How to Write a Blog Post in 13 Steps

Did you know that there are more than 600 million blogs on the Internet? A Web Tribunal report says that an estimated six million blog posts were published worldwide each day in 2022 — and that number has surely been growing. With so many blogs out there, writing-rock solid posts is key if you want your blog to attract attention. 

A blog is simply a website that's updated regularly with new content. Some blogs cover a wide variety of topics; others focus on very specific, niche subjects.. 

Blogs can be personal — for example, a travel blog you update to share your adventures with friends. They can also be used for business purposes. Companies and individuals create blogs as a type of content marketing, with the goal of reaching new audiences — and customers — with each post. 

This guide will explain how to write great blog posts that both please readers and help you improve your search engine rankings (and thereby attract readers). You just need to follow these 13 steps. 

Step 1: Determine the Primary Reason You're Writing the Post

Before sitting down to write a blog post, you need to know what your goals are. There are a number of possible goals, including:

• Targeting a specific keyword for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.
• Keeping customers updated on new product announcements.
• Creating shareable content you plan to post on other platforms, such as LinkedIn.
• Attracting potential customers.
• Driving sales of a particular product.
• Building relationships with current and future customers.

Often, you'll have more than one motive. For example, you may hope your post helps you rank for a new keyword and encourages people to buy one of your products. While you can focus on different things, it's always best to have one primary objective to guide how you focus your writing. 

When you're setting your goals for blogging, also be sure to consider what unique angle you'll take to help your post stand out and to think about what audience you're trying to target. Both of these things matter. 

For example, I recently wrote a blog post for a company that sells invoicing software designed to be used by people in the construction industry. They were trying to target the keyword "how to send an invoice."

While their ultimate goal was to sell their product, this blog post needs to speak to people who are just learning about the process, since that's who’s most likely to search for this keyword. Those people might not yet be ready to buy but could begin to develop a relationship with their brand. 

With those goals in mind, I chose a different focus than I would have if the primary objective had been to get someone to purchase the product immediately. I also used different language and examples than I would have if the desired audience had been doctors or lawyers or teachers.

Step 2: Determine the Primary Keyword You Want to Rank For

SEO is often an important reason to write a blog post. Since blogs are updated often, you can write many posts targeting different keywords. However, even if you aren't writing a post primarily for SEO, you’ll still want to choose a target keyword.

Your primary keyword, or target keyword, is the main term or phrase you want the page to rank for on search engines. For example, if your business sells vegetable seeds for home gardeners, you might want to write blog posts about the seeds you sell — you might try to rank for “heirloom tomato seeds” or “how to grow zucchini.” That way, when someone is looking to buy seeds, or is just looking to learn more about home vegetable gardening, they may find your site.   

Choosing a primary keyword makes good sense for every blog post, for a few reasons. 

• You can make sure that what you're writing about is something people are interested in by looking at the keyword search volume.
• You can help readers find your posts.
• You can boost your site's ranking on search engines for the target keyword or key phrase. 

The good news is that it's easy to choose the right primary keyword because there are many keyword research tools out there to help, including Positional’s Keyword Research tool, Ahrefs, and Semrush. Google's Keyword Planner is a great free search tool you can use. 

Say you run a plant nursery and are planning to write some blog posts — here's what Google’s Keyword Planner shows when you enter "types of plants."

Looking at these results, you might decide to write a post about the types of palm trees — if your nursery sells palm trees. If it doesn't, you might need to refine your initial search term when doing your keyword research. 

As you conduct research, pay attention to both search volume and competition. It's easier to rank for terms with low competition, but you also need to make sure there are enough people interested in reading about the topic to make blogging about it worthwhile.  

You'll also need to decide whether you want to use a head keyword (a broader keyword) or a long-tail keyword, which is more specific. “Plant nursery” would be a head keyword because it's very broad, while "different types of succulents" would be a long-tail keyword. There's more search volume (and more competition) for the first term, but you're more likely to get someone ready to make a purchase with the second. 

Step 3: Outline the Blog Post

Since you're writing a blog for a specific purpose, you don't want to just jump right in. It's helpful to outline your post first so you can:

• Make sure your writing is organized.
• Hit key points that readers are interested in when searching for a specific topic.
• Optimize for SEO by using keywords in your headers.

If you’re planning on writing multiple blog posts, you'll also want to make sure your blog post ideas don't overlap too much or target the same keywords, as that can lead to keyword cannibalization. It’s helpful to create an editorial calendar to plan out content publication and make sure you're covering a varied array of subjects to drive website traffic. 

You can create your outlines manually or use an SEO content optimization tool to do it. There are many tools out there that use AI to create outlines, including Positional, Frase, and Conductor. Just input your keyword to receive a suggested outline. Even if you don't want this level of help, you can use these tools to get tips on things like how long the content should be, based on SEO best practices. 

If you're writing your outline yourself, follow these steps to make sure you get it right: 

1. Brainstorm What to Include

Start by considering everything you think you'd like to include in the post. Think about what readers would want to know, and write down everything you can. You don't need to worry about organization at this phase, since you're just trying to get ideas down. 

You can use your knowledge and expertise when deciding what to include, but there are also tools that can help you generate content ideas. For example, Ahrefs offers a content gap tool. You can use it to identify the content that other blogs in your niche have but yours doesn’t, and then you can focus on including that missing information in your new content. 

You can also search Google for the keyword you're writing about, both to find competitor posts to use as inspiration and to see what Google lists under the People Also Ask section for that keyword. Consider providing answers to those questions in your blog post. 

2. Choose a Format

Once you have an idea of what information to include, decide how to formulate your blog. There are a few common formatting approaches, including:

• Listicles: These are structured in a list format and usually have a number attached. A list post could be something like "5 Great Ways to Save Money This Summer" or "9 Flowering Plants That Bloom All Summer."
• Roundups: Roundups are aggregates of content or information about a specific subject. They are curated collections of tools, tips, products, or ideas. Examples might include a blog titled "The Best Chili Recipes from Across the Web."
• How-tos: How-tos are guides explaining how to accomplish a specific task or objective. For example, you might have a post titled "How to Write a Blog Post." 
• Comparison posts: These make head-to-head comparisons related to a particular subject. An example title might be "Square vs. Stripe: What's Best for Your Business"
• "What is" guides: These provide an explanation or introduction to a topic. An example title might be "What Is a Blog?"
• Case studies: If you're selling a product or service, you could write a great blog post explaining how it impacted a customer or how it was used by a client

3. Organize Your Ideas

Next, it's time to take those ideas you brainstormed and start organizing them into the format you’ve chosen. 

For example, if you're writing about ways to save money and you've decided to make a listicle, group your suggested methods of saving money so you can see what should be on your list.

Here's an example — as you can see, the different ideas are divided into different groups:  

4. Write Your Subheadings

Your post should be divided into sections with their own subheadings, including H2s and H3s. This will make your content easier to read and help you to rank more highly on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

The subheadings should incorporate keywords you're targeting and help organize the content ideas you want to include. Here's an example: 

5. Plan Your Introduction and Conclusion

Your intro and conclusion must be planned carefully — because your intro should make a great  first impression, and your conclusion can help you make a lasting great impression.

Your intro should capture the reader's attention immediately, answer their question promptly, and provide a preview of what's to come to entice them to keep reading. 

I often like to include a relevant statistic or interesting tidbit in my intros, but the most important thing is to tell the reader how you're going to help them or solve their problem. 

For the conclusion, provide a summary of the information you’ve provided, as well as a takeaway idea or next step for the reader.

6. Identify Where to Include Keywords and Links

You'll likely want to use your blog to link to other pages on your site — to help support those pages and to give readers more context. I always like to include the links in my blog outlines so I can naturally incorporate them, with the correct keywords, as I write my final piece. 

I also typically include the secondary keywords I'm targeting in my outline, under the appropriate subheadings. This allows me to make sure I include all of those secondary keywords and that I'm doing so naturally, since I'll know before I start writing each section that I want to use a particular phrase within it.

Once you’ve taken these steps, you'll have everything you need to start writing.

Step 4: Write the First Draft

Now it's time to do the most important step: actually write your content. 

There are many different approaches to writing. I personally like to write the body of the article before writing the introduction and conclusion. During the writing process, I typically learn more about the topic and gain a better understanding of what the post is about — this helps me write better introductions and conclusions. 

As you write, it's important to keep a few things in mind:

• Solve the reader's problem. Make your content more helpful by making sure you're addressing the reason the reader is on your page. Try to make every sentence count, and don't use empty words or filler sentences. 
• Establish expertise, trust, and authority. You need your reader to trust you and feel confident in your words. Consider interviewing experts or sharing first-hand experience to show the reader you know what you're talking about. 
• Consider readability. Aim to write at around a sixth to eighth grade reading level so it's not too complex for readers (some of whom may have language or other comprehension barriers). There are tools, such as Hemingway, that will measure your reading level and help you simplify your writing. 
• Make your article skimmable and mobile friendly. People don't like big blocks of text, especially on mobile phones. I try to keep paragraphs shorter than five lines, and to break up my text with bullets and subheads. 
• Avoid the passive voice. It can make your content less clear and harder to read.

You can use AI to write your blog content. But you probably shouldn't. AI lacks a human element, it aggregates existing information (so it isn't original by nature) and sometimes plagiarizes outright, and it sometimes incorporates errors and falsehoods. Write your content yourself, or hire a great freelance writer if you can't write a good blog post on your own. 

Step 5: Copy Edit and Polish Your Content

No first drafts are perfect (not even mine). You need to edit your piece to ensure that it's readable and accurate. You'll also want to make sure you included the appropriate keywords and internal links. 

Hiring a copy editor is often a good idea if you're serious about creating a successful blog. It's really difficult to catch every typo or mistake on your own, especially for new bloggers just trying to navigate a new format. A second set of eyes is helpful. Copy editors can also check facts and, if they have SEO knowledge, can help to optimize the content. 

Of course, hiring a copy editor usually makes sense only if you're hoping to make money blogging. If you're just publishing a Wordpress blog for fun, hiring a professional makes little sense. You can still ask a friend to read your content to make sure you're publishing a good blog post — or take a break and read the post aloud yourself after a few hours to catch mistakes you may have originally missed. 

Running your piece through a content optimization tool is helpful at this point as well. Tools like Positional can identify keywords you missed and other improvements you can make. Here's what the Positional Optimize report looked like for this piece when it was still a first draft. 

Use the feedback you get to tweak your blog post until it's SEO optimized and reads well.

Step 6: Incorporate Awesome Graphics and Visuals 

Great writing isn't the only thing necessary for an awesome blog post. You also need graphics and visuals. Adding graphics is important because:

• Blogs with images get more social shares than those without.
• Images are sometimes the best way to convey information in a memorable and informative way.
• Images break up large blocks of text, making your posts more visually appealing.

At a minimum, make certain to have a high-quality image at the top of the blog post. 

With most blogging platforms, this image will also be used as a thumbnail on your blog’s main page and be shown when the article is shared on social media. You can see how images are displayed on Positional's blog here: 

Be careful not to use copyrighted images without permission. You can find some royalty-free images on sites like Shutterstock, or you can use paid services such as Getty Images to gain access to a large image library that has some of the best content for creating visual interest.

If you’re using pictures of people, aim for inclusivity and diversity so you can ensure that you're making all your readers feel welcome. 

In some cases, you may even want to go beyond images alone and embed videos into your content to make it more engaging and shareable.

Step 7: Write an Engaging Title

H1 tags are HTML tags that designate and apply formatting to a webpage’s primary title. Here's what this code looks like:

<h1>How to Write a Blog Post</h1>

The <h1> is the opening tag, the </h1> is the closing tag, and the header is what's in between these two tags and displayed to the reader. The H1 heading is the most important of all the headers on your blog because it defines the primary purpose of your blog. 

Obviously, since this is your post’s headline, you want it to be exciting. You also want to make sure it includes the primary keyword that you're hoping to rank for, so you can maximize the chances the article will perform well on search engines and be displayed when someone searches for your primary keyword. 

When writing blog post headers:

• Make sure the header is not duplicated elsewhere on your site.
• Include the most important keyword.
• Keep the length below 60 characters because Google sometimes substitutes H1s for page titles if you don’t specify a title tag.
• Make the heading interesting to capture reader attention.

Step 8: Write Great Titles and Meta Descriptions.

You'll also need to add title tags and a meta description to your blog post.

Title tags are the HTML elements that tell search engines what to use as a webpage’s title. This title will appear when your page shows up on SERPs, and it helps search engines to know what your page is about, so they can deliver it when someone searches for it.

These titles also sometimes appear in link previews on social media or when a page is bookmarked. 

Title tags are part of a webpage’s metadata. This means these titles aren’t visible on your page — just on SERPs, browser tabs, and social media previews. Since these titles are the first things people see on search engines, they're still very important. Title tags should be between 50 and 60 characters in length; longer titles will be truncated by search engines.  

To write a great title for title tags:

• Keep the primary keyword as close as possible to the start of the title.
• Write a title that will inspire your audience to click on the link.
• Use separators such as hyphens to divide your title into sections.

A meta description is a short summary of a page; it appears as a snippet below the title of your blog on SERPs. Here's an example of how one meta description that I wrote displays on Google:

To write a good meta description:

• Keep the content to fewer than 160 characters.
• Consider including a call to action, or urging people to click on the link.
• Include the target keyword that you're trying to rank for.
• Avoid duplicating meta descriptions on multiple blog posts.
• Make sure your meta description provides an accurate view of the content readers will:encounter on your page.
• Consider the user intent so your summary appeals to the users you're trying to reach.

Step 9. Ensure That Your Post Is ready for Sharing on Social Media

Open Graph tags give you more control over how your content displays on social media. You can include Open Graph tags in your website's HTML. 

Some examples of Open Graph tags you may wish to include are:

• Title to display the title of the content (<meta property="og:title" content="Your Page Title Here" />).
• Image to display a preview image (<meta property="og:image" content="https://www.yoursitename.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-you-uploaded.png" />).
• Description to include a brief content summary (<meta property="og:description" content="Write your page description here." />).
• URL to identify the URL people will see when they share your post (<meta property="og:URL" content="https://example.com" />).

You may also wish to implement other tags as well, such as tags instructing how wide and high your image should be when it displays. You can see a list of tags online to decide which ones to include. 

Step 10: Incorporate Links

Including internal and external links in your blog post helps people to navigate your site and gives your post more authority. A good rule of thumb is to include three to five internal and outbound links for each 1,000 words. Be sure you use appropriate descriptive keywords for the pages you're linking to so readers know where they're navigating to and won't be surprised.

You should also link to your newly written blog from other pages on your website. This can help people to find it and it spreads "link juice" or transfers authority to your new pages. On the Optimize podcast, Ethan Smith mentioned that you want to internally link to a webpage at least seven times for optimal performance.

Step 11: Incorporate Calls to Action (CTAs)

If you're writing a blog with the goal of getting the reader to do something, such as buy a product or sign up for a newsletter, you'll want to include a call to action (CTA). A CTA prompts the reader to do a specific task. 

There are a number of different techniques you could use to incorporate a CTA including:

• Text-based calls to action: This is a line of text within your content that suggests an action. For example, you might have a sentence that says, "Download this guide to writing CTAs," with a link to a downloadable guide. 
• Banners: Graphical banners in your content can also prompt the reader to do something. These banners can be placed at the bottom or top of a page, or they can be placed within or between blocks of text. . 
• Buttons: You could add a hyperlinked button that encourages people to click. For example, you might have a "Read More" button.

Here  are some examples from Nerdwallet's blog that include a graphical CTA and a button you can click on to start becoming a member. The CTA is in the middle of a page of content but separate from it.

Think carefully about what action you want the reader to take when you incorporate your CTA. 

Step 12: Publish the Post

After you've written a great blog post, it's time for it to go live. There are a number of paid and free blog publishing tools, including popular content management systems like WordPress and Webflow, that make publishing blogs quick and easy. 

When you publish, be sure to use short, descriptive slugs (that's the part of a URL that identifies the specific page). For example, here's Positional's blog:

The slug here is "nofollow-links"

When you're writing a slug, you can't include spaces, so use hyphens (-)  to separate words. Be sure your slug is short and simple, is similar to the content title, and incorporates the primary keyword you're targeting. 

You'll also want to be certain that the blog post is part of your website's sitemap. Including your new post in this file showing your website's structure will help search engines find it more efficiently.

Step 13: Promote the Post

The last step is to promote the post you've written. There are a number of ways you can do that, including:

• Sharing it on Reddit and other forums or social media networks where you may have a potential audience with interest in the subject matter.
• Repurposing the content to post on other channels such as X (formerly Twitter) or LinkedIn. This often means shortening the content or selecting snippets from it. 
• Setting up a newsletter or email list so you can send out recently published blog posts to your subscribers. 

The more you can promote your post effectively, the more traffic and engagement you can earn. 

A Few Gotchas to Keep in Mind

Now you know what to do when creating a blog post, but there are also a few pitfalls to watch out for. Here's what not to do if you want to write a great post:

• Don't overuse AI. AI can help you outline, but copying large blocks of text from an AI writing tool is likely to backfire. Google doesn't want AI spam, and you won't be rewarded for it. Instead, use AI as a tool if you want to, but focus on writing the best content possible. 
• Don't plagiarize. Copying text causes duplicate content issues. Both self-plagiarism and plagiarizing others is a problem, but if you copy from others, it's stealing. 
• Don't stuff content with keywords. Including a few relevant keywords is important — but including too many can make your content unreadable and harm your search engine rankings. 
• Pay attention to formatting. Your blog must be skimmable and not look too overwhelming at first glance 

Final Thoughts

A great blog can be a powerful business tool. It can bring in site visitors, improve your search engine rankings, help you earn the trust of readers, and enable you to promote your products or services. Follow these tips to make your next blog post great, and start reaping the benefits blogging can offer.