Keeping your content fresh on your blog is really important for search. Google loves fresh, new content. But, sometimes it can be hard to think of what to write for your blog…right? Well, here are five steps for you to keep in mind, when you sit down to write a blog post.

6 Steps to producing the perfect post

Step 1: Keep Bob front of mind

When you sit down to write, make sure you can quite succinctly describe who you are writing to. This is your target audience, or customer avatar (which is what we call it).

You may have different audiences that you produce content for, so for each post you sit down to write – be clear on who it is you are trying writing for.

Bob, for example, may be around 56 years old, a managing director of a stationery supply company, who regularly plays golf, enjoys Cuban cigars and plays touch rugby on week-ends with his two teenage sons.

When you visually draw that person for whom you writing in your ming – the words will just flow. (Read more in my Customer Avatar Exercise blog post which gives you some help on how to go about clarifying your target audiences better.)

Step 2: The Five Pointed Star

There is a structure to what you are going to include within your blog post – much like when you write a story (a start, a middle and an end).

Jot down (in bullet points) the five bits of information you want to share with Bob – i.e:

• the topic;
• the reasons he will find this post interesting;
• what he will learn/take away from the post;
• something to make him share the post (call to action); and
• how you can help (if at all…a service offering)

Step 3: Source something visual

The element that is going to make your content clickable or pop out online is the imagery you choose. Make sure that for every post you write, you have a good original image for it (can be stock photo).

Remember that your readers will have different learning and preference styles, so mixing your content up with a good image or video will help attract attention to the post. Also – people may want to “pin” your blog post on Pinterest – as a way of storing/bookmarking your interesting post in their themed boards. (For this you will need to have an image!)

Step 4: Keep your word count to 500 – 1000 words

This tip is highly dependant on your own industry, your target audience and of course your topic that you are writing about. Decide what works best for your type of content, but what really helps is if you have a guide on word count – I usually work on a basis of between 500 and 1000 words (depending on topic).

Try and be as tight as you can be on  your sentences and word count – try to avoid writing for the sake of writing. This is not to say that you can’t have a long blog post – I’m just saying keep it meaningful and with value at the heart of it.

Step 5: Use Categories and Tags properly

This helps readers to find and sort through your content within your blog. What I try to say is use your Categories as you would your high-level content themes (keep to a max of 5 in total), and then use your Tags as your way of sub-dividing that content.

Only use a tag when you know that you will a lot of blog posts that you will hook on to that tag. (So don’t use a tag as you would a hashtag …to randomly make something ‘cool’. It doesn’t work that way).

Step 6: Use external and internal links

Try and build in extra value into your blog post for the reader. If you mention or comment on content that other people have written – make sure you hyperlink the text to the source of the content. Google sees your content as that much more valuable if you are proving extra help to the reader and pointing them to other useful content.

Also look to referring the reader to other content on your website (such as services, products or other helpful blog posts) where you can. Again, Google likes to see you doing that kind of thing and helping the reader’s journey on you website.

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