How To Outline A Blog Post
Today I will share with you how to outline a blog post. Blogging is my passion and I really love doing it. I learned about blogging seven years ago. If you are new to blogging, you might want to visit my blog post on what is blogging and how does it work.
When it comes to blogging, most people have the impression that you have to be a “writer” to write a blog. Indeed, content writing is the most important thing you must do and must master. However, you do not have to be a writer to be success in blogging.
Blogging is a way for you to share your opinions and ideas. Thus, you simply need to communicate with your audience. It is the same way you would with your friends and family members.
You should also put the emphasis on helping people and building trust. That way, you are going to lead to long term and sustainable success in blogging.
Content writing is actually not as scary as you thought. If you know the tricks and methods, you should be able to write a blog post. In my last blog post, I shared about the five ways to improve the readability of a blog post. In today’s post, I will show you how to outline a blog post.
How To Outline A Blog Post?
First thing first, Choose a Keyword
Your first task is to choose a target keyword for your blog post. You should choose a keyword that relevant to your niche. Once you got your keyword, it is going to be the focal point of your content.
Remember, keyword is the basis of all your content because it will affect your content’s ranking in Google and other search engine. Your goal is to get your blog post rank high in search engine so that you can receive more traffic.
Keyword and competition research can be a very time-consuming process. You need a keyword tool to perform keyword research. For me, I use Jaaxy to help me in keyword, competition and market research. It is free to register an account.
Always Start Your Blog Post with an Introduction
Yes, always start your blog post with an introduction. If possible, try to put your keyword in the first paragraph of your introduction. This would help to improve the SEO of your content.
Introduction is the opening of your blog post. You can briefly explain what are you going to talk about in your blog post. The key point here is that don’t go into detail. Just give some hint will do. You don’t want to give too much away here.
Let’s say your focus keyword is about how to lose weight, for example “How to lose weight in 2 months”. As an introduction, you can talk about the reasons why you want to lose weight, the frustration you experienced and how you find a way to overcome it.
To end your introduction, you can write it in a way that guiding your readers to the next section. For example, “In the following sections, I will walk you through how to lose weight in 2 months time”.
Next, Start Writing the Body of Your Blog Post
After the introduction, the next step is to start writing the body of your blog post. Try to come out with at least four topics you want to talk about your focus keyword. This will make up the body of your blog post.
It is much easier to write your blog post by breaking down it into separate topics when you have chunks of things to talk about. That way, your blog post is more readable and it looks much organized.
Remember to use headlines for your topics. You can do this by using H2 (Heading 2) or H3 (Heading 3) with your topic.
I recommend that you write down the topics you are going to talk about in a piece of paper. Put them in bullet points. Then you can further break each topic into smaller sub topics. I always use this method to make sure I don’t miss out any important ideas.
End Your Blog Post with a Conclusion or Recommendation
Conclusion serves as the closing for your blog post. You can either summarize or recap the important points in your discussion or provide a recommendation. This way, you can help your readers to better understand your blogs post and refresh their memory on those important points.
Don’t forget to ask your readers for comments or feedback. This is a very good chance for you to build engagement and relationship with your readers. For example, you can write something like “If you have any questions or thoughts, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment down below.”
The goal of your conclusion is not to introduce any new ideas, but to sum up everything you have written. It is the last chance you have to make an impression on your reader.
Conclusion
Start your blog post with an outline can help you reduce time on writing and keep your content organized. An outline is important especially if you are writing something long and involved. No matter what kind of blog post you are writing, an outline will help.
So, whenever you want to write a new blog post, use the following outline to help you kick start.
1. Choose a focus keyword on the topic you want to write about.
2. Always start your blog post with an introduction to inform your reader what you are going to talk about.
3. Compose your blog post body by breaking down to at least four topics. Use headlines on your topics.
4. End your blog post with a conclusion to sum up everything you have written. You may add a call to action by requesting your reader to leave a comment or thought.
If you have noticed, I am also using the same outline in this blog post. 🙂
Lastly, I hope you gain something from my sharing on how to outline a blog post. As usual, your questions and feedback are most welcome. Please feel free to leave me a comment down below.
To Your Success,
Kwah Chong Hiong
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