Planning to write a viral blog post?
Stop wasting your time in research right now and start to write a great blog post.
The more think, the more you write.
More practice better you write.
The first things that come to your mind when you think of writing a great blog post are to do an effective keyword research.
Doing keyword research is a waste of time, especially when you are a beginner.
You cannot compete with the giants having a domain rank of 90 with your one blog post with useful keywords.
Hard to get. But the real statement.
Do You have an overwhelm of perfectionism?
You feel uncertain.
You sit Infront of the system and keep staring the cursor? Thinking on how to write a blog post?
If your answer is Yes! Then follow my Writing Roadmap
Step by step process of writing a viral blog post:
I usually brainstorm the topics for my blog post before a week or a month. Preferably I brainstormed the topics a month ago.
Half of my research will be done at that stage. I strongly recommend you to prepare a content calendar at least for a week.
This is the first and most essential step in writing a quick blog post.
While prepare the topics you will already have an idea of what you are going to address in the respective topic. When it comes to the day of writing you will come up with a determined idea.
Follow these step by step method of writing a powerful blog post.
Step 1: Do a thorough research of your blog post topic
Step 2: Prepare your first rough draft
Step 3: Create Graphics for the blog post
Step 4: Give it a headline
Step 5: Edit like a pro
Step 6: Include a Crafty CTA
Step 7: Final readability check
Step 8: schedule and publish your blog post.
Do a thorough research of your blog post topic:
Time taken – 10 mins
Having determined the overview of idea you have to get answer for this question while doing the research.
- What is your goal of writing this blog post?
It may be brand awareness or to drive traffic to your post and sell your affiliate product or anything it may be.
For instance, if your goal is this: I want to drive awareness of and interest in the launch of my most productive editing software because I want to sell it more.
Having identified your goal, you have identified the benefits of your readers and research various way your product could benefit them.
Your research is your distinctive feature:
Most of the great blog posts from the great writers have a well-defined data-oriented articles. The way you do your research defines the overall outcome of your blog post.
By practicing you can do effective research quickly. Let me introduce you how I do my research.
The best and free tool I use for researching is the google- the smart search engine.
You get the questions of your readers or the straight benefits from the auto suggestions column.
You can then read about all those questions listed in the related searches and auto suggestions.
Quick tip for effective research:
- Use egg timer – set up a timer for your research basically I prefer 30 – 40 minutes. (I usually do half of the research while brainstorming and I spend only 10 -20 minutes in research while writing)
- Plan what to read about. List down the questions and read-only about that. People tend to waste time by clicking the links and reading the other posts related to it.
- Be very specific and narrow-minded while doing the research.
Prepare your First draft (PFD):
Time taken to prepare PFD – 20 mins.
The steps involved in PFD is here
- Prepare an outline of what you are going to write- 5 mins
- Get ready with your opening hook- 5 mins
- Your central idea/theme- 5 mins
- The triggering closures – 5 mins
Prepare an outline:
By now you have an idea of what you are going to write. If you have already brainstormed the blog posts and you have done a thorough research for your blog post.
You have to lay the groundwork.
Use any mind mapping software to write the whole outline of the blog post.
I am a pen and paper girl I usually write in my notebook.
You can use any of these methods of your preference.
Outlining is just jotting down the important points step by step.
once done you can easily write the matter under each heading. It may be an image, a stat or a quote based on the topic.
Get ready with your opening hook-
You have only 3 seconds to attract your readers. This where the opening phrases come into the scene.
You need to hook your readers right at the opening. You have to address your readers from your very first sentence.
- Put your reader into the story.
- Describe a problem your reader can relate to.
- Provoke an emotion
- Quote a crazy or controversial bit of data.
- Tell a story or relay a personal anecdote.
Put your reader into the story:
Catch your readers attention right from the first moment. May it be their sweet spot or their dream spot.
It may be something like this
“Imagine one of your blog post driving 10X traffic that you ever imagined!”
Or
“Your 6-figure income assured with these productivity hacks used by the top bloggers”
Touching and triggering their sweet spot grabs their attention to read the post.
No more increase in bounce rate!
Describe a problem your reader can relate to:
Address the problem or an issue of your reader at the start. This ensures them they are reading the right post.
Example:
“What if no one reads my blog post?”
“What if my bounce rate peaks higher?”
“Running out of ideas after writing 50 blog posts”
These are some issues of my readers. I need address them in order to make them read my blog posts.
Provoke an emotion:
We all have some feeling while reading a blog post. Describing your readers emotion makes your reader feel like the writer has understood me and he/she will have some interesting content for me.
String their emotions makes them read.
Let’s take a few examples:
“excited on your new blog”
Upon reading what they are feeling right now, will induce them to stay on your blog.
Quote a crazy or controversial bit of data.
Everyone fears about writing a controversial statement. But writing a controversial statement with a demanding proof can be helpful.
I started this blog post with a controversial statement. Yeah!
Everyone suggests to do a keyword research but I started with
“stop doing keyword research right now and start writing a powerful blog post”
Most of you will be thinking, “Why no keyword research?”
The exact answer is here as a newbie blogger however effective your research strategy is you cannot come out of the google sandbox on the day one.
So instead of wasting so much time on keyword research you can just start with the minimal keyword research and write a blog post.
As a fresher you need to practice writing not researching. By the time you are experienced in writing you will get enough knowledge in research.
Tell a story or relay a personal anecdote.
Start with a short story of someone. A story in just few lines.
Example:
“In 2014 I missed the chance of winning a championship, now its my time to enjoy the shower of winning as an entrepreneur. This can be your story too “
This can be nice curiosity generating idea.
Your central idea/theme
Time taken- 10 mins
Based on the opening statement you clearly know the central theme of your blog post.
Here are few tips that will help you to come up with a better copy.
- Put the Reader First- use “you” instead of “reader”, write for them
- Organise your selling points
- Write with short paragraphs
- Use one sentence paragraphs
- Be concise
- Stop beating around the bush and get straight to the point
- Write in a conversational style.
- Use lists when and wherever required
I usually write the central theme headings in the outline. So, while coming to the writing process all I need is just to fill in the context for the particular paragraphs. I suggest you to spend some more time on outlining your blog post. That is the great time saving tip.
The triggering closures:
Time taken- 5 mins
Like the opening statement, the closing statement too is important. This is the last piece of your writing. So have one last chance for triggering them.
You can have a set of templates for the closure statements. And finalise so quickly.
Some tips on concluding statements:
- Include a Call to Action (CTA)
- CTA may be asking for a comment, share, like, email signup etc.
- Another specific CTA includes
- If you want your reader to call, highlight your number or toll-free number
- If your selling products, include your brochure
- If you’re into selling physical products, include your address, store locations and other contact information
Crafting your awesome Headlines:
Headlines are the first things people see, read or hear. This Is the first impression point.
“First impression is the best impression.”
This is the first step in persuading your readers. Read this tutorial on how to craft a unique headline for your blog post. and apply that principle here.
You have to address the main points of the headers
- Get attention.
- Deliver a complete message.
- Draw the reader into the body copy.
You may be asking how to write this in 5 minutes. I have a predefined template pack for my headers and I select the one I needed for that occasion. This is my secret recipe for doing this soon.
Here is the final glimpse of this whole blog post.
| S. No | Day | To do list | Time taken |
| 1 | Day -1 | Research | 10 Minutes |
| 2 | Day -2 | First draft- outline | 10 Minutes |
| 3 | Day -2 | Opening statement | 5 Minutes |
| 4 | Day -2 | Main idea/theme | 10 Minutes |
| 5 | Day -2 | Triggering | 5 Minutes |
| 6 | Day-2 | Headlines | 5 Minutes |
| 7 | Day-3 | graphics | 5 Minutes |
| 8 | Day-3 | Editing | 10 Minutes |
| 9 | Day 4 | Final proof reading | 10 Minutes |
| 10 | Day 4 | Scheduling/publishing | 10 Minutes |
Here is the timeline to keep in mind. I don’t write, edit and publish the blog post on the same day. There is a reason behind this. sometimes you will get overwhelmed with the research phase or you might feel frustrated by your first draft. It is the time to walk away.
Just distance yourself from writing. Divert yourself by talking to your friend or doing something that you really love to do. To get a great copy you first need to think and then you have to rethink after sometime.
So that your brain becomes fresh and you will come up great words and brilliant ideas.
This is why I don’t write and edit on the same day.
Its time to rewrite and proof read:
When your ugly first draft is done. You start to rewrite with the fresh ideas you gained and proof read your post again.
Humour comes on the rewriting phase. Replace some words. Use Hemingway app for proof reading. This app lets you know what is the readability of your blog post.
Hurray! your blog post is now ready for the race!
Create a content publishing calendar and start publishing.
Tools I use for writing a blog post (Productivity tools):
I use Trello to organise my blog post writing process. Here is an image of how I store my data.
I always suggest doing one step at a time. Planning is the master of all art. Plan your workflow to make it easy peasy.
Hope this blog post covers the every aspect of writing a blog post. Right from planning till proof reading and managing is been covered here.
Over to you:
How much do you spend for writing a 2000 word article? How do you manage your writing process. Comment below and share your interesting tips.
I have burnt 1000 calories to write this article. One kind request to share this with friends if you like it.
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