ProBlogger: 18 Ways to Create Scannable Content for Your Blog

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18 Ways to Create Scannable Content for Your Blog Posted: 28 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST The post 18 Ways to Create Scannable Content for Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on Episode 176 of the ProBlogger podcast. You've chosen your words with care, and put a lot of thought into them. But no-one's even reading your posts, let alone commenting or sharing. If you want more readers, more engagement, and more sharing of your content (and let's face it, why doesn't?) then this post is for you. Why Readers Won't Read Every Word – and What You Can Do About It Only 16% of people read websites word for word. Most people scan, and I expect you're one of them. I know I am. When I arrive at a website or blog, I quickly scan the page to see if it looks relevant to me. If something intrigues me, I might scroll down to see what's "below the fold". People make decisions in seconds. They decide whether your content is relevant to them, and whether it's worth spending time reading it. If they can't see the benefits of reading on, they'll click away from your site. They won't read your content. They won't leave a comment. They won't share it. And chances are they won't ever come back. This means you need to learn to write scannable content. Because people will decide whether or not to read it based on their initial scan. I'm going to give you eighteen techniques for doing just that. #1: Write Great Headlines The first thing people will see is your headline. It should draw their eye. Your blog design should help your headline pop off the screen. (If it doesn't, you might want to change or tweak your theme.) In terms of wording, your headline should be compelling and offer the reader a clear benefit if they read the post. If you want some help with writing great headlines, check out Episode 156 of the ProBlogger podcast, or Seven Easy Ways to Write Better Headlines for Your Blog Posts. #2: Write a Great Opening Line Aside from your headline, the most read part of your blog post will be your first line. You want this to communicate a benefit, or create some curiosity. In your first line, you need to give people a good reason to read more. If you need some help coming up with a strong opening line, check out 10 Tips for Opening Your Next Blog Post. #3: Keep Your Paragraphs Short Large slabs of text will turn readers off. If you keep your paragraphs short, it gives readers a visual clue that your content will be easy to read and put into action. If they see huge, daunting chunks of text, it'll all seem too hard. Stick to one idea per paragraph, and keep those paragraphs short. #4: Keep Your Sentences Short Short, clear sentences help readers feel your content is accessible. If your opening sentence is 40 or 50 words long and confusing to follow, they won't want to read on. I once heard a suggestion that you should keep your sentences to no more than 16 words, which sounds like a good rule of thumb. For more on both short sentences and short paragraphs, check out How to Write Short Sentences and Paragraphs the Right Way (and Why It Matters). #5: Choose Simple Words Back in high school, my English teacher once commented on my essay saying that while words with four or more syllables may sound impressive, they make the writing inaccessible to anyone reading it. (I pointed out to her that the word "inaccessible" is a five-syllable word. That didn't go down too well.) Aim to write like you speak, and choose words that simply and accurately convey your meaning. Don't use big words to try and sound impressive. #6: Use Lists On both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School, I've found that posts written in a list format do much better than essay-style content. When readers can see your content is structured as a list, they know you've broken it down to make it easy for them. You don't necessarily have to create your whole post as a list, though. Even using bullet points throughout a post can help people scan your content. For more on lists, check out How to Create a List Post (a podcast episode) and How to Use Lists Effectively in Your Blog Posts. #7: Use Subheadings to Break Up Your Post If people come to your site and just see text (even if it's broken up into short paragraphs), nothing will stand out to them. This makes it harder for them to figure out what your post actually covers. You want to break that post into four or five sections and give each a subheading that clearly communicates what the section is about. That way your readers have a visual cue about what's coming up, and whether there's a section of your post that's particularly relevant to them. For more on subheadings, check out How to Use Subheadings to Add Structure to Your Blog Posts. #8: Add Other Types of Formatting Beyond subheadings, there are other types of formatting you can use. You might use bold, italics, or even all-caps to emphasise key points. You might even change the size or colour of the text. These things can really draw your reader's eyes to important points in your post. But show some restraint with this type of formatting. You don't want your content to become a mismatch of these different techniques, or it'll just look a mess. If you're not sure how to add formatting, check out our post How to Use the WordPress WYSIWYG Toolbar to Format Your Blog Posts Like a Pro. #9: Use Images You might already be using a featured image at the top of your posts. But are you using images within the posts? Research shows that readers' eyes are drawn to images. So putting images beside your key points – especially when those images closely relate to the content – increases the chance of readers getting to the end of your post. However, make sure you're not infringing anyone's copyright. If you're not sure how to find images you can legally use, take a look at How to Find Images for Your Blog That Won't Get You Sued. #10: Use Image Captions In WordPress, it's really easy to insert a caption for your image. Just click on the image to edit it, and type whatever you want into the "Caption" box. The caption will then appear just below the image in your post. People naturally look at the descriptions below images. I suspect they're one of the most read parts of your post (after your subheadings). So you could use an image caption that emphasises a point you're trying to make, or even one that includes a call to action. #11: Use Other Visual Content Images are great. But there are other types of visual content you could create. For instance, you might use charts or even tables in your post to show information. Anything that's visual and conveys information differently can help draw the eye. It shows readers you've got something for them to look at – not just text for them to read. You could even take a key quote from your post, create a nice image with it layered over a photo, and put in into your content to act like a subheader. This gives readers a reason to read more. #12: Use Blockquotes Almost all WordPress themes have a "blockquotes" style. This allows you to highlight a particular part of your content in some way. It's normally used to highlight a quote, but you can use it in different ways if you want. With WordPress, you can apply blockquotes formatting by highlighting the paragraph in question and clicking the "Blockquotes" icon in the visual editor. If you want more help using quotes on your blog, check out The Why, How and When of Using Quotations on Your Blog. #13: Use Whitespace You don't have to fill every inch of the screen. Creating space within and around your content means your readers won't feel so overwhelmed. Again, space can draw the reader's eye down the page. While this is partly affected by design, you can also add more line breaks to create short paragraphs (which we looked at earlier) and space things out a bit more. #14: Use a Good Design Often, blogs are difficult to read simply because their design is cluttered. SImplifying things, or even switching to a different theme (template), can really help. Two key things you can do are: choose fonts that aren't too small add a little distance between the lines of your content. Getting the advice of a good designer can also help. If you'd like to dig into blog design, try our podcast episode How to Give Your Blog Design a Spring Clean. #15: Make Your Main Point(s) Clear One trap many bloggers fall into is burying their main point deep within their content where it probably won't be noticed. If there's a key point you want your readers to understand or remember, just say it upfront. If you're writing a long post (say 2,000–3,000 words), try using summary statements underneath each subheading to help readers see what the point of that section is. This gives readers an immediate reason to read the rest of that section. It's like using a title and opening line, but throughout your post rather than just at the start. #16: Repeat Your Important Points Hopefully, you've got a clear idea of what you want people to get from your content. Repeat it – more than once. Most people aren't reading word for word. So you need to emphasise your key point several times throughout your content. You'll probably want to have it in your opening, in some of your summary statements, in your conclusion, and maybe in a piece of visual content as well. That way, your readers are much more likely to get that main point or call to action. #17: Don't Introduce Too Many Ideas in One Post If you've got a lot of ideas you want to cover, it might be worth breaking them up into a series of posts. While long pieces of content can work well, they can also be overwhelming for readers. The more points you make within a post, the less likely your readers will actually get all of them. For more about structuring your content as a series of posts, check out How to Write a Series for Your Blog (and Why You'll Want To). #18: Write Like a Human Being The more human-like your writing is, the better. People are more likely to keep reading if they feel a sense of connection with you. That means you could tell stories, show readers who you are in some way, and write in a more conversational style. For help with that, I recommend listening to 10 Writing Tips to Help You Sound More Human, where I interview Beth Dunn, the Product Editor-in-Chief at HubSpot. We've covered a lot of different techniques in this post. You won't necessarily want to use all of them for every piece of content you write. But using a handful of them could make a huge difference to how scannable your content is, and and how much it gets read. Here's the list of techniques again: Write great headlines Write a great opening line Keep your paragraphs short Keep your sentences short Choose simple words Use lists Use subheadings to break up your post Add other types of formatting Use images Use image captions Use other visual content Use blockquotes Use whitespace Use a good design Make your main point(s) clear Repeat your important points Don't introduce too many ideas Write like a human being Give some of these a try with your next post. And leave a comment below to tell us how you got on. The post 18 Ways to Create Scannable Content for Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: How to Make Your List Items and Bullet Points Super Smooth

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How to Make Your List Items and Bullet Points Super Smooth Posted: 26 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST The post How to Make Your List Items and Bullet Points Super Smooth appeared first on ProBlogger. This is a post by ProBlogger writing expert Ali Luke Do you ever use lists in your blogging? They might be bullet points, tips that you're sharing in a list post, or even a simple list of three or four items in a sentence. If you've been writing blog posts for a while, coming up with bullet points or list items might seem like second nature. But there could be a crucial factor you're overlooking. Parallelism. Say what? "Parallelism", in this context, simply means making sure the items on your list correspond to one another – that is, they're parallel. It's often easiest to understand through examples. Seeing Parallelism in Action Here's an example of a list that doesn't work. When you're writing a blog post, it's important to: Give it a great title Crafting a strong opening line To use subheadings All of those bullet points could work. But not in the same list. Notice how the list is introduced: it's important to. Every item on the list needs to fit with this opening phrase. It's important to … give it a great title. (Yep, that works.) It's important to … crafting a strong opening line. (Nope. It should be "craft" not "crafting".) It's important to … to use subheadings. (Nope. It repeats "to".) To work properly, the full list needs to read: When you're writing a blog post, it's important to: Give it a great title Craft a strong opening line Use subheadings But a lack of parallelism isn't always obvious at first glance. Take a look at these (fictitious) bullet points from a sales page. Grow your business faster than ever before Money while you sleep This is the easiest system ever invented – you can use it straight away Discover the secrets you've been missing all this time As well as having a rather dubious "get rich quick" vibe, those bullet points don't quite fit together as a list. They're grammatically correct, as there's no introductory text. But they'd read more smoothly if they all started with an imperative verb and were all roughly the same length, like this: Grow your business faster than ever before Make money while you're asleep Start using this super-easy system instantly Discover the secrets you've been missing all this time This might seem like a small thing. But when you're crafting a sales page, you want to make it as easy to read as possible. Great Places to Use Parallelism in Lists on Your Blog Within your blog posts, look out for opportunities to use parallelism: Whenever you have a short list within a sentence. For instance, "Today, I wrote a letter, visited my grandma, and went for a jog". Note how each verb is in the past tense. You probably do this naturally already, but it's worth double-checking when you edit your post to make sure all your lists are working correctly. Whenever you create a list of bullet points. Even if you don't have a specific phrase introducing your bullet points, make them all match. That usually means starting them all in the same way – with a verb in the right form, a noun, an adjective, or whatever works for your list. It could also mean ending them all in the same way (e.g. with a question mark). Whenever you write a list post. The list items (usually the subheadings) in a list post might be separated by several paragraphs of text. But they should still match one another if you want your post to seem well constructed. Elsewhere on your blog, look out for things like: Calls to action on your About or Start Here page. If you're offering readers several options, have you phrased them all so they match? Lists of bullet points on your sales pages. We took a look at this earlier: parallel bullet points look polished and professional, and help create a good first impression on a potential customer. As well as using parallelism within a single list, it often makes sense to create several lists that all match with one another. For instance, on the home page of my Blogger's Guides website (where I sell premium ebooks) each Guide is summarised in five bullet points, and each bullet point starts with a verb (construct, write, produce, revise, develop). Your readers may not notice that one product has four bullet points, one has five and another has six. They might not realise you're only using parallelism within individual lists, and not to tie all your lists together. But even if they can't quite explain it, they'll probably get a sense there's something not quite right about your blog post or sales page. And that's definitely not what you want. Parallelism is a simple trick, and quite possibly one you're already using. But if you're not, or you're not paying conscious attention to it, try revising a recent post or a key page on your blog to incorporate it. By making your list items match one another your writing will read more smoothly, adding that extra little bit of polish to your blog posts and (even more importantly) your sales pages.       New bio: Ali Luke is the author of the Blogger's Guides, a set of value-packed ebooks that are on sale until Friday 1st March for just $20 (instead of the usual $60): that gets you all four ebooks plus various bonuses, as well as all future updates. You can find out more and get your hands on a great bargain here.     The post How to Make Your List Items and Bullet Points Super Smooth appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: 277: The Secret to Building a Better Blog

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277: The Secret to Building a Better Blog Posted: 25 Feb 2019 12:00 AM PST The post 277: The Secret to Building a Better Blog appeared first on ProBlogger. 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Today's the day to sign up for our 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course. Why? Well, it's 50% off for a limited time. And if you register by the end of February you'll get to be a part of our 31-day guided sprint in March. While the course has evolved, it remains the #1 reason most blogs become successful. But you need to consistently take action to implement what you learn.   The four pillars of blogging are actions and habits you should develop to grow and profit from your blog. Create great content Promote your content Enhance your relationships with your readers Monetize your blog Each day of the course you'll be taught practical things to do for your blog, including: Setting objectives and goals Creating an editorial calendar Developing social media and email strategies Creating pillar content Optimizing for SEO Identifying and understanding your audience Strengthening reader engagement You don't have to take the course to become an action-oriented blogger. But if you need help and want to give your blog a burst of love to get it back on track, feel free to join us. Links and Resources for The Secret to Building a Better Blog: Podcast Motor Courses Start a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hey there and welcome to episode 277 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I'm the founder of ProBlogger, which is a site for bloggers and prebloggers designed to help them to start and grow profitable blogs. You can learn more about ProBlogger and all we do over at problogger.com. In today's episode number 277, we're going to talk a little bit of our secret of growing your blog. In fact, I think it's the number one way to grow a blog and this ties into a promotion that we've got on at the moment on our 31 Days To Build A Better Blog course. I know many of you have gone through our Start A Blog course over the last couple of months and to continue the good work that you've done, we've decided to make 31 Days To Build A Better Blog 50% off for the next week or so until the end of February. Also in the month of March, we're going to sprint through it. We are doing it as a group where we can support you and get bloggers interacting together. I'll tell you a little bit more about that later in the episode. But if you do want to check out 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and grab it at 50% off, head over at problogger.com/31days. You can also find it through our courses tab over at problogger.com and in today's show notes. Let's get into today's show where I do want to talk about the number one thing that is going to help you to grow your blog. In preparation for our 31 day sprint, I want to talk about why we had so much success with the 31 day program. I want to talk about the reason that they've been built into that course that I've seen help many bloggers over the years and I've seen help me as well. Over the years, I think it was back in 2007, I started 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and it's been in many forms since then. In fact, I've counted seven different ways we've presented this program. Originally, it started off as a series of blog posts in I think it was in 2006–2007, and then I did that same series that evolved that every time, three times on the blog. It was completely for free. It was just a series of blog posts. At the end of the third series, I turned it into an ebook and then I updated the ebook into a second version. I think second version came out in 2012. Later on, I did it again on the podcast for free and then more recently, we've turned it into a course in the last year or so. There've been these seven different versions of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and every time we changed the medium, we've also updated it to make it more relevant, to add more teaching, to get rid of bits that aren't relevant for today and add in new pieces of information as well. Those of you who've done one of those early versions will find that the course we have today is quite different. But there's one thing that hasn't changed and it is, in my opinion, the number one reason that successful blogs become successful. The one thing that hasn't changed in the course and that the number one thing that I think is behind most successful blogs, if not all successful blogs, is that it's all about action. A lot of people come to ProBlogger looking for teaching, for information. They want to learn how to do something, or they want to see a review of a product or tool, or they want to hear about the latest strategy, or they want to hear a story to inspire them. Information. Most of our content is focused around these things, but information and teaching and story-telling isn't the reason that successful blogs grow. It's part of it, but most successful bloggers can't build a blog based upon just information. Blogs grow when you take action. Blogs grow when you develop good habits as a blogger. What habits, what action do you need to develop? Well, I'll give it to you for free. You don't have to do the course. Most of the actions that you need to take as a blogger focus around four main areas. You've heard me talk about these before. They're the pillars of blogging that we talk about. Creating great content is number one. Number two is promoting that content. Number three, deepening relationships with your readers. And number four is monetizing your blog. These four things is the accumulation of action in these four areas that are going to help to grow your blog and if you want to become profitable, to become more profitable as well. Let me just say them again. Number one, create great content. Number two, promote that content. Number three, deepening relationships with your readers, building community. And number four, monetizing your blog if monetizing is a goal for you. Now, this isn't rocket science. Most of us instinctively know this stuff when we start our blog. On day one, we need to create content. That's what makes it a blog. We know that no one's going to see that content if we don't tell them about it so we know instinctively we need to promote, even if it's to our friends. Number three, we know that we need to engage with those readers. They're much more likely to come back again the next day. If I feel like we noticed them, if we've engaged them in some way. We know we can't make money unless we do something to monetize our blogs. So we know instinctively these four things that we need to do yet so often as bloggers we let these basic things slide and we get distracted by other things. One of the times we get distracted is by the search for information or the secret strategies and we actually don't take action in these four things. This is why 31 Days To Build A Better Blog has been so popular over the years and why every time we offer it we get so many people thanking us for it. Now, you don't need to do the course to become an action-orientated blogger. But if you need some help at the moment to get yourself going and you want to give your blog an intense burst of love and get it back on track perhaps, I do invite you to join us over this next 31 days. 31 Days To Build A Better Blog isn't just a teaching course. There's certainly teaching in it but more importantly, it's a course that takes you through a series of challenges to do, 31 challenges to do. Each day you get a little bit of teaching. There's a video, some audio, some worksheets that help you to learn, but more importantly, everyday you get at least one thing that you can go away and do. We try to give you more than one thing on some days because I know some of you are beginners, some of you are in the first month of blogging, and some of you are a little bit more advanced. You'll see some days there's something there that you could do for the first time or if you've been doing that thing already, it gives you some ideas for things that you can do to improve what you've done as well. The idea is that you take at least 31 pieces of action by the end of this month. Most of the things that we talk about are actually habits that you can grow and if you take these actions over and over again, you're blog will grow. At the end of the 31 days, you have set some objectives and goals for your blog, and important actions. Something that you should be really revisiting from time to time. It's a habit you should get into. By the end of the 31 days, you have created an editorial calendar for your blog. Again, that is something that you need to do on a regular basis. You've created a social media and email strategy for your blog. You've created pillar content for your blog. You've gotten your blog optimized for search engine optimization. You've identified and dug in to try and understand your readers better. You've learnt some techniques for coming out with new post ideas and you've actually come up with and generated ideas for you blog. You've promoted your blog in a variety of ways and found some new readers. You've deepen the engagement with its current rate. You've explored opportunities for monetizing your blog and you've clarified some next steps to build your blogging business. That's just some of what you will do during this course. Whether you do it or not, you can actually just take that list of things, go away, do them, and build them into your rhythm. There's so many more things. I don't have time to go through it today, but the key thing I want to get across today is that if you want to build a successful blog, these are the types of actions that you need to be taking. Again, most of the things we cover in the course fit into the four pillars I talked about before, creating content, promoting your blog, building community and engagement, and monetizing your blog. There's not as much on monetization but there's certainly a couple of days that focus on it. The other three pillars are the main focus of this. Monetization really does come as a result of building your readership, building up your archives, and creating engagement with your readers as well. Normally, our course is something that people enroll. They normally pay US$99 to do and they normally go through it individually but as I said at the top of the show, over the month of March, we're going to do it as a group and we're calling it our sprint. Normally, we say to people, "Take your time. Go through it at your own pace. You can do it over 31 weeks. You can do it over 31 months if you want. But we are going to provide a 31 day sprint for you." That may mean that you only sort of dip into some of the activities or you may even skip over some of them over that month because it is a fairly intense month, but you get this course forever and you can come back to and repeat some of those activities as you like. The reason we want to do it as a sprint is something we discovered really early on. That was in the first series of blog post that I did is that when bloggers go through this type of experience together, it almost supercharges the whole experience. We want to tap into that. When bloggers get together, they share what they've done, they show each other examples of what they've done, they get to ask each other questions, they get to actually go and look at what each other have done, they get to encourage each other. This really gives you energy as a blogger and can provide a lot of inspiration, and a lot of other ideas as well. The other reason that we want to do it as a sprint together is that it's going to help us as a team to guide you through the process a little bit more and to be involved in that process with you. Normally, we don't have a lot of opportunity to answer your questions along the way. Over the 31 days, we are going to do more of that in this version of the course. We are doing some regular live videos, we'll do some regular chats, and sort of 'ask me anything' type sessions in a small Facebook group that we've set up for the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog challenge. If you are interested in giving your blog that intense burst of love over the month of March, I encourage you to enroll in 31 Days To Build A Better Blog. Again, you can find it at problogger.com/31days. The other thing I'll say is if the month of March is too hard for you and you don't think it's realistic for you to go through that whole process in 31 days, that's totally fine. You can still grab the course at 50% off. We're offering it for US$49 up until the end of February. You can grab it and go through it at your own pace. This is a limited time offer. It ends at the end of February so we can go through it together. I encourage you to take action on that. Go to problogger.com/31days or just head to problogger.com, look for the courses tab at the top, and you will see our two courses there, our free Start A Blog course and 31 Days To Build A Better Blog. I should also say that 31 Days To Build A Better Blog is designed for people who already have a blog. If you don't have a blog yet, go back and do the Start A Blog course. It's always available there. It's always free. You might want to grab the 31 Days while it's 50% off and then do that as a second course. We have designed 31 Days To Build A Better Blog for those of you in your first month of blogging, but as I also said earlier, we also include extension kind of challenges as well for those of you who've been blogging for a while. We actually find a lot of the people who get the most benefit out of this course are in their first month or they're bloggers who want to give their blog a reboot. They want to give it that extra boost to get things going, which is something I know a lot of you will probably be feeling this time of year. Whether you do the course or not is totally up to you. I'll put it out there. If it's not the right time for you, that's totally fine, but I do challenge you to take action on your blog. Action around creating great content. Action around promoting your blog, getting word out there, getting off your blog and promoting it. Action around deepening the engagement that you have with your readers. And action around monetizing your blog. It is the accumulation of action. It's the good habits you develop in these four areas that I think build a successful blog. Thanks for listening. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/277. Chat with you next week on the ProBlogger podcast. How did you go with today's episode? Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts. The post 277: The Secret to Building a Better Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.       Related Stories 275: How One Blogger Quit Her Job and Started a Lifestyle Blog 274: How Stefano Changed Blogging Platforms and Started Blogging with a Plan 272: How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Build Her Blog   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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ProBlogger: How I Write a Blog Post: My Step-by-Step Process

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How I Write a Blog Post: My Step-by-Step Process Posted: 21 Feb 2019 03:30 AM PST The post How I Write a Blog Post: My Step-by-Step Process appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on Episode 186 of the ProBlogger podcast. I'm often asked how I write a blog post. What does the process look like from start to finish? ProBlogger readers and podcast listeners have asked about where in the process I do specific things, such as writing the headline and the introduction. In this post I'll take you through exactly what I do so you can use my process (or your own unique twist on it) to make creating content much easier. And this doesn't apply to just blog posts. You could use the same process for creating YouTube videos or podcast episodes. Step #1: Pick a Topic The first step is pretty logical: pick a topic. With my blogs – ProBlogger and Digital Photography School – that normally means identifying one of these: A question one of my readers has A problem one of my readers is trying to overcome A task someone is trying to complete A goal someone is trying to achieve You may have already thought about some of these if you read my alternative take on New Year's Resolutions for your blog. My blogs teach people how to do things. Ninety-five percent of my posts are "how to" content, so I always start with one of these. They generally define the topic of my post. If you have a different style of blog (e.g. it's about entertaining people rather than teaching them), you may have a different process for coming up with topics. Step #2: Think of the Reader While my topics tend to come out of readers' problems or questions anyway, at this step I take a moment to imagine my reader's situation. As a blogger, you're so much more effective if you write with your reader in mind. I've covered how to create a reader avatar before, so if it's something you haven't done you may want to take a look at these: How to Create a Reader Avatar for Your Blog (a blog post with lots of examples and downloadable template) Two Questions to Ask to Help You Find Readers For Your Blog (a podcast episode that covers creating reader avatars) During this step, I write down a sentence or two about who my reader is and how they view the topic I'll be talking about. For instance, if I'm writing about a problem I might think about: Why does my typical reader have that problem? How do they feel about it? What have they already tried to overcome it? What's stopped them from solving it in the past? When you put yourself in your reader's shoes, you can write your article with real empathy and make your post truly relevant to them. At this point, I'm also thinking about what I want my reader to do after reading my blog post. It's really important to think about your call to action before you start writing. It will shape your headline, your introduction, how you write the main part of your post, and how you conclude it. Step #3: Create a Working Headline Some bloggers like to write the post first and then come up with the headline (the title) for it. And I totally understand that perspective because it's what I used to do. But what I like to do now is come up with a working headline once I have the topic and the reader perspective. Creating a working headline sometimes helps me come up with a unique angle for the post. For instance, I might have an idea for Digital Photography School on how to light a portrait. I've done the work understanding my reader: they're a beginner and they don't have much lighting gear. So when I brainstorm headlines I might come up with "How to light a portrait using lights you find around your home", or "How to light a portrait when you only have one flash". You can see that just by selecting one of these headlines, I already have a much clearer idea of what the post will be about. But it's important to understand this is just a working headline (or a working title if you prefer). Once I've written the post I'll normally go back and tweak it a bit. And sometimes while I'm writing I'll realise that I need to change that headline a bit. Step #4: Brainstorm and Outline the Post At this point I list the main points I want to teach someone in my article. (You might come at this from a different perspective if your blog doesn't focus on "how to" content.) I don't write a lot here. Normally it's just a list of bullet points in a document on my computer, in a notebook, or as a mindmap. As I do this, I brainstorm answers to the questions or solutions to the problem I identified, outlining the steps the reader needs to follow to learn a new skill or master a process. It's like coming up with the bones of the post. I'm not looking to add any muscle at this point. The bullet points I create often become subheadings in my finished post. By coming up with the main sections and then sub-points for each section, the post begins to come together. At this point, I often have more points than I'll use in the finished post. So I cull the weaker or less relevant points and focus just on the most valuable things I want to say. Once I've got those points, I take some time to arrange them in the best order. I don't think many bloggers do this. But taking a moment to think "Is this a logical order? Are my points building upon one another?" can make a real difference to your finished post. Step #5: Take a Critical Look at the Outline With the outline finished, I ask myself some hard questions such as: Will this post really be useful to my readers? Will someone have a 'fist pump' moment when they read it, or just say it's okay? Is it meaningful? Will it change someone's life in some way? Will people still have questions after reading the article? Do I need to do some more research to address them?) It's important to ask these questions now, rather than after you've finished writing the entire post. That way if you realise you do need to do more research (or that it was actually a weak idea for a post), you'll be prepared for it. You might want to invest some time in research. Or you might get help from an expert by either interviewing them or having them write a section of your post. Step #6: Write the Introduction Some bloggers prefer to write the rest of the post first and then craft the introduction. But writing the introduction upfront works best for me. It helps me get into the flow of my post. As with the headline, the introduction often shapes the direction of the post itself. My introduction is usually one to three paragraphs long. But again like the headline, I go back to rework the introduction after finishing the post. As you write the introduction, think about the reader and their situation, question or problem. Show them you really understand how they feel. If you can show some empathy in the first few lines of your post, you'll make a deeper connection with your reader. And they'll want to read the rest of your article. This is also a good point to paint a picture of how the reader will benefit from reading your post. What will they be able to achieve (or what will be different) after reading it? Step #7: Expand on the Main Points With your outline in place, expanding on each point to create the main part of your content is quite straightforward. You just need to put meat on the bones you've already come up with. As before, keep your reader in mind while you write. What worries do they have? What might they be confused by or wondering about at different points in your post? If you need help with specifics on writing the main part of your post, you might want to check out some of these posts and podcast episodes: How to Use Lists Effectively in Your Blog Posts 10 Writing Tips to Help You Sound More Human (a podcast episode) 3 Simple Ways to Make Your Blog Posts More Conversational It's probably clear by now that I write my articles in the order they'll be read: the headline, the introduction, then the main part of the article. For me, this is really important. Step #8: Write the Conclusion and Call to Action Good blog posts have some kind of conclusion. I create this after writing the main part of my post, and generally try to sum up what I've taught the reader. I'll return to the problem or question I set out in the introduction, and remind people what I've tried to teach them. I'll also summarise the main points. After that, it's really important to give readers something specific to take action on. Go back to whatever you identified in Step 2, and clearly state what you want them to do next. It might be encouraging them to try out the technique they've just learned, or to leave a comment or interact in some way. Don't give them several different things to do here. And make sure your call to action flows from the goals of your blog and this particular post. Step #9: Add More Depth and Appeal to the Post At this stage of the process, I look for things I could add to make a post even better. For instance, I might look for: A story or anecdote I could include An image that would complement the post A relevant YouTube video to embed A chart or graphic that illustrates a key point in the post A quote from someone else Ways to make the post look more attractive to read You could even consider interviewing someone else to add their perspective into your post, even (or especially) if they provide an alternative viewpoint. This step is about making the post better and deeper, and making sure it looks good with plenty of visual interest. Step #10: Edit and Proofread the Post In this final step, it's important to go over your post one final time to make sure you haven't made any mistakes or typos. For me, putting a bit of space between when I write and when I edit is really important. I think we use different parts of our brains for critical thinking about editing. I talked about editing in detail in Episode 168 of the ProBlogger podcast. So you may want to check it out for a detailed look at the seven steps for editing your work. The last thing you want is to undo all your good work with a post that's riddled with glaring mistakes. Quality control really matters, so make sure you build in enough time to edit and proofread. You could also get someone else in to help you at this stage of the process. It could be a fellow blogger who you swap posts with, or a professional editor or proofreader. A Quick Summary of My Process Here's a quick recap of my blog post writing process from start to finish: Pick a topic Think of the reader Create a working headline Brainstorm and outline the post Take a critical look at the outline Write the introduction Expand on the main points Write the conclusion and call to action Add more depth and appeal to the post Edit and proofread the post That's my workflow. But I'd love to hear about yours. Maybe you have an extra step, or do things in a different order. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Regardless of your workflow, it's important to pause along the way and be reflective. Keep coming back to who's reading that content: the reader with the questions, problems and feelings. If you can show you understand them, you'll create a real sense of connection. So don't just think about creating content. Think about crafting it, and taking care and time to make it the best it can be. The post How I Write a Blog Post: My Step-by-Step Process appeared first on ProBlogger.

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