In episode two of the Help Me Grow My Business podcast, our very own co-host, Sarah, takes the hot seat to share her knowledge about the benefits and how-tos of blogging.
As promised, here’s your checklist of how to start writing blogs, once you have your blogging platform setup and ready to go.
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Checklist: How to Make Writing Blogs Easy
1. Figure out who you’re writing for.
A simple way to make blogging easier is to know who your reader will be. This information allows you to change your content, tone and overall language to suit your audience’s existing knowledge, such as if you can or should not use industry terminology.
To find out who you’re writing for, ask yourself who is asking for the information you’re going to provide in your blog. For example, are they a teenager looking to buy their first car or are they an adult looking to purchase a brand new car? Both audiences are very different and will have different reading levels, life skills and knowledge; so write to suit.
2. Find your frequently asked questions.
Now you know who you’re writing for, you need to work out what you’re actually writing about. There are a few easy ways to pick blog topics, but the easiest is to write answers to the questions you already receive.
To make this task even easier, ask your receptionist or whoever is answering your phones to write you a list of the most common questions they receive from your current or prospective customers or clients. You could also put out a question on your social media to find out what information people want to know about your business or what it is you do.
Now you have your questions, write a blog answering each of these as thoroughly as possible.
3. Set aside time to write.
The way to ensure you keep up with blogging, put time to write, proof, upload and test your blogs, as well as follow up on analytics, in your calendar as if it were a meeting.
Of course, not having the time to blog is just one of the many reasons business owners outsource their blogging to SEO teams. After all, unless your business is content creation or SEO, it’s unlikely you actually enjoy doing this.
4. Write your headings.
Now, how do you actually write a blog? It may seem easy to write blogs; afterall, it’s just an article right? Well, kind of.
The purpose of blogs is to draw in organic traffic from search engine results and/or be used on social media and for other marketing purposes. So, they need to be structured, written and optimised a certain way to actually do a good job at this.
One of the many elements you need to consider when writing blogs is the heading structure. In the Help Me Grow My Business Podcast, Sarah advised she finds it best to write the headings first, and create them so the reader can get the overall idea of the article. This will help quick-scan readers know if this is the right information for them.
Then, if interested, the reader will take the time to read the information under each heading.
There is also some technical work around when to use Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3 (and so on) formatting. The general rule is to rely on your Heading 1 as a type of heading, Heading 2s as your main subtitles to explain the Heading 1 and your smaller headings to give specific information lists under your subtitles.
Finally, it’s time to write your content! Fill in paragraphs under your headings and you’ll be finished with your first blog before you know it.
Ensure you include a call to action in your blog so people know what to do if they do have other questions. This could include a link to your contact page, a direct link to call, a link to a newsletter or direction to your social media — whatever suits your business.
Need help blogging? Contact Localsearch for a chat about SEO blogs and how they can help grow your business.