What Is A Blog and How Do I Write One?

A blog is a website or section of a website (usually called Blog or News) that contains articles on topics that are relevant to the blog owner’s target market.

In these articles, a good blog writer will post articles that engage their audience, provide relevant information on key topics, and teach their audience new facts about a range of relevant topics. Your audience should benefit from reading your blog. A blog is a great way to answer frequently asked questions in a conversational tone.

Your ultimate aim in writing a blog is to become the authority for your area of expertise. If you are able to do this, Google will reward you by increasing your ranking over time.

There are rules that need to be followed in order for Google to take your blog seriously.

A good way to start is to follow some general guidelines when writing your blog article. These are things that Google looks for when crawling websites to see who is relevant and who is not. Here is a quick summary:

1. Make sure that your blog article is at least 300 words. A maximum of around 700 words is a good guide to keep focused.

2. Focus the article on your target audience and what you can do for them. Don’t focus on yourself. Your article should focus on your target buyer’s search intent.

3. Your article should answer frequently asked questions for your target market.

4. The heading can make or break your blog post. Most people will read your heading but it must entice your audience to keep reading to find out more.

Take the advice of the experts in this area, as research shows that certain headlines yield excellent results. For example, The Top 5 Reasons To …

Copyblogger have many great articles on this topic http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/

5. Use sub headings and bold text in the blog post so that if people skim read the article they understand what you are offering.

6. Focus on your main business offering for the first blog article if this is the service you want to sell the most.

7. Ask someone to read your blog before you post it to your website. See if it appeals to them. If it doesn’t rework your blog post or start again.

8. Include a relevant image as the main image. This will often appear on your homepage with the title of the blog article. Use another relevant image in the blog article if it adds to your message. I try to stick to one main image and one more relevant image at most.

9. Blogging is a commitment. You must stick to a routine otherwise your site will look outdated and this can call into question to relevancy of the rest of your website. It is fine to post blog articles twice per year as long as you stick to that schedule. You can’t start posting articles weekly though and then only post articles every few months. Your audience will have an expectation based on your blogging history.

There are many experts on the topic of blogging and they are usually willing to share their information freely online. Beware of people claiming to be experts that have no significant following in this area. Some of the best in the area of blogging and SEO are Moz, Yoast and Copyblogger.

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media/blogging

https://yoast.com/5-tips-improve-readability-blog-post/

http://www.copyblogger.com/5-step-blogging-plan/

Before you write any blog article, think about what questions you might be asked by potential clients. Can you answer their questions in the blog post? If so, this is a good place to start.

Do you need help making sense of blogging for your website? Need a blog added to your website?
I am happy to answer any questions that you have. Call me on 0490 140 079 or email info@lucyandmontydesign.com.au