The content of your new blog will be the bait that attracts your readers. In this guide, we will cover what content you need to write when you start a blog and the best practices you should follow.Without great content, even the most well-designed, tightly-structured blogs will ultimately fail. There are two blocks you need to worry about, pre-launch and post-launch contents:
Pre-launch content
- Static pages: such as “About,” “Contact,” etc
- Sidebar content: content that appears on the sidebar of your blog (if you are going to have one)
- Blog category pages: content (around 100 words) for category pages on your blog (plus pick categories to divide your content)
- SEO meta tags: content for the SEO title and description tags of each page (not seen on the actual page but you need to have it ready)
Post-launch content
- Blog posts: regular articles you are going to write
- Cornerstone content: this will be the base of your blog
The content you need to launch a blog
Before you start writing your day-to-day blog posts, you will want to make sure static pages and other parts of your blog, such as sidebar and footer, are filled with suitable information. Let’s explore each of these content areas.
Static pages of content
First, you will need to create static content pages for the following types of information.
About page
The most traditional page on any blog is the About page. This page tells new visitors to your blog what it is about, who you are, and why you have a blog about the particular topic. Depending on your niche and your style, the information you provide can be “all business” or personal and fun.
Contact page
This page allows visitors of your blog to communicate with you at any time. It can be a simple page with your email address plus social network links, or you can use plugins like Contact Form 7 to have a simple contact form visitors can use to communicate with you without leaving your website.
Disclaimer/policy
To give yourself a little liability protection, you ought to consider a disclaimer or policy page.
For example, if you are writing a health blog, but you’re not a medical professional, you may want to create a disclaimer to say that you are not a physician or other healthcare provider and recommend that readers see their doctors for their medical information and evaluation.
You may also want to inform visitors to your website that you use analytics tracking, Google AdSense, affiliate marketing links, and other types of content.
Be sure to visit the best blogs in your niche — preferably larger ones — to see what pages they provide links for in their primary navigation menu and footer. Chances are, your visitors will be looking for the same types of pages on your blog.
Advertisers
If you plan to add advertising banners to your blog, then add them from the start, so regular visitors will not be surprised when you do start gaining advertisers. The banners you use until then can link to products for which you are an affiliate marketer or to products you simply like.
Be sure to visit other blogs in your niche to see what they show on the sidebar.
Blog categories content
First things first, you will have to choose categories for your blog.
Then the next step is to create short text for each category page that you are going to have on your blog. The text could be anywhere between 50-150 words. You might think why? It will help these pages to rank better in search engines.
SEO meta tags content
The Meta tag is a code snippet that includes text outlining information about a particular page for the search engines. This content cannot be seen on the actual page but only inside the code. But it’s critical to create proper meta tags for each page on your website so search engines can understand what the page is all about.
When you create new pages or posts on your blog you need to make sure you include the following meta tags:
- Title tag — displays on the search engine result page and represents the page title for search engines. The optimal length of 50-60 characters.
- Meta description — information that summarizes the content of the web page and appears underneath the title. The optimal length is about 290 characters.
You don’t need to learn code or programming to implement meta tags on your blog. If you decided to go with WordPress CMS, you could easily install one of the SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO, and use it to add necessary information to each page.
Creating the content plan
To build and maintain a successful blog you need to have a well-established content plan. It should include all the details related to future blog posts, publishing schedules, audience development and much more. Without this concrete plan, it is impossible to maintain the popularity and consistent quality of your work.
Below we’ll show you the exact steps you can take to create a plan for your blog content. Use this example as a template and adjust it according to your needs and capabilities.
- Create a list of topics
- Pick and prepare cornerstone content
- Pick and write 5-10 blog posts
- Create an editorial calendar and start posting
- Repeat Step 2 through 4
Step 1. Create a list of topics
By this point, you already know what your blog is going to be about, and you picked a niche.
Creating a list of topics might sound like a complicated process, but in reality, it’s not. And we will show you how you can do it with a real-life example. Let’s say you are going to start a yoga blog.
The easiest way to build that list is to come up with different points for your niche and mix them up. You can use this doc as an example.
Here is what we are talking about:
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By using this approach and adopting different combinations, you can easily create hundreds of topics.
Next step, you can start listing items that would be longer, in-depth pieces of content. Also called cornerstone content (we will talk about it in the next step). These could be some guides or tutorials. That’s why we keep mentioning that you should pick a niche within your passion. Thus it will be easier to generate ideas.
In our case, here is the list we got for our yoga blog.
Depth
1. Shorter blog posts < 1,000 words
2. Medium articles 1,000-2,000 words
3. In-depth guides 2,000+ words
Keywords
Main keywords you want to target with your content.
Keywords (KW) volume
An average number of searches per month through search engines. We used the SemRush tool since Google gives you only estimated traffic volume intervals.Category
Choose under which category you will post your content.Here you have it, you prepared the list of topics and prioritized it by the importance and competitiveness. Now it’s time to move to the next step.
Step 2. Pick and prepare cornerstone content
Your main guides (3) will be your cornerstone content. It’s the content that will be used as a foundation for your website, and smaller blog posts will be written around that core.
If you are not sure how to come up with topics for the cornerstone content, here is what you can do:
- Use the Google Keywords Planner tool to get the ideas. Just log in to your Google account or create a new one if you don’t have it. Under the section “Find new keywords and get search volume data.” open “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category” tab, enter the “yoga” keyword into the box, and press “Get ideas” button. You will get the list of keywords with their search volume.
- You can also use tools like SemRush and check what keywords competitors website rank for to get the idea for topics. It’s a paid tool, but you can get two weeks of a free trial. Sign in to the tool, insert the URL of the competitor website that you like and hit the explore button. Next, select “Top pages” section on the left-hand side and check the “Top keywords” column to get keywords ideas for your topics.
This exercise should help you find keywords that are popular, and you can come up with the items for your flagship content.
Now it’s time to create the content. You’ll read a lot about optimizing your content for search engines, and while that it is important, if you don’t optimize your content for humans, then you’ll never gain the exposure that it takes to get links and rank well in search engines. If you write content that people love to read, then you will get traffic, social shares, and links as your readership grows.
Step 3. Pick and write 5-10 blog posts
Now you can select blog posts that you are going to write and post on your blog. As we mentioned earlier, you will write your posts in support of your cornerstone content. In our case, if we create “A guide to different types of yoga” as a core piece. Our series of blog posts will be the “What is [type] yoga?” series.
Writing blog posts
The blog post is an entry (article) that you write on a blog. It can include content in the form of text, photos, infographics, or videos.
Make sure you always have an engaging introduction, quality content, and a solid conclusion.
Best writing practices
To become a successful blogger in any niche, you will want to follow these best practices.
Set your blogging goals
You’ll never know if you are getting the most out of blogging if you haven’t set goals for your blog. Is your goal to make money? Get a new job? Find people to connect with about a particular topic? Define your blogging goals and periodically ask yourself if your blog is helping you meet them. If not, ask yourself how you can improve your blog to meet the goals.
Commit to becoming an expert
No matter what your blogging goals are, if you strive to be an expert in your niche, the fulfillment of your goals is sure to follow. People who are known as experts in their niche tend to receive more recognition and income for their content. They also tend to have larger audiences and the option to turn their readers into customers by offering related products and services.
Engage with your audience
The best way to stay in tune with your readers is to engage with them. Some ways to do this include replying to comments, responding to queries from your contact form, joining in conversations with users on social networks, and visiting your readers’ blogs to see what they are interested in and join discussions. As you do this, you will build stronger relationships with your readers and learn more about what they want, something that can help inspire your future content.
Be consistent and realistic
Creating a regular schedule of posting on your blog helps your readers know when they can expect to hear from you again, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly or even quarterly. The key to maintaining consistency is to be realistic. Individual bloggers will find it difficult to create high-quality content on a daily basis. Start with weekly or bi-weekly posts and work your way up to daily posts, if that is your ultimate goal. Just don’t sacrifice quantity for quality.
Edit your work, or hire an editor
For many people, it’s hard to create content—then proofread and edit it. As a matter of fact, editing while you write can hinder your creative flow. Proofreading is not optional. A blog post full of misspelled words and typos reflects poorly on you. If you’re not able to do these tasks on your own, consider hiring a virtual assistant to do it for you. It is especially important if you’re not writing in your native language. Having a native speaker of the language used in your blog edit your work can boost your credibility. While blog content does not need to be perfect, it does need to be easy to read and consume.ance and competitiveness. Now it’s time to move to the next step.
Step 4. Create an editorial calendar and start posting
To help maintain your consistency, be sure to use some form of an editorial calendar. You can use Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, or even a simple spreadsheet. Use it to manage your ideas and plan your content themes for each month so that blogging is something you focus on, not something you do in your spare time.
You don’t have to publish every day, pick the posting flow according to your schedule. For example, you can post your cornerstone content one day, post the first blog post the next day, and keep posting blog posts once a week.
Step 5. Repeat Step 2 through 4
Now you can repeat the same process. If you have more blog posts that you can write related to the first piece of cornerstone content, you can keep writing them. Or you can create a new in-depth guide and start creating articles around it. This step is a more personal choice, and you will have to decide what approach would work for you.
How to write the perfect headlines
The headline, or title, of your blog post, has to capture the attention of potential readers. People may see it in their social media news feed or search results. Make sure you include the main keyword phrase that people could use when searching for the topic you are covering.
Three principles of viral headlines
The headline you use will play a critical role in getting more visits and social shares. Good headlines make people take action because they show one of the following:
- Social currency
- Practical value
- Threat
Below are examples that prove the points and meet one of the criteria.
Social currency
The more public use something or, the more influential people use something; the more likely people will imitate it.
- Why 1000’s of Bloggers Will Come to 2019 SMX Conference
- Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well
Practical value
Useful things to get attention. Highlight the benefit and promise to gain something if the person takes action.
Examples of headlines:
- Spend 10 Minutes a Day, and You’ll Have Incredible Abs in 2 Months
- How We Got 1,000+ Subscribers from a Single Blog Post in 24 Hours
Threat
People often take action when they need to protect themselves from some threat.
Examples of headlines:
- Warning: Don’t Buy Another Ounce of Dog Food Until You Read This
- 50 Reasons Your Website Deserves to Be Penalized By Google
Here is the cheat sheet you can use that will help you to come up with headlines ideas.
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