Why Blog Post Writing Is Unique & How To Do It Right!

Are you a writer? Which kind? There are many different types of writing, and a blog post has its own unique style. If you’re proficient at essay writing, creative writing, or copywriting, you’ve definitely got a head start. But blogging has its own unique niche and it takes a bit of adjustment.

Blog Post Writing

The copywriting style has been the most successful for bloggers because the intention is to speak directly to the reader. Copywriting utilizes written content to develop brand awareness and influence a person or group to take action. Usually, this means convincing your customers to buy your product or service.

While, many bloggers don’t necessarily have a product or service to sell, many do. Selling bloggers use their blog to educate potential customers about their product and why it would benefit them. For other bloggers, the placement of  ads is a financial incentive to write.

Regardless, the purpose of your blog is TO HAVE PEOPLE READ IT! What does that mean to you, the blogger? Give your readers the information they need in the format that it is most likely to be read.

**Disclaimer**

The businesses highlighted are in no way an endorsement. They are simply resources our Savvy Cali Girl contributors have deemed worthy of a shout out. If you want us to tell our readers about your resources or companies, tag us with #savvycaligirl and we’ll check it out for future blog posts or updates to this post.

Six Areas of Focus In Blog Post Writing

For more detailed info, we’ve dedicated this entire post to guidelines, tips and best practices. It has great insights on how to write specifically for online readers and includes these six areas.

I. SEO & Keywords

II. Titles, Headings & Sub-Headings

III. Readability

IV. Use links to outside websites and your own posts

V. Optimize your blog for desktop & mobile devices

VI. Get a plugin to help analyze how well you’re doing all of the above

So what do you do to get readers to actually READ your content? First, make sure you target the items above to include your most important information. Also, refrain from putting out fast garbage posts. Quality over quantity if you have to choose!

How To Find Blog Post Keywords

How do you find which keywords to use? It’s fairly simple once you get the hang of it. And it works similarly for both Google and Pinterest. So let’s try it! Let’s assume we’re writing a travel blog post about visiting Big Bear in California.

Steps for Finding Keywords for Your Blog Post

1. Open Pinterest and type “big bear” (these are your keywords) in the search bar.
2. Glance through the first couple rows of pins that show up. Do they match the search results you were expecting for “big bear”? Or are they all pictures of a giant bear? If you get results that are different than what you expected, you will need to change your keywords. Our search, for the most part, resulted in pins for visiting Big Bear so we’re going to stick with those as our “Primary Keywords”. That means the words “Big Bear” need to appear in the blog post TITLE. Also use those keywords frequently throughout writing your blog post in headings, subheadings, and the body of the post.
3. Now find some “Secondary Keywords” (also called Long-Tail Keywords because they’re longer and more like a phrase). These are words that you’re going to include and use to develop subheadings and sections within your post. They’re the most common things that people are trying to find when it comes to information about Big Bear. You’ll find these in the little colored rectangles just below the search bar. In our case, “California”, “outfit”, “winter”, “photography”, “things to do”, etc… So our Secondary Keywords would be “Big Bear California”, “Big Bear Things To Do”, and “Big Bear Winter”.
4. Use the Primary and Secondary Keywords when outlining your blog post. This article from Yoast, Blog post structure: How to set up an easy-to-read text gives great information about outlining your post and how to present an SEO friendly structure.

Title Analyzers

Your blog post title (headline) has about 2 seconds to capture your reader’s attention. Use a headline analyzer to help create great titles. Analyzers quickly score your titles for the blog post as it relates to SEO and social media and some even correct your grammar. These tools are also especially helpful to create Pinterest-appealing titles. Analyzers encourage you to create compelling and technically savvy headlines and titles. Here are two all-in-one resources we use repeatedly.

• Capitalize My Title: Analyze for Grammar and Punctuation, SEO and Readability. Additionally, if you’ve ever questioned what to capitalize and when, this website will solve that problem once and for all. Not only will it will fix your title, it will lay out the rules of the road for headline punctuation whether in a title or sentence format.
• Co-Schedule: Optimizes for length, keywords, unique phrases, mix of verbs & adjectives with an easy “score” threshold. Generally speaking, a score of 70 or higher is your goal.

Find the Sweet Spot For Your Title with Co-Schedule Analyzer

Remember the keywords you came up with when you were developing your blog post idea?

Start with those. Then add a few descriptive words (adjectives) that will work with your idea.

Put those together with a “How, What, Why, Who, or Where” and you’re well on your way to a brilliant blog post title!

We generally come up with a list of potential titles before adding them into Co-Schedule for analysis. You’ll want to pick the highest scoring title, and make sure it scores a 70 or above.

See the graphic above for an example of our process. If you’re the type who really likes to know the details of why certain blog post titles are better than others, the parameters Co-Schedule measures are listed below.

1. Word Balance: An analysis of the overall structure, grammar, and readability of your headline.
2. Headline Type: Avoid generic types with a sentence structure that will get your headline more shares.
3. Length Analysis: An analysis of the overall structure, grammar, and readability of your headline.
4. First & Last: When skimming content, most readers tend to read the first and last three words of a headline.
5. Keywords: Headlines should include searchable keywords and phrases so that readers can find your content easily.
6. Sentiment: Your headline shows a neutral sentiment. Headlines that convey strong positive or negative emotions tend to perform better.

• “Chunk” content! Most of us were taught in school that a paragraph MUST have 3 sentences. Online, you can hit that return key after 1 sentence, if it’s important enough. Write like you’re feeding a toddler – small pieces that your reader can’t choke on. And if you have a really important piece of info, make sure it’s the beginning sentence. Not buried in the middle of a paragraph.
• Use plain English. Resist the urge to sound “smart” by using big words. Instead, write like you’re having a conversation with someone.
• Use varied formatting. Change it up, highlight important information, and don’t be afraid to use formatting to enhance readability. For example:

– Bullet lists

– Highlighted keywords and sentences (like italics, bold, and links)

– Descriptive subheadings

– Summary paragraphs when you can’t avoid longer sections of text

Basically, what I’m telling you is to forget all the writing “rules” you learned in school (for blogging anyway), and write like you speak.

Web sites with content that makes sense both individually and together get higher credibility than those that don’t. So here’s how to make sure your hard work will be found:

1. When it makes SENSE, direct readers to another place on your site that has more/different/supplemental information.
2. When it makes SENSE, direct readers to another web site that has more/different/supplemental information. Always make that link open up in a new tab, not simply leave your site.
3. Do NOT add links to other blog posts on your own site or others that do not contain relevant information to your blog post. Quality links are important. Misleading links are a red flag to search engines you have “spammy” links.