Introduction: Hook your reader. Make it clear at the beginning what you’re writing about. Most readers won’t read below the fold if you’ve buried the lede. Don’t bury the lede. Are you solving a problem? Providing value? Answering a burning question? State that clearly in the first sentence or two.
Outline your post. Writers who are unsure how to blog tend to write stream-of-consciousness style blogs, which will lose readers quickly.
Think of blogging as storytelling. Every good story needs a beginning (tell readers what you’re going to tell them), middle (tell readers), and an end (tell readers what you told them). What makes a great writer, however, is that we show them.
You know exactly what you need to fill in by outlining your post. A good rule to remember is the Rule of Three: three sub-headings to review your main theme. For example, say you’re writing How To Make the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie. Your three subheadings could be three variations on the cookie: Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, and Bittersweet Chocolate.
If you’re still unsure of how to create a blog post outline, I love this article by CoSchedule on how to format a basic outline.
Fill in your post. Now that you know how your post is laid out, you can do a little research. Find some great recipes to link to and always give attribution! Link to your own previous blog posts if they’re relevant.
Take your time here. There is no need to try to dash this out in twenty minutes. Well-written posts will always fare better than poorly written posts. Spell-check it. Use Grammarly (they have a free option) for grammar check. Tip: read it aloud to your pet or even your wall before you publish. You will always find a mistake to fix.
Call-To-Action (CTA): Be sure you remember to add a call to action (CTA) at the end. You don’t need to knock people over the head with this one. If you want people to sign up for your newsletter, add that. If you want them to leave a comment or share their experiences, put that. For many new writers, they tend to want to put one thousand CTAs. I don’t recommend that. Breathe. It’s just one blog post. Establish your blog readership first before you add twenty-five CTAs.
Use royalty-free photos only. Just because you found a photo on Google or Bing does not mean it’s free to use. Photographers can and will sue you. Instead, I recommend using free, awesome royalty-free sites like Unsplash (my absolute favorite), Pixabay, or Pexels. These all have terrific photos you can use in any way you wish.
Biography and Social Media Share buttons: Often overlooked, this is important to have and is typically a plug-in. If you’re unsure what to do, talk with your web admin or Google it. Share buttons are different than ‘follow’ buttons. Have both.
