You want to write a good blog post. It’s understandable. It’s a fantastic way to reach out to your target audience. It builds empathy and confidence with customers. There’s really no downside to it!

I like to divide my blog post efforts into three separate steps: Preparation, Writing, and Editing.

Preparation

There are several things you can do to ensure you end up with a quality post. Yet the most important one is often the most overlooked: preparation. Most want to dive right and start typing away on the keyboard. The result? A confusing and meandering mess of words. Nobody wants to read that.

Let’s pay heed to the old boy scout motto: be prepared. Your writing needs an objective to follow throughout the post. So, you need to ask yourself a series of questions. Take out a piece of paper and pen – or use a legal pad like I do.

What is the purpose of your piece?

This questions aims to find out why you’re writing this post. What do you want to achieve? What is the objective? The answer may not come right away and that’s okay. Feel free to write whatever comes to your mind. Eventually, you’ll hit upon the reason you’re writing this post.

Who is your audience?

Figure out who you want to read you post. What’s their age? Interests? Background? The more you know about your potential audience, the louder your message will be.

What do you need to know?

In order to complete your blog post, do you have all the resources at your disposal in order to write it? You may have to do some research or conduct some interviews. If so, make sure to include that in your post, as it will increase the legitimacy of your work.

What is the order?

Once you have all the information you need and know who your target audience is, you should structure your blog post. Lead with your most important points, and then follow them up with reasoned and succinct writing. Finish everything off with a tight summary and your own personal conclusion. If you follow my blog posts, this is exactly the order that I use.

Writing

Writing can be a daunting task. Even I find myself scared of the blank page sometimes.  But I’ve got a solution for you: don’t think. I want you to dive right in to the writing. Don’t worry if it feels messy or doesn’t sound right. There’s a maxim that I live by, and that’s write with your heart and edit with your head. So right now, pour everything you want to say out on the page. We’ll clean it all up in the final stage.

Editing

This is the final stage of your blog post. It’s also quite possibly the hardest. You see, all writing is really rewriting, ad nauseam and ad infinitum. This is where you’ll read through your first draft with a critical eye. Look for more than just spelling mistakes though. I want you to keep the questions from the first step in mind. Use them to cross out, rearrange or even write new additions to your first draft. Then, I suggest taking a step back from it, take some time off. Maybe even work on another post. I want you to come back with a fresh eye and the will or another round of edits. Once you’re at this stage, you should congratulate yourself. It’s ready to be published.

Conclusion

Writing is easy; anybody can do it. Writing well however, that’s something completely different. It takes time and dedication but with the right preparation, you can pull off some amazing posts. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at my own blog…

If you have any questions or comments about this, or anything else, please let me know in the comments below.

Until next time!