29 Sep The easiest way to write a blog for your business

Blog writing is one of the most simple and effective pieces of content you can create for your business. When I pitch the idea of using content to grow my client’s businesses, they agree it’s a good idea but will often dive straight into “But I have no clue how!” If that sounds like you, then I’m glad you’re here because I’ve got a technique to share with you that never lets me down. 

Writing a blog, like anything, gets easier with practice. While there are lots of ways you can write a blog, it’s important for you to know that your article doesn’t need to be perfect, it doesn’t need to be long, and it doesn’t need to be a brand-new-never-seen-before idea. Your blog is a conversation piece. It’s a way for you to show your audience what you know about your industry, and that gives you credibility. You can repurpose your blog into a whole variety of other content types, so you’re working smarter, not harder. And a blog is a great way to educate your audience on how to work with you, how to use your products, or how you can solve their problems. Allow me to show you my technique for the easiest way to write a blog for your business.

Start off with a working title. 

A working title means that the title is tentative, it’s a guide for your blog article, you can come back and jazz it up later. Your title will tell your reader what they can expect to find inside the article and should be attention grabbing, but you don’t have to perfect this straight away. If your blog is educational, you could start with something like “5 ways to…” or “The top 3 mistakes…”. For an opinion piece, you might use “Why I decided to…” or “The problem with…”. Again, this is a working title and you don’t need it to be perfect yet, so just get something down to use as a guide to writing your blog article.

List your points.

In this technique you’re going to start with a list and flesh out your ideas from there. Answer the questions: What points am I making in this article? What am I trying to tell/show/teach my audience? What steps are involved? Think of this part like the ingredients list in a recipe; what ingredients do you need to make this article work? You will need at least 3 ideas to use in your article.

Expand on your points

Now that you have a list of ideas, it is time to expand on each. The aim is to create small paragraphs on each point, which will form the body of your blog article. Your paragraphs should clearly state one of your points, and include 3 to 8 sentences discussing the idea. You could also use a sentence at the end of the paragraph to lead your reader into the following paragraph by introducing them to the next idea.

Introduce your blog

Once you have written a paragraph on each point, you will have created a flow for your blog article. From here it will be easy to write the article introduction. Use the first sentence or two to introduce the topic of your blog, follow that by briefly introducing your points, and lead into your first paragraph. You can also include any key learnings for your reader in the introduction, which might look something like “By the end of this article you will know how to…”.

Conclude your blog

How you conclude your blog will vary from article to article. Depending on the blog, you might quickly wrap your ideas up in a tidy bow, invite your reader to share their thoughts or results with you, offer them a free download, or tell them where they can go to find more information, to book a session, or to buy. Either way, take the opportunity to make the reader an offer and cultivate a relationship with them. 

Hot tips:

• Read your blog aloud to make sure what you’ve written is clear and accurate. Our brains can trick us into believing that we’ve communicated perfectly, but saying the words out loud will highlight any adjustments needed.
• Revisit your title, make sure it’s accurate and catchy.
• Do a quick google search for other articles on a similar topic. You do not need to recreate the wheel every time you want to write an article, but your article should be written in your own words unless you are quoting someone.
• Quote other (relevant) reputable sources and link to them. This can help boost the credibility of your article for the reader, and is also a good SEO practice.
• If you quote someone in your blog, send it to them with a short note to let them know – they may just share it too
• Use your keywords throughout the article. 
• Use relevant images, include your keywords in the image description, and enter the alt text for accessibility.
• For free stock images, take a look at websites like pexels.com
• Repurpose your blog into other content – use each paragraph as a social media post, use the whole article in a newsletter, read the article in a video, create a podcast on the topic, turn it into a vlog… the possibilities are endless and this will save you a tonne of time and energy!
• Share your blog on your social media accounts

That’s it, the easiest way to write a blog for your business! I’d love to see what you create so please feel free to send me a link or post it in the comments. If you would like to learn more about marketing for your business, have a look at my short course Marketing, Branding, & Advertising.