Whether you’ve started your blog or you’re trying to figure out why the heck more people aren’t reading your blog, these blog writing tips will help you not only write better blog content but also connect better with your readers.
Writing good blog posts isn’t just about knowing your facts and putting them to paper (or keyboard).
Sure, getting your facts straight is important, but you know what is way MORE important?
Connecting with your audience.
If you aren’t able to communicate in a way that allows your readers to connect with you and start building a relationship, they’ll never sign up for your email list, purchase a product, or be likely to ever visit your blog again.
Trust is the name of the game in the blogging world where competition is high and there are millions of articles competing with yours.
Writing a good blog post requires you to juggle several different things at once, and we’ve got you covered on just about everything in this article.
Here is an outline of what we’re going to cover.
Before you can start writing your blog post, you need to make sure that you’ve chosen the write topic to write about. We’ve outlined a few of our favorite steps below.
How to Choose the Right Blog Topic
You can easily overcomplicate this process by overthinking about it. If you’re just starting out, you’re likely going to start writing about the most important topics you think your audience will be interested in.
And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can lead you down the wrong path.
People who just have a blog create content that they want to create, people who run successful businesses create the content others want to see.
It doesn’t mean that you can’t write about what you are passionate about, but you do have to align that with the interests of others!
Without a doubt in my mind, this is the #1 focus you should have in the beginning of building your blog.
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Use Keyword Research (70%)
Avocadu was built on the principle of creating the content people actually search for. Here’s our step-by-step process to finding article topics on Pinterest (our preferred traffic engine for bloggers):
- 1. Go to Pinterest.
- 2. Type a Keyword into the top. In this example, we’re going to use the word “fitness.”
- 3. I like the word “challenge,” so I will select that as well.
- 4. I see both “beginner” and “for beginners” in the top searches, so I select for beginners.
Now the keyword “Fitness Challenge for Beginners” is pretty solid and I could stop there, but for the sake of this article, I will take it one step further.
- 5. I see that “30 Day” is the first item coming up in suggested search (the first items are the most trafficked).
Therefore, I will add “30-day” to my blog post, mix up the words a bit, and I now have “30-Day Fitness Challenge for Beginners.”
Ta-da! I can even add a little fluff to it if the keyword is too boring. “The World’s Best 30-Day Fitness Challenge for Beginners.” SIMPLE!
At least 70% of your content needs to be created based on the things people want, need, and are actually seeking out.
Our health and fitness website is written with virtually all content based on what people want and need. Other tools that may help you find what people are searching for
You can also use tools like SEMrush and Google AdWords to find popular keywords and headlines for your blog topics.
You won’t always have to do this for EVERY single article, although it can be helpful for coming up with great keywords. Over time, you will begin to learn more about what your readers are interested in based on the feedback they give you.
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ASK Your Audience (10%)
This concept is simple. Some of your content should specifically be about what your readers want and need!
The best way to find out what they want is to simply ASK them.
- Ask your email subscribers.
- Ask your Facebook fans and in your Facebook group.
- If you don’t have an audience yet, make sure to ask at the end of your posts (for comments).
As your blog grows, your readers will begin commenting on your blog posts and replying to your emails with feedback about what they are interested in and need more help with.
Now, remember to use judgment here… There is a reason this shouldn’t make up 100% of your blog content.
Being in the health and fitness space, we have gotten some crazy topic requests in the past.
You can’t write about a crazy topic just because ONE person asked for it.
You should listen for common problems and topics that arise from many different readers.
One of the smartest things we did when we started our health and fitness blog was to ask people in our opening email what they wanted to hear more about.
I sifted through literally thousands of emails where people spoke in their own words about how I could help them.
I know exactly down to the wording what my audience wants and needs. The question is, blogging buds… do you??
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Popular and Trending Topics (10%)
People love new things. New cars, new clothes, new boyfriends. We all do.
Because people love new things, there will always be a new diet, a new tactic, or a new product that comes around swooping up everyone’s attention.
Trendy headlines are irrestible to readers because of the novelty factor. They know you’re going to tell them something new and interesting that they haven’t heard before.
You need to have an opinion on these.
Even if your opinion is not favorable, your followers want you to discuss these things so they know where you stand. You are an authority figure on the subject to them and having an opinion matters!
The reason that this only makes up 10% of your blog content is because:
- Trends come and go. This content may not stay popular or searchable in the long term.
- This content may not serve any other purpose than a quick read. It may not help you turn readers into customers and sell products.
You can also see topics that are trending with Google Trends or try running a search for “your niche + popular trends in [current/next year].”
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Content That Connects (10%)
While you should be sharing your story and personality in ALL of your posts to better connect with your audience, it can be hard to connect when every post is a “list” or “how to”.
That’s why you can and should mix it up once in a while.
Some of your blog content should always serve the purpose of helping you build trust connect better with your audience.
Here are some great blog topic ideas for a quick mix-up that are designed to help you CONNECT with your people:
- What’s your personal story? Tell the world in a timeline of dates posts. [See our About Us page].
- Share some of your favorite memes, pictures, and videos that make you laugh on the internet.
- Is there something about your industry that frustrates you? Talk about it.
- What are your goals (related to your niche) for the coming week, month, and year? Share them!
- Share your opinion on a controversial topic. You will generally isolate some but build a much deeper connection with many more.
- Interview someone awesome in your industry.
- Write a blog post about the biggest mistakes you’ve made in your journey to [relate topic to niche].
The best part about writing this type of blog content is that it’s both FUN to write and will help you create a deeper connection with your audience.
They are both good for your soul, your audience, and your business.
Win-Win-Win.
7 Best Blog Writing Tips for Both Beginners and “Experts”
Now that you know what to write about, let’s move on to some tips that will help you while you are writing your blog posts.
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Plan out your blog content before writing your post.
Once you have selected a blog topic for your new article, it’s time to plan out what you would like to say in the article.
You can opt for the method of “just start writing,” but it could lead to babbling and a disorganized article that doesn’t hit on all of the key points your readers are interested in.
My favorite method is to simply open up a new Word document with my blog title at the top and first write out the major key points that I believe I need to touch on.
After settling on the most important points of interest for the article, I then begin to fill in the outline with what I want to say about the topic.
It’s often easier to write in a Word document rather than in WordPress because it’s less distracting. You can copy the content over when you’re finished.
Okay now that we’ve got the preparation stages covered, let’s get into the good stuff!
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Assume that your blog readers are at a level 1.
When Alex went to the Traffic and Conversion Summit by Digital Marketer a couple years ago, he heard a presentation by Donald Miller (of Storytime Blog) that turned out to be one of the most valuable marketing lessons we have learned thus far.
When it comes to communicating with your audience, assume that you are at a level 10 and they are at a level 1.
He doesn’t mean that you should assume your audience is stupid. Let me explain.
When you write and communicate in any way, you do it from your point of view, your experiences, and with all of your prior knowledge about the topic you are discussing.
You generally know a LOT more than your audience does about that topic, so you tend to skip over the ‘smaller’ details that you feel are less important but that end up actually being crucial to your audience to understand your message.
Assume that your audience knows virtually nothing about the topic you are discussing so that you don’t leave out any important details that they need to fully understand your message (and purchase your products!).
This is even more important when you are writing emails and sales pages to make sales.
Here is an example of one way you can incorporate this concept into your writing.
Don’t just tell someone how to do something. Remind them of WHY they need to do it. – Obviously, they should already know why they need it but the reminder helps them understand you better.
It may feel a little like you are communicating unnecessary details at first, but you’ll begin to get used to writing in this way and your readers will thank you for it!
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Write like you’re talking to a friend.
I think a lot of bloggers tend to try to be “professional” when they write blog content and they get overly focused on sounding “official” or like an “expert.”
While professionalism is important, you don’t need to sound detached or ‘stiff’ to be recognized as a credible source.
I like to write in the way that I would communicate my thoughts or feelings on a topic to a friend or group of friends.
There is some level of comfortability there but it’s not as formal as if you were presenting a speech in front of a group of strangers or trying to impress your science teacher.
Try to remain relaxed and confident in your writing style. Put on some great music if it helps you get in the zone.
I prefer music without lyrics when I’m writing. My two favorite artists/bands to listen to while I am writing are Tycho and Explosions in the Sky.
Next up on our list of blog writing tips sort of ties into the point above but takes it one step further.
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Include personal experiences and feelings whenever possible.
We touched on this briefly earlier as it related to choosing blog topics, but now we are going to take it a step further as it relates to your writing style.
It’s time to stop blog philosophizing.
What’s that?
It’s when you talk about your thoughts and assumptions instead of your experiences.
Writing a blog post is really just about vomiting your thoughts on a subject out onto to your keyboard, but writing truly great content is more about injecting your actual and personal experiences into the subject you are writing about.
If you’re talking about pets or parenting or whatever and you have hardly any experience with that subject, people will read through you like a Dr. Seuss book.
This is honestly the most important point in this entire blog post and the reason why Alex and I receive so much positive feedback on our articles and overall communication relating to our blog.
The most common positive feedback that we receive is that we seem very “honest” and “transparent.”
In the world of the internet, honesty and transparency are two characteristics EVERYONE should strive for – regardless of your blog niche.
It’s not enough to talk to your audience with that level of comfortability like you are a friend, you should also treat the relationship with a level of familiarity that allows you to instill some trust in them.
You do this by sharing personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings on the topics that you are writing about.
This is another reason why we ask people to be careful with the blog niche that they choose.
The more knowledge and experience you have about a subject, the better you will be at communicating your thoughts and opinions to your audience in your writing.
Without a personal touch, your articles will fall flat against the rest of the competition out there. There will be nothing that sets YOU aside from everyone else.
When I write articles now, I first think about the topic(s) my audience needs the most help with.
Then, before I start writing, I think about my personal experiences with that topic and how I can turn those experiences into important lessons for my readers.
These are all things that you need to think when preparing and writing your blog articles.
Don’t forget that this is also extremely important when it comes to monetizing your blog and selling products!
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Don’t obsess over the length of your blog articles.
Length doesn’t always imply strength when it comes to writing blog posts.
Longer articles generally rank higher for Google SEO because it means that people are spending more time on your page, and Google takes that into consideration in their algorithm ranking.
BUT…
If you fill your content with fluff or other bullshit just to hit some arbitrary number for Google SEO, people will bounce from your website anyway and this will HURT for ranking in Google.
There are no magic numbers here, folks.
All of our blog posts are at least 1,200 words, but we try to keep many of them closer to 2,000 – 2,500 for Google SEO.
That being said, when I’m writing, I don’t look at the word count in my Word document until the article is finished.
If you obsess over word count while you are writing, you’ll end psyching yourself out and the quality of your writing will end up suffering.
Once you’re finished writing, take a look at the word count. If you’re below 1,200 words, look for areas that you can expand upon and provide more details to help support your key points.
During this analysis, remember the point from earlier: Your audience is at a level 1 and you’re at a level 10.
Never fluff to hit numbers. Make sure that you are only ever adding additional value to your content.
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Make your content easily readable.
This blog writing tip is fairly straightforward, but it does go against everything you were ever taught in elementary school.
Are you a writing a novel?
No???
Then your paragraphs shouldn’t look like this:
Unless your name is Jon Grisham and you tell ridiculously compelling stories, you need to cut down those paragraph sizes and make things a little less intimidating to read. Many of the readers who hit that blog are going to visit the page, see that massive block of text, and bounce like a rabbit on a trampoline. Do you see how annoying it is to read a paragraph this long? What ends up happening is that people entirely miss the MAIN POINT that you are trying to make in your sweet true-author-like paragraph. It goes like this: content, content, MAIN POINT, content, content, content. And then I have forgotten what the biggest takeaway was. Now think about if the ENTIRE article was written this way? It’s SO much easier for readers to think “I don’t have time for this. I should be doing something else.” and they BOUNCE!
In this day and age, people are constantly consuming information all day long, whether that be in their personal time when planning adventures or vacation or at work (whether you’re a blogger or not).
Competition for web space and readers’ eyeballs is only increasing, so it’s important to not only catch people’s attention but also to KEEP IT.
The vast of people aren’t just slowly browsing through articles like they would a casual stroll through the park on Sunday.
They’re clicking many different articles and scanning the information for things that interest them.
This means that your content needs to be easily readable and scannable so that the reader can tell immediately whether your content is worth their time. You can do this through:
- Using proper heading tags to make headings larger (also helps for Google SEO)
- Including a table of contents or overview of key points at the beginning of your article
- Bolding, italicizing, and/or underlining important text
- Making sure hyperlinks are in an easily identifiable color
- Spacing out sentences into shorter paragraphs (rather than large chunks of text)
These are all strategies that we incorporate into our articles. The last point is especially important and one that many people don’t bother with.
In elementary school, you were taught to write longer paragraphs that separated different ideas. In blog posts, you should write in more of a conversation style because it makes your content easier to read and important point easier to identify.
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Ask for comments.
As I stated before, comments are an awesome form of feedback that help you see how your readers are responding to your content.
They also help with Google SEO because comments signal to Google that the content is popular and engaging.
It can be hard to get the conversation started on your blog posts, so you need to do what you can to help get it started.
You can do this in a couple of different ways. The sentences below are examples of ways that you can conclude your article.
Ask for comments:
- “If you enjoyed this article or have any questions, please leave them in the comment section below!”
- “I’d love to hear your thoughts on [insert topic]! Please feel free to leave me a comment below the article!”
Ask a question:
- “What do you think about [insert topic]? Please feel free to leave me a comment below the article!”
- “Did you enjoy this article or feel like you have anything else to add? I’d love to discuss it with you in the comment section below this article!
This small call-to-action can help to increase the number or organic comments you get on your blog posts!
After You Finish Writing Your Blog Post
Below are a few other blog writing tips that we incorporate into our articles to make sure that our blog content is the best it can be!
If you don’t make it as easy as possible on your readers to share your blog content, they won’t bother with it.
We do this through a combination of a shareable image along with Social Media Warfare, a social media plugin.
Our blog posts include a 600×900 pixel image for Pinterest because that is our main source of traffic.
In addition, we use Social Media Warfare to include a Pinterest “Save” button that hovers over the image as well as professional-looking social media icons on our posts.
It’s a paid plugin, but it only comes out to a couple dollars per month and is totally worth it!
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Optimize Your Images
Site speed is incredibly important for both sales and SEO, and the larger the sizes of your image files are, the longer it will take your website to load them.
There are two steps that you need to take to optimize your images BEFORE uploading them to WordPress:
- Resize: Make sure that the image is not larger than it needs to be to display how you want it on your site. You can use a free web-based app like BeFunky or Fotor for this.
- Compress: After resizing, you need to compress the file size to the smallest possible size you can get it to without reducing the quality below a level you’re comfortable with. You can do this through free sites such as Optimizilla or TinyPNG.
You can also download plugins to help with this, but it’s important to still take these steps before uploading so you don’t bog down your site with too many plugins or large images.
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Make your blog posts SEO-friendly.
Even if you don’t plan on paying much attention to getting Google traffic, you should do what you can to “passively” rank better in the Google algorithm.
If you do this, you will naturally begin to get more Google traffic over time.
The best way to learn more about how to do this is by downloading the Yoast SEO plugin. There is a free and paid version, but you shouldn’t need anything more than the free version.
If you are interested in seriously going after Google traffic, we recommend our friend Mike’s course, Stupid Simple SEO. Mike is one of our Six-Figure Blogger students, and he has years of experience in creating and selling websites with tons of Google traffic.
His course breaks down the complexity of Google SEO into an easy and digestible format so that new bloggers can easily implement the strategies without all of the frustration and overwhelm.
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Proofread and edit.
Because you are writing your blog posts in more of a ‘conversation’ style, it’s a lot easier to make grammatical mistakes and other errors along the way.
I know that when I’m on a roll, I type really fast to try to keep up with my thoughts, and I tend to make a lot more errors.
It’s important to ALWAYS read over your content at least once before publishing, but I recommend giving it one read over immediately after you’re finished and then another before you actually publish the article.
Remember that it’s much harder to catch your own mistakes when you read quickly and know what the article says already. If you can get another pair of eyes on the post, that is ideal.
Otherwise, use Grammarly! It’s an online tool that you can use to check your grammar and spelling. There are both free and paid options, so you can make the call on what level of help you need.
This is a tool that we personally use every day and absolutely love it! I have the browser extension installed on my computer, so it even checks my grammar on Facebook and other websites!
I think that covers just about all of the best and most important blog writing tips that Alex and I personally use when writing our blog posts, but if you think I missed something or you have a tip to add, please feel free to leave them in the comment section below!
Alex & Lauren
Latest posts by Alex & Lauren (see all)
- 17 Best Blogging Tips (Newbies to Advanced Bloggers) for 2019 - January 16, 2019
- How to Blog While Working a Full-Time Job - October 15, 2018
- Best Blog Writing Tips for Beginner Bloggers and Beyond - October 11, 2018
So what chrome extension do you use for your writing? I use Grammarly often whether it is serious or casual writing. I find it most useful and safe app on chrome.
We use Grammarly as well, Cristian! I personally think it’s the best tool for proofreading and grammar check!
What heading font does this post use
Hey, Lora!
It’s Lato font!
Thank you. Is it the same font for the body too?
It sure is!
Super Great. Thanks
I am so amazed at how many things I did not know and the fact that I have 10 tabs from your site opened up to read, shows how much I truly want this. Thank you for sharing with us.
Thanks so much, Vivienne!!! Love to hear this! 🙂
How do you do the research for your blog posts?
Hey Nick,
It depends on what the topic is. For our health and fitness posts, we look up scientific studies to cite to make sure that our information is backed by facts. This is also becoming increasingly important for Google SEO because Google wants to know that your information is fact-based and reliable.
A lot of our posts on Create and Go don’t require much research because we write from personal experience.
So it really just depends on what you’re writing about! I hope that helps!
Great and Insightful blog post, as usual, thanks Lauren for the information. I really really love your articles and you inspired me to start my own blog! waiting for you to start writing about SEO
Thank you! We probably won’t write much on SEO because we don’t do most of it ourselves. We focus more on Pinterest traffic and hire people to help us with SEO. We do recommend a great course by one of our Six-Figure Blogger students, Mike, if you’re looking for a great resource to learn more yourself.
Here is our affiliate link for Stupid Simple SEO if you want to check it out: https://createandgo.com/stupid-simple-seo
Thank you very much!
Loved reading this article Lauren. I totally agree with the part about adding your own personal touch. Keep up the awesome work!
Thanks, Claire! Glad you liked it!
Really helpful, and thanks for the tip about “Social Media Warfare”. Checking it out now!
Thanks Lauren. Great post as per usual. I liked the tip about actually taking the time to write down your personal experience first, before you start writing. Very helpful!
Thanks, Emma! Glad you liked it! 😉
Thank you, Lauren. Your post contained just about all the points you wrote about. Well written and packed full of important information for us newbies. On the edge and about ready to jump!
Happy to hear that, Debra! Thanks!
Thanks for the great tips! Very helpful.
thank you!