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Outline Your Blog Post for Blogging Success

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SocialNicole_Outlining Blog Posts for Blogging Success

You were probably introduced to the 5-point outline while writing research papers in high school, but did you know using a similar process to outline your blog posts can also be helpful to the blog writing process? When writing a blog post for your business, try starting with an outline first, complete with an introduction and conclusion, points and sub-points, and a killer headline using an SEO-friendly keyword or phrase. This will save you time, help keep the blog post on the right track, and can even help you avoid the writer’s block that can strike when you’re staring at a blank screen. For our best tips and practices for outlining your blog post, read on…

Why Outline Your Blog Post?

Before we delve into the nitty-gritty of how to outline your blog post, you need to understand why you should be outlining. If you aren’t familiar with the process, you may shy away from it or worry that it will take up more of your precious time. In reality, outlining your blog posts can actually save you time by keeping you on track and helping you defeat any lurking writer’s block.

Outline Your Blog Post to Save Time

Even though it is an additional step, outlining can streamline the blog writing process and save you time in the long run. By determining ahead of time exactly what points you want to cover in your post, you can avoid going down rabbit holes in the drafting stage, and stay on track with your main points.

In addition to this, any review done by an editor or co-worker will pick up on issues with the main ideas, the message, or the direction of the blog post at the outline stage, which will save you time if you have to make any adjustments to the big-picture theme of the post. For example, if your editor determines that your 2nd point doesn’t belong in the blog post at all, and catches this at the outline stage, then you haven’t spent all the time actually drafting that part of the blog post. If your blog post is on track at the outline stage, you are much more likely to stay on track all through the drafting process.

Outline Your Blog Post to Keep It Consistent and Cohesive

As we pointed out above, outlining your blog post helps to streamline the process. Outlining gives you, the author, an overview from the beginning, so you can plan, reorder, and make sure that all the points belong, contribute to the main topic, and lead to the end point or overall message of the blog post. If you just sit down and start typing without structuring your points first, you may find that your thoughts are all over the place and your points jump around in a less-than-logical order. Outlining helps your blog post flow cohesively.

Another bonus of this is even if you do find your points are not in the best order after outlining, it is much easier to rearrange bullet-pointed or numbered headings and subheadings than it is to cut and paste chunks of text that may require rewriting just to make sense in a different place in the post.

Outline Your Blog Post to Beat Writer’s Block

Our last reason for outlining your blog posts is it can help you avoid writer’s block–which is definitely desirable when you are writing for your blog regularly. When you outline, you do your research, compile your notes, and lay out your points in the best order. Then you can take a break and come back later to dive into drafting.

When you come back to write, all your thoughts are right there in order, all laid out for you to fill in. You are much less likely to get stumped or be at a loss for what to write next, since you’ve already got your points plotted out. Spend less time banging your head against the desk wondering what should come next in your draft and more time using your killer blogging skills to connect and fill in your outlined points.

How to Outline Your Blog Post

Now that you’ve seen why outlining your blog posts is a no-brainer, let’s get to the next step: how to outline your blog post. All the benefits above will fall into place if you follow our tips below for both the actual structure of the blog post, as well as the type and amount of content you should be including at the outline stage.

Outline Your Blog Post to Gain Structure

The structure of your blog post outline is going to be similar to the structure of those outlines you wrote in your high school English class: Points and sub-points sandwiched between your introduction and conclusion.

Your blog post outline should be structured something like this:

Introduction

Point 1. 

a.
b.
c.

Point 2. 

a.
b.
c.

Point 3. 

a.
b.
c.

Conclusion 

Write the intro and conclusion last, after you determine your points and sub-points. Since in the introduction, you should be laying out a very brief overview of what you are going to cover in the post, and in the conclusion you will offer a concise recap of what you have covered in the post, there is no point in drafting these until what you will cover in the post is all nailed down. Be prepared to rewrite or tweak your introduction and conclusion in the drafting stage, as your points may still change or shift when you actually write them.

Your points and sub-points should be structured by some sort of theme, category, or hierarchy. This could be listing pros and cons of something new in your field, or laying out a step-by-step process instructing your followers on how to use one of your products in a how-to post. This will all depend on what your post is about, but work to lay out your points in the best order, and play around with it a bit until you find that sweet spot that makes the post flow. Then, within your main points, do the same thing with any sub-points, making sure the sub-points are filed under the points where they most logically fit.

Additional Tips to Outline Your Blog Post:

Using the above structure for outlining your blog post, begin to fill in each point. We recommend keeping it concise at this stage. Each point and sub-point should just be bullet-pointed words or partial sentences that are placeholders for what you will write. As a writer, it can be hard to resist the temptation to start drafting as you think of each point. Just jot down your thoughts in a way that will make sense to anyone editing or reviewing your blog post, and will jog your memory when you sit down to draft the post.

After you have determined what your points are going to be, title each heading with the SEO keyword or phrase you are going to be using for the post, and make sure that each heading, as well as the blog post’s title, include this keyword or phrase. Mark your headings with HTML headings (H1, H2, H3, etc), even at the outline stage, to keep it clear and make it easier to transition into drafting. These headings will ultimately serve to optimize your post for SEO when it is published, as Google likes posts which use HTML headings properly. We also recommend including any inbound or outbound links that will help with SEO at this stage.

When you outline your blog post, you can save time, keep your points consistent and clear, and prevent writer’s block from happening when you get to the drafting stage. Make sure to outline your blog post with clear points and sub-points in the most logical and smoothly-flowing order, determine a keyword or phrase that you will use in your title and headings, keep the outline concise (don’t start drafting the body yet!), and write your introduction and conclusion last so you can be sure to include every point. You may just find that blogging for your business isn’t as tough as you thought!

At SocialNicole, we are a full-scale social media marketing agency, and blogging is a huge part of what we do! If you’d like further help with creating killer blog posts, reach out to us!

The Ultimate Blog Post Publishing Checklist

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SocialNicole_Blog Post Publishing Checklist

Have you ever published an amazing, informative, ingenious blog post, only to find that it didn’t get the results (i.e. clicks, reach, engagement) you felt it deserved? After all that hard work you put into researching and writing a great blog post, it’s frustrating when you can’t seem to get it noticed. As social media marketers who have been business blogging for years, we’ve been through it all.

That’s why, with our extensive experience in business blogging, we’ve put together this comprehensive guide on publishing a blog post so that you can get the results you are looking for. If you’ve developed a good foundation in coming up with great blog post topics and an idea of how to write engaging pieces, then read this step-by-step blog post publishing checklist to use before you press “publish.”

Blog Publishing Checklist: Reviewing Language

If you’ve gotten to the point in the writing process where you’re getting ready to publish, you’ve probably already checked and double checked your writing. Fixing errors is one thing, but taking a big-picture overview of the language is another. There are a few key components to take inventory of during your final review to ensure that your piece is professional-quality and ready for the world to see.

Spelling and Grammar

You might think this is a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many articles there are with typos or grammar mistakes that get by undetected. And it matters. When readers see an error in a piece, it distracts them from the point of the piece and makes them question the writer’s credibility. Even for those people who are less critical, incorrect grammar still suggests that the person doesn’t know as much as they claim to know. Do not let a little mistake like this ruin an otherwise awesome piece.

Voice

One thing I like to do after writing a piece is set it down for a day (or longer if time permits) and come back to it when it’s fresh. This allows me to read it from a clear headspace and hear the voice of the writing in my head. When you read it back, you will be able to determine how well the writing flows. It should flow smoothly from start to finish, with clear transitions and a good mix of sentence lengths.

Theme

Adding several different points into your article is great, but they should all fit under the same umbrella theme. Professional writers, even when writing simple blog posts, always have a “thesis” that they tie all their information back to. Everything should be related to the central theme, and every tangent should come back around to the main point in the end.

Value

Many writers forget to incorporate this, and in my opinion, it makes a huge difference in the quality of a piece of writing. Throughout your post, you will probably offer your readers several tips, opinions and/or pieces of information that they find helpful. But ask yourself: what larger, big-picture insight are you offering the reader? If you want to make your post stand out, leave the reader with one main, key takeaway, usually something you suggest immediately in the introduction and describe thoroughly in the conclusion paragraph. Leave them feeling like, in addition to the new information they are learning from you, they are also gaining a new perspective on the topic, a thought-provoking insight that they didn’t have before.

Call to Action

If you want to decrease the bounce rate and maintain a stronger engagement, add a call to action of some kind at the end of your post. Never leave the reader not knowing where to go next on your site for more information. They came to learn more about the topic, so always give them a chance to keep reading more. To help our readers navigate our page better, we always include a link at the end of each post, encouraging readers to learn more about our business.

Blog Publishing Checklist: Formatting

While doing your final read-through and determining how everything flows, also take note of the formatting. Having a smooth, flowing layout is just as important as the flow of the writing itself. There are a couple things to watch for during this design overview.

Headings and Subheadings

Make sure all headings and subheadings are consistent and formatted correctly. There is nothing more confusing to a reader than seeing several different heads and not knowing which one is the main point and which ones are subpoints. It should be obvious where each heading belongs, so that the piece is easy for the reader to navigate.

Readability

As you know, people on the internet are typically searching for quick reads to get their information as efficiently as possible. They are not reading your post in the same way they would read a novel. You have one chance to catch the reader’s attention, and nothing is more off-putting than long, unstructured paragraphs.

The paragraphs should all be broken up into sizable chunks. This really is a great trick because when you keep the paragraphs are short and concise, with lots of headings to indicate each new point, then the reader feels like they are getting their information faster, even if it’s the same amount of information. Using images also boosts reader engagement significantly, so sprinkle pictures or infographics generously throughout the page.

Blog Publishing Checklist: SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a daunting idea for many business professionals, but it doesn’t have to be! You don’t have to be a master digital marketing expert to understand these basic, yet highly effective SEO tools. 

Keyword Phrase

Using a target keyword phrase is a frequently overlooked strategy that can be used to drastically enhance your SEO. If you want Google to rank your post high for your targeted topic, you must tell Google (in as many places as possible) what your post is about.

For each blog post, choose a word or phrase that sums up the focus of the post. It should be short and simple. Here are some examples of keyphrases we’ve used for our various blog posts.

Here are the key places you should weave the keyphrase: the URL/permalink, Title, Post description, headings, subheadings, intro, conclusion, image title, image alt text, and image description. Putting it in all these places makes your blog more likely to come up on search engines when someone searches for that topic or keyword.

Image Optimization

Search engine traffic significantly increases if you optimize your images for Google Image searches. Make sure before uploading your images that they have the main keyphrase as the file name, so that when people search for images related to that topic, it will rank high in their results. As mentioned above, use the main keyphrase in the image title, the image alt text and the image description for optimal results.

Keep the image size under 100KB to ensure that it loads quickly. Above this, the quality of the image does not change in any noticeable way to the standard mobile or desktop screens, and takes up unnecessary bandwidth on your page.

To adjust the size and dimensions of your image, you can upload it to pixlr.com, press save and adjust the size and quality until it is 100KB or less.

Links

Adding valuable links to your post has a huge impact on SEO, so long as you know how to use them effectively. Links should always add value to a piece.

There are two types of links: internal and external. Internal links are ones that bring the reader to different pages on the same website, whereas external links open to different websites.

Internal Links

Internal links help SEO in several ways. The most obvious reason is that when you include links to your other blog posts, or pages on your website, it keeps blog visitors on your website. This gives them more opportunity to learn information from you and become familiar with your brand. It also improves your bounce rate, and the lower the bounce rate, the higher Google ranks you on searches.

Including internal links is also helpful in making your website easier to navigate. In terms of SEO, including more links helps to evenly distribute the ranking power throughout your website.

In the same way that including the keyphrase in several places throughout your blog post tells Google what your piece is about, having your blog post mentioned and described in another post provides Google with even more information about the topic of your blog post, especially when you use the keyphrase in your link.

The more your post is linked to, even if it’s from another page on your own website, the more value Google sees in it, and the higher it appears in search results.

External Links

Linking to credible external sites also increases your digital footprint and boosts SEO. It builds a digital connection between your site and more well-established ones, which can greatly expand your reach, especially if they are sites with high authority and credibility.

Just remember to set your links to open in a new tab in order to prevent readers from leaving your website entirely and affecting your bounce rate.

Categories

On WordPress, as well as other blog websites, there is a feature to select the category (or categories) under which your blog post belongs. Some of our categories, for example, are blogging, social media, business, marketing, and SEO. This is yet another opportunity to tell Google what your post is about, so that it shows up when people search for a given topic.

Snippet Preview

Your Snippet preview shows how your blog post will show up on Google. If you don’t manually edit it, it will automatically use the first few sentences of your post in search results, which is often not the best summary of your post. If you use WordPress for your blog, you can manually change this snippet.

Edit your post description so that it is a quick “preview” that quickly summarizes the main point of your blog. You can also arrange your title, primary category and slug so that they look the most t eye-catching to a potential viewer. WordPress has a built-in application called Yoast that indicates, using a scale from red (low) to green (high), the readability of your snippet.

Blog Publishing Checklist: Additional Page Elements

There are a few final elements to make sure you have included on the page that your blog post is on. Make sure you do a preview before publishing your post so that everything is in the correct place on the page.

Author

Readers like knowing about the person who wrote the post. It helps them decide if what they are reading is credible. Include a short author biography with a picture at the bottom of your post that gives a quick overview of who the person is and what their qualifications are.

Social buttons

Give your readers an opportunity to easily share your post with friends. Include “share” buttons that generate an automatic preview of the post on various social platforms. You can even take the featured image and modify it into various sizes so that it accommodates each platform (i.e. a long rectangle pic for FB, a tall vertical pic for Pinterest, etc.)

Comments Section

Include a place for people to engage and share their thoughts. This is a great way to generate more organic interaction on your page. It also helps with credibility when viewers see that others have also read and engaged with your post.

By following this blog post publishing checklist, you can ensure that your blog posts have the best opportunity to get noticed by your audience. It may seem tedious, but taking these steps ensures that all the hard work you do, not just with your writing process, but with your business in general, will pay off. And trust us, there is nothing better than seeing your audience take a piece you’ve written and engage with it, share it, learn from it, and use it to overall expand their knowledge and benefit their lives.

Business blogging is a big part of our work here at SocialNicole. Writing and publishing our blog is part of our own social media marketing plan, and as a leading social media agency, we know blogging inside and out! Want to learn more of what we have to offer you and your business in the world of blogging and digital marketing? We would love to hear from you. Contact us today about partnering with us to take your business’s social media presence to the next level.

How to Keep Blog Posts Engaging

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SocialNicole_How to Keep Blog Posts Engaging

Maintaining a blog is one of the best things you can do for your business’s online presence. In addition to increasing traffic and widening your audience, it can also be a great opportunity to develop real connections with your consumers. The best business blogs are the ones that engage with their readers on a personal level and put a human face to their brand. Talking to consumers in a genuine way is often what sets a blog apart from others.

This task, however, is often harder than it sounds.

Some businesses spend months, even years maintaining a blog and never achieve the viewership or interaction goals they had originally set. Having a successful blog is not simply a matter of putting out as much content as possible. It’s about addressing the needs of your audience to keep them engaged with your site over time.

There are a variety of factors that make a blog stand out to its audience and keep readers interested and entertained, as well as helping them feel informed. Below is a guide on how to optimize on these aspects to set yourself apart from other business bloggers in your industry and keep your posts engaging to your readers.

Business Blogging: Look and Layout Affect Engagement

Sometimes, the best thing you can do to keep your content engaging has nothing to do with the content itself. When someone clicks on your page, the first thing that will catch their eye is the aesthetics. Colors, fonts and overall layout should be strategically set up to be compelling and attention-grabbing. Additionally, the content should be laid out on the page in a way that looks inviting. The last thing a reader wants to see is a page full of large paragraphs with no breaks. Long reads are daunting.

However, if your post is a longer one, consider including a table of contents. That way your reader can easily sort through it and pick which parts jump out at them. It also increases the interactivity, allowing readers to actively engage with your content.

Another way to improve the aesthetic is with images. Did you know that blogs with lots of pictures and graphs get nearly double the views? Including images helps keep the reader’s attention and break up the piece into bite-sized chunks. Just be sure the pictures you find online and use are in the public domain, or that you have proper permissions to use them. Some great sites for getting free, high-quality stock images are Unsplash, Pixabay and Pexels. If you can afford it, I also suggest investing in a monthly subscription to Adobe Stock, where you can get unlimited access to thousands of free high-quality images.

Business Blogging: Strategic Headlines Help Engagement

Business Blogging_Headlines

When it comes to business blogging, headlines are an important tool to use strategically. The headers above the content, rather than just the content itself, should be engaging enough to make the reader want to see more. This means that they need to be more than just summaries.

If all you do in the header is paraphrase, in fewer words, what the content says, your viewers will have no need to actually read the content. We’ve all stumbled upon articles like this–where the headline gives everything away and the content is basically there to fill up space. It’s a common mistake, especially when writing step-by-step guides or cataloging various products or services. The reader will see the item in the headline, skip the content and move on.

In order to prevent this, use this analogy: your headline is to the question as your content is to the answer. In other words, your headline should arouse curiosity, rather than satisfy it. That way the viewer is compelled to continue reading to find out more.

Business Blogging: Staying Relevant Affects Engagement

As a business blogger, staying up-to-date on the latest trends in your industry is important if you want to engage with a wider audience.

Now, this does not mean that you should always follow the trends and write about the same things that others in your industry are writing about. But you should always be aware of these things so that you can make an informed choice about whether you want to chime in on the topic. Keep up to date on current events as these are often the topics that keep readers most engaged.

One tactic some business bloggers use is to try to be one of the first to jump on a trend. By doing this, your readers may begin coming to your site as their main source of industry information.

On the other hand, some bloggers are more choosy about which current events to discuss and only write about things that their brand can offer a unique spin on. Remember–don’t be afraid to be opinionated. If you want to highlight your unique brand position, you may have to bring some strong opinions to the table. You can’t please everyone, and sometimes, controversial topics are ones that get the most buzz.

Business Blogging: Being Useful Helps Engagement

As mentioned above, one tactic that can help engagement is to be a trusted source of industry information. While some readers are there simply to be entertained, others are interested in learning or gaining some new knowledge on the topic. Understand your audience so you can cater to what they want.

Once you address your readers’ needs, tell them exactly how you can help them–whether you say this directly or not. Show them that you have wisdom to share, not just in one particular post, but in your overall blog. Then follow through with your promise. Enlighten your readers. Leave them feeling more knowledgeable, educated and informed than they were before. You are the expert, so let your blog posts prove this to them.

Business Blogging: Being Personal Helps Engagement

Business Blogging_Personal

It’s been said before but we will say it again: your business blog should reveal your unique brand position.

When writing a blog post, keep a strong sense of your brand’s personality in mind. You should be able to answer with certainty what makes your blog unique. What distinguishes it from other business blogs in the industry?

Perhaps you cover certain kinds of topics in more detail than others, or you have a unique way of propositioning solutions to perceived problems, or you use a lot of personal stories and imagery to get your points across. Whatever it is, own your individual style and align it with your brand personality. One thing to remember when business blogging is to keep your writing voice conversational rather than formal. Yes, you are their trusted industry expert, but you should also be their friend. Your readers should feel like they are talking with someone on their own level.

You are the voice of the industry that they can count on. Be authentic. After all, a big reason blogging works so well to engage with readers is it puts a human face to the brand. Use this perk to your advantage. Be personal, be genuine, and, most importantly, be human.

Overall, the point we are trying to make is this: in order to be engaging, you must write not just for your target audience, but to them. Speak their language, both verbally and visually. Anticipate and address their needs. Be a source they can trust, depend on, and grow loyalty toward. Let them come to your website with their guard down, knowing that they can rely on you to both inform and entertain them, to both enlighten and connect with them. Give them something useful and interesting that they can take with them. If you follow this guideline for making your blog posts more engaging, you will begin to establish and/or deepen your relationship with your audience, which will vastly increase the effectiveness of your business’s blog.

Did you know that business blogging is a big part of our work here at SocialNicole? Writing and publishing our blog is part of our own social media marketing plan, and as a leading social media agency, we know blogging inside and out! Want to learn more of what we have to offer you and your business in the world of blogging and digital marketing? We would love to hear from you. Contact us today about partnering with us to take your business’s social media presence to the next level.

How to Come Up with Blog Post Topics

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Business Blogging Topics

As you may already know, maintaining a business blog is a great way to boost your brand online. It can help tremendously in driving traffic to your website, highlighting your services, and gaining a wider following. If you’ve already started blogging for your business, then you’ve recognized the major benefits of starting a business blog and are ready to begin posting regularly. But now what? Perhaps at one point, you were bursting with ideas for topics, but now you can’t think of anything new or interesting to write about.

The good news is you are not alone. Most bloggers hit this roadblock at some point. There are certain steps you can take to get yourself back on track and re-ignite the creative spark, and with the formula described below, you’ll have plenty of material to write about. Follow these steps to keep coming up with great blog post topics and get your blogging game back on track.

1. Business Blogging Topics: Determine Your Target Audience

Who Are They?

Before you determine what to write about, you first must know who you’re writing to. Who is your audience? It’s best to be very specific in the questions you’re asking and your overall final description. Writing to “all young adults in the region who like cars,” is a start, but “young car enthusiasts in their 20’s and 30’s who actively engage in car-related pages on Facebook” is much better. The more specific you are, the more successful your results will be.

Begin with basic demographics such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, income and occupation. Then, if you want to really engage with a niche market, dive into psychographics, archetypes and personalities. Ask yourself, who is your ideal customer, really? What kinds of things get them excited? What sorts of things bother them? What are their day-to-day problems? If you can answer these questions, you’re off to a great start.

Why Should They Care?

Once you’ve established who you’re writing to, it’s important to understand why they would want to read. Figure out how your pieces might appeal to them. Why should they take time out of their day to read your post? After all, people are busy. If you want to catch people’s attention, you must deliver a strong argument that your blog is worth their time.

There can be a variety of answers to why they should care. Maybe they have a need that is currently unfulfilled that only you can provide. Perhaps there is a topic they are interested in that has yet to be explored. For example, maybe they’ve always wanted to invest in nicer furniture for an affordable price, but only you can explain to them how and where to find good deals on high-quality pieces in their city.

You will have the most success if you leverage your blog to meet your consumers where they’re at. You should be able to pass every blog post through the “why should they care?” test, and every post should serve as a potential source for your reader to learn interesting information, solve a problem, fill a need, or better their lives.

2. Business Blogging Topics: Do Your Research

Once you’ve answered the who and the why, you can begin to answer the what. What content does your target audience already engage with? The best way to answer this is through research.

Analyze the Market

You can begin by investigating the market. Remember that your readers are trusting that you are the expert, so you should know exactly what issues are hot topics in the area, what new information is emerging, and what the latest buzz is in the industry.

This doesn’t mean you have to constantly write about the top trending issues. Simply be aware of them–because the more knowledge you can demonstrate that you have, the more credibility you will build with your audience, and the more they will trust you as a resource.

Something to maintain a strong understanding of is your competitor. It’s important to know what competing brands are up to so you can make sure your posts provide an edge that makes you different (and better!). Know what’s happening in your market so that you can incorporate this information into your pieces when it’s relevant and keep on top of what your viewers are consuming.

Observe Other Bloggers

Another great place to go for research is other blogs in your market. If you want to figure out what topics are most successful, look at what has actually worked for others. Analyze popular blogs from businesses that are similar to yours and take note of what kinds of topics get the most engagement.

There are several tools you can use to find blog posts in your market. One great option is using a feed reader, such as Feedly.com, to find the most popular blog posts related to whatever category you choose. Also, if you already know of some related blogs, check if those bloggers have a blogroll. This is an archive the blogger creates with a list of sites they recommend to their reader.

When checking out other blog posts, take note of which posts get large numbers of views. Is there a certain kind of topic that gets people talking more than usual in the comments? Figure out what your audience is already drawn to so that you can get a general idea for what topics will incite the most interest.

Talk to People

Note that at this point, it’s often helpful to talk with others. Start by talking with your staff and coworkers to get their opinions, which are usually based on their own experience and customer interactions.

You can even ask your customers what topics would appeal to them. If your company gives out electronic feedback surveys or emails, you can add a question that gets people talking about what they’d be interested in reading about in the future, or what topics they’d like to learn more about. In these surveys, as well as in reviews, you can also find out what needs and concerns they have so that you can leverage each blog post to provide something that can both help your consumer and lead them to your store.

3. Business Blogging Topics: Make a Decision

Brainstorming

Once you have gotten to know who your audience is, what they want, why they want it, and how you can provide it for them, you are ready to start brainstorming.  Get out a blank document and, using all the new information you now have, begin jotting down whatever ideas come to your mind. You can worry about polishing them up later, but it’s important to not stop or delete anything as you go. Let the creativity flow organically so that you can get as many possible ideas on the page while they’re fresh in your head.

Lists like these will not only help explore your creative side for new topics, but they are also a great resource to reference in the future if you get stuck again. With all the new information floating around in your head from doing research, brainstorming is great way to make connections and expand your perspective on potential topics.

Make a Choice

If you are prone to indecision, this step is often more difficult than it sounds. Look at your list and pick a handful of topics that seem like they would be the most interesting from your target audience’s perspective. It is sometimes helpful to ask someone else to look at your ideas and pick some that jump out at them.

If you’re really stuck, it’s okay to choose one at random, just so that you have some foundation to start building on. Remember, the only way to figure out if a topic works is to try it out. You can always change your mind later. But often you have much more to say about something than you might initially think. After all, you are the expert.

Find Your Voice

While writing, it might be helpful to keep referencing other sources to help guide your piece, but it is important that you determine your own unique perspective.  What do you have to say, offer, or inform that no other source has yet? What brand authority do you have on the issue? Keep these questions in mind as you go. You have something unique to offer your consumers–you just have to find the best way to show them!

It may sound tedious, but once you start using this method it will all start to come naturally. As businesspeople, we often get so caught up in the busy, day-to-day tasks that we forget about the bigger picture. Remember why you started to begin with. You believed you had some unique service, insight, or authority to offer. You wanted to connect with your customers and help them get to know you as a business, to encourage them to see your brand the way you see it, to trust you and to keep coming back to you. That’s the purpose you need to remember when writing your blog. It is when we are focused on our vision that we can engage with our audience in the most genuine and effective way.

Did you know that blogging is a big part of our work here at SocialNicole? Writing and publishing our own blog is part of our own social media marketing plan, and as a leading social media agency, we know blogging inside and out! Want to learn more of what we have to offer you and your business in the world of blogging and digital marketing? We would love to hear from you. Contact us today about partnering with your business to take your social media presence to the next level.

Dos and Don’ts of Business Blog Post Writing

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SocialNicole_Dos and Don'ts of Business Blog Writing_September 2019

Are you blogging as part of your business’s social media marketing plan? Leveraging blogging offers many benefits to help grow business. Blogging boosts your visibility and can be instrumental to organic (free!) search engine optimization to increase traffic to your website, improving your credibility, and establishing you as an expert in your field. The kind of content you self publish through your business blog can make a big impression on your current and potential customers. It’s important that you produce top quality blog content as it represents your business. To help you craft the best business blog content possible, we’ve put together a list of absolute dos and some honest don’ts.

Do’s of Business Blog Post Writing

Do’s of Business Blog Post Writing: Select Topics You are Knowledgeable About

You want your readers to view your blog as a reliable and authoritative source of information, so only put out posts that you are informed and confident about. Identify what topics you have knowledge and expertise in. What is your background? What have you learned from your professional experience? What topics are you excited or passionate about? What content and topics would be valuable for your readers? If people are taking the time to read what you have to say, they are expressing trust in you, your opinion, and your business, so don’t betray that trust by giving them faulty or inaccurate information.

Of course, if you only write about things you’re an expert on right now, you will sooner or later run out of topics. That’s why it’s important to continually be researching and expanding knowledge in your field. Keep up with the latest news and pay attention to updates and changes. Explore different facets of your niche and educate yourself on them. The more you know, the more you can write about and share with others, thus boosting your credibility and authority in your field and making yourself more valuable to your customers.

Do’s of Business Blog Post Writing: Find Your Focus

Once you’ve identified and made a list of potential topics you feel confident writing about, it’s time to find the focus of your post. Each post should have an angle, and typically the more specific the better. Don’t try to cover too much in a single post. Take a look at your topic list and identify which topics can be covered in one post and which are broad enough to be broken up into different posts. Some topics may even turn into a series. For example, as social media marketing agency, we write a lot of blog posts about blogging. But instead of writing a lot of broad, generalized posts, we like to break it down into smaller chunks, like our post on How to Write a Great Blog Post Introduction. Be creative in finding unique angles that will hook your readers and give them original information they haven’t already read a hundred times before.

Do’s of Business Blog Post Writing: Write Well

After you’ve found a topic and a focus, the most important aspect of blog writing is, unsurprisingly, good writing. Your writing should be not only interesting and knowledgeable, but should exercise good style. Be engaging, develop a sense of voice, and create interest by mixing up your sentence length and structure. Know the rules of grammar and punctuation, and make sure you’re using those tools correctly. Remember that even though you want to appear as an authority on your subject, it’s essential that your post has good readability, so maybe save the showy vocab words and lengthy, complex sentences for another time. Practice reading your writing out loud to yourself and identify any awkward spots.

If you can have someone else review your writing for you, even better. Putting in the extra effort will make the reading experience far easier and more pleasant on the other side of the screen. If you can afford an editor, this will be well worth the investment.

Do’s of Business Blog Post Writing: Publish Often

In order to stay relevant, appear in search searches on Google, and keep providing content to drive traffic, you have to publish often. We know that when things get busy, it’s all too easy to let your blog fall through the cracks, but consistency is key in this. We recommend creating a blog calendar and schedule to keep yourself on task. Make deadlines and due dates for drafts, edits, and publishing. Schedule your topics and upcoming posts weeks or even months ahead to save you time on knowing what to write. The more often you can post, the better, so figure out what’s achievable for you, whether it’s once a week or once a month, and then organize your tasks and schedule to accomplish your goal. Just remember it’s not worth sacrificing quality over quantity. You’re better off posting a well researched and well written post once a month than a shoddy post every week.

Do’s of Business Blog Post Writing: Do Promote Your Work

Once the posts are written and published, it’s time to get them in the spotlight and give them the attention they need. The more people who see your blog, the more opportunity you have to drive traffic to your website, gain customers and clients, provide SEO value, and create loyal followers. To learn more about how to optimize your blog post for SEO, read our post here. You can also promote your blog posts by sharing them across your business’s regular social media channels and drafting messages that highlight your new posts. Whether it’s in a Facebook post, a tweet, or an Instagram bio, get that link out there and in front of readers. You’ll also want to be sure to share them more than once. We like to send out a succession of messages promoting our post right after publication, then we will share again every few weeks in the months following.

Now that you’ve got the most important “Dos” of business blog writing, let’s go over a few of the “Dont’s”…

Don’ts of Business Blog Post Writing

Don’ts of Business Blog Post Writing: Don’t Copy or Plagiarize

This one should be obvious, but it is always worth repeating. Plagiarizing is never ok. Does that mean you should never look at anyone else’s work and only write directly from your own opinions? Of course not. We read other people’s blog posts all the time for research and inspiration. What’s not ok is directly stealing other people’s words and ideas. Copy and paste has no place in your writing or anyone else’s.

It’s worth saying that even if you did obtain permission to copy other people’s words, imitating already existing content will definitely hurt you more than help you. When you copy the same wording, no new SEO value is added. Google can identify direct copies immediately and will penalize you, so in order to avoid your SEO being penalized, focus on adding your own unique content that will actually stand out.

Don’ts of Business Blog Post Writing: Don’t Forget to Proofread

You can argue that good editing is just as important as good writing. You may have a great blog post, but if you have a couple glaring typos or punctuation errors, you can undermine the integrity of your piece. Your readers won’t trust someone who doesn’t care enough to proofread their own work. It just looks bad. So take the time to run a spellcheck, make sure your wording is clear and makes sense, and watch your grammar. For more tips on how to be your own best editor, click here. However, if you have others around you that can review your writing, we highly recommend you have them do so. We tend to get so familiar with our own writing that we don’t always catch the problems that jump out to fresh eyes.

Don’ts of Business Blog Post Writing: Don’t Use Walls of Text

A golden rule of blog writing is don’t wear out your audience’s attention span. Your readers are surrounded by content which is fighting for their attention all day long, and you can guarantee they’ll be exhausted just by looking at a giant wall of text. Don’t give your readers any reason to think your content isn’t worth it. Make it more appealing to them by breaking your text up into smaller paragraphs, which are far less intimidating. Use headings, white space, and anything else to create “breaks” in between text.

Images are another great way to retain your readers’ interest and aid their attention spans. We’re attracted to visuals, so take advantage of it. You can wrap images in paragraphs for a way to make paragraphs less intimidating, and you can use screenshots or instructional images as aids. Whatever images you use, make sure they are high quality and clear. And of course, you can’t just take any images from the internet, so make sure to use images in the public domain or obtain the correct permissions. For free, high-quality images, we love sites like Unsplash and Pixabay.

Don’ts of Business Blog Post Writing: Don’t Ignore the Design

We just talked about how much we emphasize the visual side of things, and the same goes for your website. If your site design looks unattractive or confusing, your readers will not want to spend a lot of time there reading your blog posts. Make sure your site gives a good impression by ensuring it is organized and easy to navigate, your color scheme and images complement each other, and your fonts and formatting are readable and attractive. Another good rule of thumb is to have your blog located on your homescreen and to have social media share buttons integrated into it as well. Luckily, if you’re using a blog platform like WordPress (our blog platform of choice), you’ll have plenty of great template and design choices.

Don’ts of Business Blog Post Writing: Don’t Set Unrealistic Goals

Though it’s great to be ambitious and have big plans for your blog, be careful not to put more on your plate than you can handle. Figure out what your goals are for your blog and then work out a plan for how to get there. If you want to be able to post once a week, maybe start with one post a month, then two, then work your way up to once a week. If you want a certain number of views, start sharing and developing relationships with other bloggers, and steadily expand your reach and blogging community. Be patient. It takes time to see results, so keep at it. Don’t be afraid to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t. Mix it up and try new things. If you get excited and have fun with your blog, odds are good that your readers will too.

Whether you’re an experienced blogger or just stepping out into the blogging world, we hope these “Dos” and “Don’ts” help you out in your future writing endeavors and excite you to make your blog the best it can be. Sometimes it really is the little things–from finding an angle and promoting your posts to breaking up text and remembering to proofread–that truly make all the difference.

Did you know that designing, building, and running WordPress blogs is a big part of our work here at SocialNicole? Writing and publishing our own blog is part of our own social media marketing plan, and as a leading social media agency we know blogging inside and out! We love sharing our social media marketing knowledge and expertise with our readers and providing value to them everyday. Want to learn more of what we have to offer you and your business in the world of digital marketing? We would love to hear from you. Contact us today about partnering with your business to take your social media presence to the next level.

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