An MRM Digital E-Book

HOW TO WRITE
AWESOME
BLOG POSTS
An MRM Digital E-Book
Introduction
Showing you how to write a ‘good’ blog might be enough for some digital agencies, but not us. ‘Good’ isn’t
a currency we deal in. ‘Good’ is offensive to us. ‘Good’ is like a slap in the face on a cold day. To make it
here you need a head full of ideas and a pocket full of ‘awesome’. Over the next seven pages we’re going
to show you the recipe to ‘awesome’ blogging. From this day forward the sight of blank paper will start a
fire in your writing arm that can only be quelled with the creation of show stopping, jaw dropping, Google
topping content.
You in?
Awesome.
Preparation:
When Daniel LaRusso gets into a tussle with the surfer crowd in the
Karate Kid he is left beaten and bloody. Luckily Mr Myagi was there,
firstly to save him with his ninja moves and then to train him. The
next time Daniel faces his foes in the All-Valley karate competition,
he fights his way to the number one spot. The difference between
the first Daniel and the second Daniel?... Preparation.
We’re not saying you have to paint fences and wax cars to be the
best blogger you can be, but you do have to condition yourself for
success. Get into the habit of preparing. If you do the following
things religiously, you’ll be kung-fu kicking your way to the top of
Google in no time.
Know your audience
Understanding who your blog is for will go a long way to making sure you stay on point, even before you have a point.
What is your target audience looking for? What do they want to know? What are the issues that keep them up at
night? If you don’t already know this, now is the time to find out. Speak to people you know who fit your target
audience, ask them questions. Visit forums and join in discussions. Learn the mannerisms, inside jokes and references
that are used by your target audience and bear all this in mind as you start to pull your blog together.
Choose a working title
Consider this a placeholder. It doesn’t have to be clever; it just has to properly describe what your blog post is going to
be about. If I’m writing a blog about the top 10 social media bloggers then the working title need only be as simple as
“The top 10 social media bloggers”.
Write the introduction
Your first paragraph or ‘introduction’ needs to grab the attention of the reader and draw them in. You need to tell the
reader why they should keep reading. If you’d like a good example of this, refer to the introduction of this document.
Why is that a good example? Well... you’re still reading aren’t you?
Gather your resources
A good blog will reference and link to external articles that support its point of view. It will also likely include nonwritten content. This could be pictures, video, infographics, charts etc. Try and use things that support the blog and
are easy to follow. All of these things should be curated ahead of time so you can create a clear map of how they fit in
to the blog.
Epic Blog Writing:
So now you have a working title, an introductory paragraph and all the extra pieces of content you’ll be using or
referring to. The actual writing should be the easy bit. Here are a few things to remember.
Be conversational
A good trick to achieve this is to record yourself talking and try to write the way you speak.
Ask questions
If the aim is to engage the reader, is there a better way than asking questions?
Don’t be too clever
It’s good to be funny and witty in blogs, but how you achieve this will make a big difference in how your blog is
received. Poke fun at yourself before you poke fun at others, avoid sarcasm and stay away from rarely used words.
You want to engage the largest audience possible so use language that can be understood by everyone.
Reference with care
It’s great to use analogies and metaphors but be careful you are not losing people on the reference.
Include calls to action.
Tell people what you want them to do. Like this -“Download this now” – Don’t leave it to chance.
SEO:
The good news is you’ve finished your blog. The bad news is; it’s far from finished. In order to give you the best
possible chance in ranking high in search, you now need to do some on page optimisation. Job one is to decide what
your keywords are. These are the words that you want people to type into Google when searching for your blog. For
example, if this E-Book was a blog post, I may choose words like “blogging tips” or “how to write blogs”. The good
news is that I don’t have to guess what phrases are being searched; Google will tell me.
I can type any search term into the
Google Keyword Planner Tool to see
how many people are searching for it,
what the competition is like and if
there are better phrases available that
less people are using. What you are
looking for is a healthy middle ground
between decent traffic and relatively
low levels of competition. My example
of “blogging tips” has high search traffic
and low competition, so I would most
likely use that, unless the websites
already ranking have very high
authority. You’re looking for a website
you can effectively dethrone.
Once you’ve chosen your keywords, you need to make sure you have inserted them in certain places throughout your
blog post. This helps the Google bots understand what your blog is about. Make sure your keywords are in;
Page Title
Remember we had a working title earlier? Well now’s the time to firm it up with keywords included.
Title Tag
You’ll find this easily enough in most blogging platforms. This is the text that becomes the bold blue link in Google
search.
Meta Description tag
This appears under the search title in Google. It’s very important that your keywords are in here.
Links
Whether internal links or links from other sites, having the keywords as anchor text will help you rank better.
Alternate Text in images
Keywords here help link your added content to the subject of your blog.
Body Text
If the blog is about ‘Blogging tips’, having the phrase ‘blogging tips’ in the text just makes sense right?
URL
It’s important to have your keywords in the unique web address of your blog.
Presentation:
A lot more to it than just writing eh? But you stuck with it and you’ve almost got an awesome blog post. The only
thing left is to sense-check everything you’ve written. Your eyes are probably useless at this point so it may be a good
idea to hand it over to someone else to read. Don’t be defensive if they come back with comments like “this bit
doesn’t make sense”. Play around until you’re happy with it and then take a look at the format. You’re checking for
things like:
-
Is the title easy to read?
Does the first paragraph explain what the post is about?
Are all the sub-headings the same size?
Is the font consistent throughout?
Does all the line spacing match?
Are all the pictures/videos etc formatted the same?
Are the paragraphs complete thoughts?
Are any paragraphs or sentences too long?
Once you’ve asked these questions and you’re happy with the answers, you’re done. You could have warmed up the
ol’ WordPress and hacked away at the keyboard for an hour and ended up with a ‘good’ blog. Instead you followed
these steps and now you have an awesome one. Handshakes all round. Now send this to someone else so they can be
awesome too. Let’s keep this E-Book going until everyone blogs like a pro!
Contact Details:
[email protected]
Twitter: @MRMdigital
www.mrm-london.com