog link to a firm’s content strategy?
A blog can be a powerful tool for supporting your firm’s content strategy. It can provide valuable content that supports your SEO, lead generation, social media, and thought leadership goals.
Supports SEO
By creating high-quality blog content that targets relevant keywords and topics, you can improve your firm’s SEO visibility and attract more qualified traffic to your website.
Nurture leads
A blog can be used to engage with your prospects and leads at different stages of the buyer’s journey, providing them with valuable information and resources that help build trust and move them closer to making a purchase.
Thought leadership
A blog can be a platform for your firm to showcase its expertise and thought leadership on industry trends, challenges, and best practices. This can help build the firm’s reputation and establish you as a trusted authority in your industry.
Social media
A blog is shareable content that can spark conversation and engagement on social media platforms, helping to expand your reach and influence.
Content repurposing
A blog can serve as a platform for repurposing content into other formats, such as videos, infographics, or e-books, which can be used to further expand your firm’s content marketing efforts.
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All content in this article was correct at the time of publication.
