10 Steps to Writing an Awesome Blog Post
We've learned A LOT in our years of blogging consistently – mostly from making a bunch of mistakes, of course.
But mistakes are super valuable, especially if you can learn from them without actually having to make them. As in, if you can get someone else to spill the beans on all the lessons they've learned. And after putting out consistent blog posts over the years, we feel like we've finally made enough mistakes to create a go-to process for busting out blogs.
And we've distilled that process into a step-by-step blogging guide.
Ready to jump in and create some awesome blog content!?
Here we go! Here’s our go-to 10-step process for creating awesome blog posts:
1. Generate a BUNCH of ideas up front
We've found that it's far more helpful to produce great content ideas in ONE huge brainstorming session than to try and brainstorm concepts day-by-day. For a blog post to be successful, we've found that content needs to be both relevant and compelling, and absolutely must be geared toward your audience's interests.
So when we’re planning posts, we always try to keep in mind two questions:
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What is it readers WANT to know?
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What is it that I have high-quality knowledge about?
The ideas that occupy both categories are blog-worthy!
2. Plan out your topics IN ADVANCE
We have a whole Google calendar devoted to planning out our blog posts for the next few weeks.
[Related: How to customize your Google calendar like a bawss]
Because we have multiple blog contributors, creating a legit calendar helps us stay on the same page all the time. But even if you're running a one-blogger show, creating a similar organization system is definitely beneficial to make sure your posts are spread out evenly!
Check out what we've got coming up over the next few weeks! Ta-da:
Of course, this calendar is totally not the be-all-end-all of our blogging schedule.
There are about a thousand reasons why we change topics or shuffle our order.
The most common reason? We find that a topic is just too broad for one blog post – like today: We planned for this post to be about blogging resources and our blogging process. But the blogging process itself is already enough for a full post!
3. Record your initial thoughts + resources
Making sure to briefly record your initial intent for the post guarantees that you don't come back to your topic wondering what the heck you meant when you scheduled a post for What to do when you hate hate hate what you're doing. Um, what?
Oftentimes we jot down a few pieces of essential information in Google Calendar directly. Other times we create a new document in Grammarly (which we included as one of our best free writing resources on the internet too!) or start a new blog post directly in Squarespace.
When you start out with a clear intent, it's way easier to limit your scope. One great way is to generate a VERY specific title to use while developing the blog post.
Instead of starting out with a general title for your blog post, like Writing a Blog Post for Your Business—which is actually just a topic—narrow it down to a specific title that tightly confines what you're creating, like The 10 Types of Blog Posts All Businesses Can Create.
4. Build your skeleton
Ahh, time to finally start writing!
My initial skeleton for this post. My content has definitely changed since then!
The first thing we do is sketch out an initial skeleton.
Taking the time to draft a very general concept makes you stop and think for a few seconds about what kind of format will be best for your content: Is it a list? An illustrated how-to post?
When you're drafting a skeleton, write out your essential section titles without worrying about filling in details just yet.
The goal here is to get your general plan down in writing.
You'll have time to add more detail and smooth out the bumps later.
And don't freak out if the plan changes when you actually begin to add content, of course!
5. Write your content!
Now, flesh out each section of content, adding in what you actually want to communicate.
Focus on the core of your argument or narrative, using facts, anecdotes, examples, or instructions as your flagship content. You can worry about more finessing later!
6. Organize + add formatting
Now is the time to revamp your structure and polish your content according to your readers' needs: Organized, consumption-ready information.
Divide your content into logical segments using varied headers, line breaks, and a logical progression. Try splitting paragraphs apart to help your readers' eyes move along the screen. And make sure to use strategic bolding to call attention to the essential pieces of information within a larger sentence or paragraph!
7. Images
Finally, time to add in images!
