Blog Writing Tips for the First-Time Blogger

So, your new blog is up and running. You’ve got a nice new logo, a nifty color scheme, and a menu system that’s easy to use.

But now you’re stuck. The idea of writing content for a blog seems overwhelming. Where do you start? What do you write about? How do you develop your content?

These are some of the questions we will tackle in this collection of blog-writing tips.

Blog Writing Tips to Get the Ideas Flowing…

Blog writing starts with your audience and evolves from there. You start with your readers in mind, always. And somewhere along the way, you incorporate your business goals as well. But it always starts with the reader. If you neglect your reader, your blog will be doomed from the start. Here are some blog-writing tips to help you deliver high-value content to your readers.

1. Visualize and define your audience.

Before writing a blog post, you should spend some time thinking about your audience. Better yet, create an image in your head of the kind of person that represents your audience. Visualize this person and think about him or her for a moment. Now ask yourself, what does this person need from me? How can I help her? What information do I need to convey at this particular moment, for this particular person?

You may find it helpful to create an “audience profile” on paper, and put it somewhere handy. For instance, you might jot some notes down on a sticky note and put it on your computer desk (or wherever you do your writing). Here’s what I would write on mine: “I am writing content for first-time bloggers who need a lot of help getting started.” It’s simple and to the point. But it’s also a powerful reminder of who I’m trying to serve with my blog-writing efforts.

2. Research keywords for traffic potential.

This is a dual-purpose blog-writing tip. First, it helps you generate new ideas for blog posts. Secondly, it helps you maximize your traffic and visibility by focusing on word-phrases that are most frequently used by your audience. And I promise you this. If you master this particular skill, you’ll never be at a loss for blog-writing ideas.

Start with the product or service you are offering. What words might you use to describe them? Plug some of these words into a keyword-research tool (like Google’s or Wordtracker’s), and then generate a list of keywords / phrases. What you end up with is a list of phrases people are typing into Google, Yahoo and other search engines to find the products and services you provide. So you can also use it as a list of blog-writing topics. If you write about these topics, you’ll have a better chance of pulling in relevant traffic — the kinds of people who need what you provide!

3. Organize your thoughts.

“Writing is so hard for me. I never know where to start, or when to stop.” This is one of the most common complaints I hear from my clients, whenever we’re on the subject of blog writing. This is actually an easy obstacle to overcome, if you know how to approach it.

Where to start is the easy part. We covered this in blog-writing tip #2 above. You can use keyword-research tools to generate a list of blogging topics. Ending the article is pretty straightforward too. You end it once you’ve accomplished your objective for that particular blog post.

This will make more sense with an actual example…

I had a specific goal for this article you’re reading right now. So I organized my thoughts accordingly. I usually jot them down on paper, and I recommend you do the same. It only takes a couple of minutes. Here’s the objective and outline I wrote down for this article:

• Topic: Blog writing
• Audience: People who are new to blogging. People who have a hard time identifying topics to write about. People who find the writing process overwhelming.
• Objective: Give readers a handful of blog-writing tips to get them off and running. Focus on the preliminary steps of identifying topics, outlining articles, etc.
• Points covered: (1) Define your audience. (2) Research your keywords. (3) Organize your thoughts.

This list is short. But it gives me everything I need to write a good blog post. I know who my audience is, which is a critical first step. I know my objective and how to accomplish it. And lastly, I have a specific list of points to be covered in my blog post. The only thing left to do is start writing. When I’ve addressed all of the key points outlined above, I’m done.

Outline before you write. This is one of the best blog-writing tips I can give you. An outline helps you in many ways. It forces you to identify your topic and organize your thoughts. It keeps you focused on the mission at hand and prevents you from “wandering.” It tells you where to begin and where to end. It makes the entire blog-writing process much easier. And remember — the easier it is, the more likely you will be to do it on a regular basis!

I hope you enjoyed this collection of blog-writing tips for first-time bloggers. If you need help with any of the items covered in this article, feel free to contact me. I can help you create a content plan for your blog, or even write some of the content for you.