9 tips on how to create your first excellent blog post

So with blood, sweat and tears you’ve proudly built a beautiful designed blog. Now it’s time to start writing the actual articles. But how do you write a good blog post? Where can you find the topics, which length should a blog post be, can you use images and if so where do you find these?

All viable questions when the only words you’ve ever written and published online were comments on someone else’s blog. How do you write a good blog post? So, to help with your first (or second and third) articles here are 9 tips on how to create your first excellent blog post.

In this guide I will write about:

• Keyboard Research for finding your topics
• Copywriting, how you can start and improve your writing
• The overall structure of your blog
• The length of your blog
• Improving the readability
• Using Images, video and gifs
• Including internal and external links
• Editing your blog post
• Using AI to help you write your blog post

Keyword Research

Your first priority should be doing Keyword Research for your article. This means looking for the right keyword phrases for your topic on which your audience can find your post when they type in a question on Google (or other search engine). For instance, you will probably have found this article by typing in: ‘how to write your first blog post’ or a variation of this question.

You may already have researched a list of excellent keywords when building your blog, but if you didn’t, do so now. You can find an extensive guide on Keyword Research here. In short, focus on so called ‘long tail keywords’, a phrase that is at least 4-6 words long, that has a high Search Volume and low Keyword (or SEO) Difficulty.

• Search Volume is the number of times every month people are looking for a certain Keyword. The Higher the better. For Bartsguide.com for instance I look for keywords with a volume with at least 40-50 monthly searches. This means at least 480 possible visitors per year for this blog post alone. It all adds up!
• Keyword (or SEO) Difficulty) means the level of competition you can expect. Here the lower the better. As a rule of thumb I use Keywords that have a Difficulty of a maximum of 40, but never higher than that.

For your research you can use tools such as KW Finder, Ubersuggest, Ahref, Semrush or the new KeySearch Tool in combination with the Google Search Bar. With these tools you can find the best option for your keyword and turn this into an exciting and enticing title. And of course AI Tools like ChatGPT offer various options to do some research. Read this article for more information

Use Google to your advantage in your Keyword Research

Next to these tools also type in your ‘long tail keyword’ into Google and find the ‘People also ask‘ section. You can find this either on the top or bottom of the Search Results Page and you can use it to look for alternative keywords to put in your blog. In the example you can see here you can see I used the ‘What is a good word count for a blog’ suggestion as a paragraph in this article. Try to do this for your topic as well.

Next to the keywords take a good look at the competition, the other articles on your topic. What are they doing well and can you find a couple of items you can do better? The overall aim is to write content that is way ahead of the competition.

Copywriting

Regarding the writing process self, my main advice is ‘just start writing!’ It doesn’t have to be perfect, especially when you’re a complete newbie. Start writing article after article and your content will improve over time. You will also need to develop a personal writing style and personal brand that resonates with your audience. So keep on typing!

But it can pay of to invest some time, effort or even a little money in the beautiful art of copywriting. An excellent must read is ‘Ogilvy on Advertising’, or ‘Jab, Jab, Jab, Hook’ by Gary Vaynerchuck. Or take a writing course.

Writing a good title for your blog post

Your title is the first thing people will see, so make sure for every blog post you create an enticing and appealing title! It should contain your long tail keyword, so your audience can find you, and be engaging.

And also realize that a blog post is not exactly the same as an article in a magazine or the text in a book. So don’t try to write titles the same way as a magazine article. 

Good examples of excellent titles for a blog posts are:

• Questions. Such as ‘Where can you learn how to ski? ‘, or ‘How can I remove grease stains from a suit?’
• Number lists. These are very popular! For instance ‘8 ways to cook a steak’ or ’13 must see tips when visiting Amsterdam.’
• A bold statements. Like ‘Why people fail when building a new business’

You can combine these as well, so ‘Why people fail when building a new business’ becomes: “10 big mistakes people make when starting a new business’ 

So, in summary, create a blog title that is eye-catching but also lets people immediately know what the post is about!

The blog structure

Choose a platform to write your first draft on. I personally use Word, but my partner prefers Google Docs, which is great for sharing and editing.

First I create my Title and then I type all the sub heading (sub topics), so I know where my blog will end.

So, for instance, in my short ‘You don’t need to be an Expert to blog’ blog, this is the structure before I start typing the actual text.

But in the end, choose a method that works best for you. For instance, many bloggers just start typing in WordPress itself

How to write a good introduction for your blog

Like your title, the introduction must be enticing and be descriptive. Your introduction must invite people in to further read your excellent blog. It should be eye-catching and a short summary of what your blog is about, so people will know that your blog is the best source of information for their particular question.

A rule of thumb is to write your first sentence in such a way people just must read the second sentence. And your second sentence must be written so that your audience really wants to read the third sentence. And so forth. 

Besides that, realize that Google will use the first part of your introduction for the Meta Description. This is the small snippet of text you can see on the search results page, beneath your title.  So make sure that your introduction is perfect for the Meta Description.

What is a good word count for a blog post?

I personally write as many words that are needed for any blog post. So if I can do it in 500, 500 words is what I will type. And if 5000 are needed, then 5000 will be typed.
However, I will still take into account what my audience wants. And the nice thing is, more and more people like to read large blogs.

So, there are basically three types of texts:

• Short blog articles of about 400-500 words. A short introduction or review
• The average blog post. A 1000 words
• The pillar post. A large, very detailed article that really delves deep into a certain topic and targets several keywords at once. Between 2000-10.000 words.

My advice would be to write mostly average blog posts of a 1000 words. At the moment these types of articles are in demand and will rank high on Google. And write an excellent Pillar Post at least once every month.

Improving the readability: subheaders, quotes and bold

In the 1990’s, when the internet was just becoming available to the general public you could get away with posting a large clump of text. But nowadays people will leave your blog screaming or bored out of their minds. No, you want to offer a text that is readable.

You do that by breaking up your text and inserting sub headers, quotes and bold and cursive.

 Put a sub header on top of every 300 words or so. In other words, on top of every 2 paragraphs. Sub Headers can include other keywords and will make your text more appealing in general.

Quotes work the same way. At first you can use quotes to avoid copyright issues, when using a text from another source. But you can use quotes to highlight important snippets of our own text as well. 

Bold and cursive are also great tools for increasing the appeal and readability of your text. As with a quote, use bold to highlight an important snippet or keyword. Cursive can be used to emphasize part of a sentence as well.  

Using Images, video and Gifs to make the post more appealing

By nature humans are visual creatures, so when possible insert images, video and Gifs. This may not be necessary with a short blog of 300-400 words, but with a pillar post of 10.000 words you need to break up the monotony of your text.

 So insert images and videos that complement the content of the article. 

Can I use stock photos? 

While I would recommend using your own images or hiring a professional photographer if you don’t have the skills sometimes you can’t avoid using stock photos. And for some blog topics this is perfectly fine. Now, if you own a blog about Italian Cuisine I would use pictures of my own dishes. (and also do some research beforehand on how to take great food photo’s)

But for a topic like online marketing, as you can find here, there is a limit on the type of images you can find and include. So by all means, use stock photos. You can find a wide variety of pictures and even video on:

• Pixabay
• Pexels
• Canva

Most of what you need will be free of charge, but if you have the budget you can also buy a couple of images.

Video is great as a complement to your text as well. Some will see it as competition, but in reality having video content will strengthen the appeal of your text and vice versa. If you’ve got the time and the charisma, start a YouTube channel of your own, next to your blog. But don’t be afraid to use a video created by someone else on your blog if it is perfect for your topic.

With including Gifs I would look first at the type of content you’re creating and your audience.  If your niche topic is not too serious, by all means, put in a gif or two. But if the subject itself doesn’t lend it to mirth  or  your audience is somewhat conservative minded (or old fashioned) think hard if a Gif is right for your text.

You can find Gif’s on Giphy.com

Include internal and external links

For SEO purposes and the UX (User Experience) of your website you need to include both internal and external links. Internal links are links to other pages and blog posts on your own website.  These are great for helping your website to achieve a flat structure (which is something Google really likes) and your visitors will remain longer on your website. Of course, if this is your very first blog post there won’t be many other pages to link to. But at a later moment when you have written more content you need to get back to this first post and include some internal links.

External links are good for SEO as well. Linking to another website with a high authority will be good for the ranking of your own site. Make sure that when a visitor clicks on an external link it will open in a new tab. That way he/she will still remain on your website.

You can also use external links for Affiliate Marketing.  However, I would recommend including a Affiliate Disclaimer page on your website, to increase the Trustworthiness.

One tip: the moment your blog is gaining traction, use Google Search (or a tool like Semrush) to flush out bad links to your website.

Editing your blog post

After you’ve written your first draft my advice would be to let it lie for at least a couple of hours or a whole day. Go do something else, take a walk or do some research on another topic. But don’t post the article just yet!

After this cooling down period it is time to do some editing. You can hire someone, but if this is your first blog I recommend doing the editing yourself. Your writing will improve much faster that way.

Check your blog for:

• Spelling and grammar mistakes
• Factual errors, is everything in your blog correct?
• Can you improve the text and if yes, where?
• And take a long hard look: is this a text you would enjoy reading yourself? If not, don’t throw it away, but improve where needed.

After you improve your blog post to the standard you want it to be, it’s time to post it!

Using AI to help you write your blog post

At the time I wrote the original text of this blog article, AI did not yet play much, if any, role in content creation. But now, in 2023 there’s no getting around it.

AI Tools like ChatGPT, Koala or Jasper (and many more) can help you superbly with your blog. Now, I am convinced that at the moment AI cannot emulate everything in terms of content yet. At least not as well as a human. But there are many things it can help you with. For example:

• Researching titles, topics and keywords
• Researching niche topics
• Writing standard articles
• Writing product descriptions
• Script writing of Youtube Videos and podcasts
• And much, much more.

The art in ChatGPT, for example, is in using the right commands (aka prompts) so that the AI can quickly and effectively turn your requirements into content. But fortunately, there are tools for this as well, such as the AIPRM Extention (only usable in Google Chrome).

Conclusion

Voila! With these tips, you will have at least a small blueprint for your blog.

First and foremost, the most important thing is to start with lots of writing. The more blogs you write the better you become, the sooner you will know what your audience likes and is interested in.

And if you analyze every so often which topics score best with your audience, you can adjust your content strategy accordingly and build on your success.

Finally, remember that blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. It will take some time before you get noticed by Google (and thus an audience). Keep writing and continuously improving your content and don’t give up!