If there’s one form of content that’s the easiest for the average company or individual to produce, it’s a blog. Every business should have a blog on their website, even if you don’t believe that a blog makes sense in your industry.
The truth is that businesses in any industry can benefit from an active blog. Think about the questions that your customers have asked you in the past. These are all great subjects to write about to provide valuable information for potential new customers. Not to mention the SEO boost that you’ll receive from targeting relevant keywords.
Now you know why you should be blogging, but how do you get started? It may seem intimidating at first, but the best way to get started is to jump right in! Here are the 5 steps that take you all the way from square one to promoting your content across the internet.
Research
Doing a little bit of keyword research will help you zone in on the right subjects to write about. As I explained before, thinking about your customers’ frequently asked questions is a great start. There are plenty of tools available for further keyword research, but one of the easiest is to go to Google and take a look at the related searches. Google bases these suggestions on what real people are searching for in relation to your original keyword. Once you know what to write about, you can jump into the planning process.
Outline
Planning is the most important step to creating a cohesive and easy to understand piece of content. If you neglect to outline your main points and ideas, you’ll find yourself going off topic or losing your thoughts in the middle of a paragraph. Even a simple outline with 3-4 main points and 2-3 ideas under those main points is a good skeleton to work off of. Don’t forget to include your introduction and conclusion to introduce and wrap up your ideas!
Write
Now here’s the hard part! Writer’s block is a problem even for seasoned bloggers. The biggest problem that I find new bloggers facing is that they overthink what they are writing. One technique that helps writers to get over this struggle is setting a timer for 30 minutes or so and go! Don’t let yourself stop writing until that timer goes off. Try to resist going back and making edits until later. Now is the time to get your ideas out of your head and onto paper (or your screen.)
Edit
Give yourself a little time before you begin the editing process. You are going to catch more errors and awkward spots if you look at your post with fresh eyes. Take out your “verys” “kind ofs” “generallys” and any other unnecessary words that sneak their way into your writing. And ALWAYS have a second set of eyes (preferably a third) look at your blog before you post it,
Promote
After you edit and post your blog, it’s time to let the world know. Promote your blog on your social channels and encourage your network to like or share the post as well. Don’t forget about your blog after posting about it once. At Keystone Click, we use this formula to get 50 pieces of content from that one blog post. You worked hard on creating a high-quality piece of content, so let the world see it!