Originally published April 10, 2022

The internet is lousy with blogs. There are now around 600 million blogs. You can't swing a cat without hitting a blog.

If you have a business and are wondering if you should start a blog, it may seem almost impossible to make an impact when looking at those statistics.

But never fear! Here's a little industry secret: many blogs are terrible. I might even say most of them. Full of poorly written, boring, and now often AI-generated content that gets lost in the depths of Google's search results, never to be heard from again.

So, if you're following the best blogging practices, you'll be surprised how quickly you can blow away the competition and take advantage of all blogging offers.

A blog is a great way to regularly provide content to your readers to build trust and authority in your brand. It also lets you show off your expertise and knowledge on a topic. Blogging can significantly impact your digital marketing strategy, lifting your ranking on search engines and bringing more leads to your website. 

So, read on to find out the best practices to follow when starting a blog for your business.

First Steps

Before you ever put pen to paper (or keyboard), you need to consider some overarching aspects of your blog.

Niche

Choosing a niche is an excellent place to start and will help you figure out your content strategy. Since you want to use your blog to bring people to your site, you want to choose something related to your product.

You also want to make sure you choose something broad enough that you won't run out of topics but not so broad that every subject has already been exhausted by other blogs.

Audience

The next thing to focus on is your target audience. Again, it's critical to establish your audience as quickly as possible because it informs everything from tone to topics.

Voice

That leads to the next big one: voice. Voice is the tone in which your blog is written. Is it casual? Formal? Funny and irreverent? Or more critical and business-like. That determines the vocabulary you use, how strict the grammar is, and what you write about.

Establishing a voice is also something you need to do right off the bat if you aren't writing the blog yourself. Whether using an in-house team or outsourcing your writing, you'll want to ensure you stay consistent.

Writer

Writing and maintaining a blog is a big commitment. So often, businesses start a blog enthusiastically, only to peter out when they realize exactly how much time and energy it requires.

So, try to be realistic with yourself and decide whether you want to write it yourself or delegate the task.

How To Create a Blog Post

The actual text of a blog post is only one element of a blog. This is the basic anatomy/process that goes into creating a post:

1. Topic Creation

Choosing a blog topic is just as important as the content. Using your niche as a guide, brainstorm a list of topics your audience would be interested in reading about. Once you've made a basic list, go back through it and break up any larger topics into smaller chunks.

Use SEO tactics like keyword research to see what people have been searching for, and look through your competitors' blogs to see what they're writing about.

2. Images

No one wants to wade through paragraphs that aren't broken up at all by anything visually. Infographics are a fantastic way to combine content with design. Even screenshots or gifs can go a long way to keeping a reader's interest.

An eye-catching cover, though, is crucial to draw in readers. It establishes that you're a professional blog and lends some visual interest.

Stock imagery is fine but can look a little generic. Using your proprietary photography or creating graphics is much better for establishing brand identity.

The nice thing is that there are many programs out there now to help you. Canva is an excellent option for ease of use. Illustrator and Inkscape are both helpful in creating vector images. Inkscape is a perfect free option for those who want to save money.

3. Formatting

Don't forget about user experience. You want your blog to be easy to navigate and skim. Get acquainted with your website builder and create a template for your blogs that will keep them uniform.

Always remember to prioritize ease of reading. Serifed fonts may be pretty, but they can get tiring to read after a while, so reserve those for titles. You want your font to be readable on mobile devices, so opt for larger fonts when possible.

Make sure your blogs are divided into easy-to-read, short paragraphs so readers can skip to the information they need.

How To Write a Good Blog

When setting out to create a blog, the first thing to consider is what you don't want to do.

Everyone has stumbled across meandering posts that contain no useful information and never seem to get to the point. Even if a post is SEO-friendly enough to click on, you'll probably quickly leave to go elsewhere.

When done right, blogging is a powerful tool for educating and providing valuable information to your target audience.

A good blog post should be informative, entertaining, and written in a way that makes it easy for the reader to understand the message you are trying to convey.

Remember that it's not just about writing but also about engaging with your readers by providing them with value.

So, with that in mind, here are a few best blogging practices that you want all your blogs to have:

• A strong headline that grabs readers' attention and accurately represents the content

• An introduction paragraph that hooks the reader in and makes them want to read more

• Facts to back up your assumptions

• A logical flow

• A readability score of an 8th-grader

• As for blog length, aim for between 500 and 1500 words

Finally, make sure your work is polished and edited. Nothing is more off-putting than glaring grammatical and spelling errors.

How To Blog for SEO

A blog is one of the most effective ways to generate traffic for your business through search engine optimization. It's also a way to get backlinks from other websites that link to your blog posts.

To ensure that search engines can find and index your blog posts, 

• Use relevant keywords in the title and throughout the post. 

• Make sure that you use appropriate tags to categorize the blogs

• Include internal links to related posts. 

• Create unique visuals that have alt text.

• Cover trending or popular topics to get more views and shares.

Lastly, don't get too hung up on SEO. Writing to shoehorn in as many keywords as possible will get you penalized by Google and other engines. So always think of your audience first and the search engine second.

Luckily, following our best practices will make your post organically attractive to search engines, which should always be your goal!

Conclusion

Blogging is a low-cost, high-yield marketing tool that has the power to engage your target audience and generate leads. If you follow these blogging best practices, a successful blog can help you establish authority in your industry, build relationships with potential customers, and create valuable content for your website. So what are you waiting for?

If you want to outsource your content writing, People First Content can help! Our team is here to help you create the perfect blog for your business by writing quality content in your brand's voice. So check out our blog packages and get started!

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