My First Blog Post
Violetta Wagganer
Instead of writing an introductory post, you could have your first post be something you were intending to write for your blog anyway, with careful keyword research and appeal to your target audience.
thank you for writing this! this actually helped ease my mind for my first post! I just set up my website and blog and suddenly I got so scared to write the first post. This one really gave me some clarity! thank you!
That being said, past studies have shown a correlation between long-form posts and higher search rankings. One reason may be that Google is looking for posts that satisfy the needs of the reader. The longer the post, the more opportunity it has to meet the criteria Google is looking for.
Your intro can make or break a reader sticking around for the whole post. Your conclusion can make or break the reader taking action (like buying a product, subscribing to the blog, or checking out an additional post).
You can also include screenshots to accompany any walkthroughs or how-to articles that involve technology. Your blog post will be much more valuable to the reader if you show them how to do something, rather than tell them.
There is no more important factor to writing a blog post than understanding your audience and what they want to read. A blog post has to provide value to readers. It must educate, inform, entertain, or provide a fresh viewpoint in order to gain traction. Remember that the visitors to your blog are actual people, not crawlers for Google search rankings. So your blog must make an impact, and the best way to do that is to touch on a pain point or issue your customers face.
Linking to trustworthy sources will build authority for your site. Not only will these backlinks strengthen your SEO, they will also show readers that your blog is of high quality. Even from your first blog post, make it a habit to reference authoritative, relevant, and reliable sources.
Large blocks of text can be overwhelming and tiring for readers, even when they really want to know what you have to say. Break up the text into digestible portions by adding images, videos, or even interactive content, like infographics, slideshows, or quizzes. This adds interest and excitement, creating higher engagement and encouraging readers to share the post among their network.
Your blog posts should also include a byline of the author, with a headshot and short bio. This creates legitimacy and trustworthiness, and will help you build a relationship with readers in the long term. If you feel comfortable, include a link to your LinkedIn or Twitter profile. This way, readers can find out more about you and connect with you online, increasing your business network and maybe even your lead pool.
A blog post is any article, news piece, or guide that's published in the blog section of a website. A blog post typically covers a specific topic or query, is educational in nature, ranges from 600 to 2,000+ words, and contains other media types such as images, videos, infographics, and interactive charts.
Blog posts allow you and your business to publish insights, thoughts, and stories on your website about any topic. They can help you boost brand awareness, credibility, conversions, and revenue. Most importantly, they can help you drive traffic to your website.
One easy way to choose topics for your blog is to simply learn what other blogs are writing about. After you determine your competitors, go through their archive and category pages, and try to find out which topics they most often publish content about. From there, you can create a tentative list to explore further. You might find, for instance, that a competitor only covers surface-level information about a subject. In your blog, you can dive more deeply and offer more value to readers.
Want to create a subdomain for your blog? If you already own a cooking business at www.yourcompany.com, you might create a blog that looks like this: blog.yourcompany.com. In other words, your blog's subdomain will live in its own section of yourcompany.com.
Some CMS platforms offer subdomains as a free service, where your blog lives on the CMS, rather than your business's website. For example, it might look like this: yourblog.contentmanagementsystem.com. However, to create a subdomain that belongs to your company website, register the subdomain with a website host.
HubSpot customers host web content via CMS Hub. Another popular option is a self-hosted WordPress website on a hosting site such as WP Engine. Whether you create a domain or a subdomain to start your blog, you'll need to choose a web hosting service after you pick a CMS.
If you already manage a website and are writing the first post for that existing website, ensure the article is consistent with the website in appearance and subject matter. Two ways to do this are including your:
Once you have your blog set up, the only thing missing is the content. While the design and layout are fun and functionally necessary, it's the content that will draw your readers in and keep them coming back. So how do you actually go about writing one of these engaging and informational pieces?
Before you write anything, pick a topic for your blog post. The topic can be pretty general to start. For example, if you're a company that sells a CRM for small-to-enterprise businesses, your post might be about the importance of using a single software to keep your marketing, sales, and service teams aligned.
Finding a keyword with low searches in Google (I recommend sticking to about 10 to 150 monthly searches). These topics offer less competition and should therefore allow your new blog post to rank more easily.
See that evolution from topic, to working title, to final title? Even though the working title may not end up being the final title (more on that in a moment), it still provides enough information so you can focus your blog post on something more specific than a generic, overwhelming topic.
To complete this step, all you really need to do is outline your post. This way, before you start writing, you'll know which points you want to cover and the best order to do so. And to make things even easier, you can download and use our free blog post templates, which are pre-organized for six of the most common blogs. Just fill in the blanks!
Then, describe the purpose of your post and explain how it will address a problem the reader may be experiencing. This will give the reader a reason to continue reading and show them how the post will help them improve their work or lives.
Now that you have your outline or template, you're ready to fill in the blanks. Use your outline as a guide and expand on all points as needed. Write about what you already know, and if necessary, conduct additional research to gather more information, examples, and data to back up your points, while providing proper attribution when incorporating external sources. When you do, always try to find accurate and compelling data to use in your post.
A promotion strategy is your master plan for how you create, post, and engage with your social media content. It helps you take advantage of social and digital technologies to share your business, or in this case, your content. Having a solid promotional strategy offers your audience from different marketing channels more ways to find your blog posts.
Image alt text allows search engines, like Google, to crawl and rank your blog post better than pages lacking the element. It also leads readers to your blog post if the keywords included are what they searched for in the first place.
Curated collections are a special type of listicle blog post. Rather than sharing tips or methods for doing something, this type of blog post shares a list of real examples that all have something in common in order to prove a larger point.
HubSpot Slides is a presentation tool that helps publishers package a lot of information into easily shareable slides. Think of it like a PowerPoint, but for the web. With this in mind, SlideShare blog posts help you promote your SlideShare so that it can generate a steady stream of visitors.
Unlike blogs, slide decks don't often rank well on search engines, so they need a platform for getting their message out there to the people who are looking for it. By embedding and summarizing your SlideShare on a blog post, you can share a great deal of information and give it a chance to rank on Google at the same time.
Does your blog attract a specific age group? Does your audience live in a certain region? How do readers typically discover your content? Finding answers to these questions can help you get a better idea of who your buyer persona is.
Write about what you already know, and if necessary, conduct additional research to gather more information, examples, and data to back up your points, while providing proper attribution when incorporating external sources. When you do, always try to find accurate and compelling data to use in your post.
Choose a visually appealing and relevant image for your post. As social networks treat content with images more prominently, visuals are more responsible than ever for the success of your blog content.
Tags are specific, public-facing keywords that describe a post. They also allow readers to browse for more content in the same category on your blog. Refrain from adding a laundry list of tags to each post. Instead, put some thought into a blog tagging strategy.
Most blogging software uses your post title as your page title, which is the most important on-page SEO element at your disposal. But if you've followed our formula so far, you should already have a working title that will naturally include keywords or phrases your target audience is interested in.
Blogging can help you build brand awareness, become a thought-leader and expert in your industry, attract qualified leads, and boost conversions. Follow the steps and tips we covered above to begin publishing and enhancing your blog today.
I belong in the latter category since my goal is to get as much traffic to my blog as I can. And that means having to do some research to find out what words I should add to my post and what type of questions I should answer.
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