Blogging is one of the most effective ways to get your message across to people, regardless of your field or industry. Blogging helps influencers and content creators provide engaging content to users and make an impact in society.
Now that there are some easy ways to make money from blogging, seasoned bloggers have taken it to the next level, making it an ideal profession to adopt.
So, if you want to become a blogger but you haven’t written your first blog post yet, then this post is a must-read.
The Challenge of Being a Blogger
People think of blogging as just like writing a post on their social media accounts. You draft a decent article, go to a website, and publish it.
However, there is more to it if you want to publish high-quality blog posts for your readers.
When you consider the challenges of choosing the right topic, creating multiple drafts to finalize your content, and publishing it on the right platform, blogging is a difficult job.
If you spend hours and days working on a blog, optimizing it for the search engines, but you only get 25 views a year, then that’s not a good start for your blogging career.
So the following questions must cross your mind:
- How do you go about writing the perfect blog posts?
- What makes your blog post attractive and worth reading?
Here are some steps to help you write and publish your first blog post in 2022.
- Consider Writing Topics
Perhaps the most difficult of all steps is picking the right topic. It may take the most amount of time from your blogging cycle. It requires critical and creative thinking, with an additional focus on the following areas:
- What is your goal for writing the blog post?
- Who is your target audience?
- What unique content do you offer to the readers?
- What are the readers’ concerns that you want to address?
- Is your topic worth investing in?
Start with making a list of topics that you think can make an impact, then, use a tool like Google Docs to note potential topics.
If you’re not sure where to start, go to the top search engine pages and write the terms or keywords you want to write about. The top search results will give you an idea of what readers prefer related to that topic.
- Choose a Winning Topic
With the newly generated list, you are now ready to filter your ideas and choose the best among them. Whatever topic you pick, it must have the following elements:
a) A potential to attract considerable online traffic.
b) Your interest and expertise.
To understand which topics have more potential to do well online, you can use Google Trends. It’s a free tool and shows the popularity metrics of different topics, so it is easier to decide the winning topic that you can start working on for your first post.
- Prepare a Content Outline
With your topic in mind, it’s time to prepare a content outline. Since it’s your first blog post, write about something that interests you. You can schedule a more detailed outline thanks to the comprehensive knowledge of the subject.
- Add sub-points with many headings.
- Use shorter and engaging paragraphs.
- Keep space for graphics and visuals.
You can do so much with your first blog post, so give it a decent outline that helps it stand out.
As a first-time blogger, preparing an outline can be intimidating, but if you need help, you can go through your competitors’ posts and get some insight. The areas highlighted in these posts will help you add relevant content to your post.
- Write Your Post
Begin with a rough draft and do not self-edit. At this stage, let your ideas flow through words and don’t pay attention to grammatical mistakes, spelling errors, and other minor mistakes.
But if you want to make less mistakes, then consider using Google Docs or Microsoft Word to write your draft. In addition, there are auto-correcting tools that reduce basic errors for grammar and spelling within these softwares.
While writing your draft, maintain a good voice and avoid sounding too professional. Your readers want to read something engaging, so a strict or condescending tone can potentially put off the readers.
A friendly tone makes the readers feel at ease, and they are likely to go through your entire article.
- Grammar and Content Edits
Once you feel like the content is ready, it’s time to start editing. Skipping the editing phase can be the worst thing to do as a blogger.
No one wants to read posts with spelling and grammar mistakes. Poorly drafted content can bring down your credibility as a blogger and is fatal in the long run.
Break this step into two parts:
- First, go through the blog post and eliminate unneeded content.
- Next, make sure to use grammar correcting tools to refine your post.
Tools like Grammarly, Yoast Content Assessment, and Hemingway Editor provide feedback regarding text readability. These tools also help you find out which audience demographic will benefit from it the most.
- Don’t Forget Draft Revisions and Take Feedback
Getting feedback from experienced bloggers and writers for your first blog post will help you polish your article further and give it an engaging outlook.
Add value to your content by strictly scrutinizing every point you make in your post, and providing examples where necessary.
Back your arguments with facts and figures in the form of external links. Cite blogs and articles from credible resources and integrate whatever feedback you receive from other professional bloggers into your post to improve it.
- Design a Catchy Headline
The headline is the first thing your reader will see on your post. Therefore, it’s important to spend time revising and making the post sound more intriguing. Think of newspapers, if the headlines are catchy, the reader is likely to continue reading.
But it’s also one of the hardest things to do if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Online resources and competitors’ blogs may help you understand which headlines are more likely to get more reads.
- Facts and Graphics are Important
Consider adding infographics to affirm your point for most statements that you make. Generally, infographics are easy to find on search engines. But it’s also good to do your research and generate organic infographics for your blog.
The latter will take more time and effort, but the results can be great in the long term. When you conduct research, readers consider you a more credible source who is not just referring to previously available content.
- SEO Optimization
Your content must appear in search results, so Search Engine Optimization (SEO) becomes a critical component of your blog post. The idea is to write according to what users prefer reading. People often write some killer content, but it’s nowhere to be seen on the internet because their content is not optimized for search engines, so they miss immense opportunities.
While optimizing for SEO, consider the following:
- Include keywords strategically in your content.
- Use SEO-friendly titles, URLs, and templates.
- Meet readability standards.
But it’s alright if you don’t understand SEO for now. Many new bloggers find it difficult to crack SEO from the start, so it’s better to consider professional SEO services for first-timers and large organizations who don’t have time for learning SEO. These companies can provide highly optimized content to help you rank your blog posts among the top search results on different search engines and help you get more readers.
- Time to Publish
When the content is ready, it’s time to hit that publish button and introduce your content to the digital world.
Publishing the post at the right time increases the probability of ranking on SERPs. For example, if your blog post gives basic information about Metaverse, it’s likely to go unnoticed. However, if it’s about the future of NFT with Instagram, more people would want to give it a read.
You can also schedule your post and publish it later. Almost all the blogging platforms offer you the freedom to draft your post days before publishing it.
- Share Your Posts
Once published, your content must go viral through every digital platform where you have a presence. Just make sure to modify content captions according to the platform type. Here are some considerations:
- Post your content on social media.
- Use hashtags and tag digital social influencers in your posts.
- Make room for user-generated content from your readers.
- Track your content performance through analytics.
- Consider email marketing once your email followers start to grow.
These will help you share your posts better and reach a larger audience.
- Build a Habit of Regular Posting
Finally, consistency always plays a vital role in uplifting your career as a blogger. So be consistent and continue learning the new tricks of the trade to give yourself a better chance at succeeding in your blogging career.
Conclusion
Blogging is an intriguing art and requires skills, persistence, and innovative thinking if you want to succeed. Now that you know the basics of writing and publishing an attractive blog post, you can get started on a new blog idea and begin your career as a blogger.
