1. Draw from your buyer personas and what you know about your audience.

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How deep will their knowledge be? Will this blog interest senior leaders in the field? Or will it suit newcomers? The style and tone of your blog should be appropriate for your audience. For example, a senior construction estimator may be interested to learn about upcoming trends in the construction industry. Whereas, a junior employee in construction work may be interested in understanding the basic industry terms. 

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2. Draw from the content strategy and keyword brainstorm list

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Blogs that are central to our content strategy will be published toward the end of the process to rank the website higher. 

The rationale is to first discover what users are searching for, and then write articles around these terms. At present, we're writing articles that cater to the needs and the questions being raised by visitors.

Use the Keyword Brainstorm list to generate topics for your articles. This will give you a good starting point for the content you need to write. Work from there. 

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3. Identify what your competitors are missing

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Search the targeted Keywords in Google and visit the top 3 results.

What gaps appear in your competitors' articles? What’s missing?

Is there something that one of your competitors writes about that the other two top results don’t? Is there something else that the other two write about that the third does not? Include all the information in your article. 

You want to answer a question or fulfil a need that isn’t being answered in the existing results. While it’s hard to beat a saturated search query, an article that’s saturated with answers & information is most likely to do it. 
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4. Choose what type of blog post you're writing.

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Broadly speaking, there are six main types of blog posts: 

• List posts
• How-to posts
• Why or what is posts
• Newsjacking posts
• Infographic posts
• Pillar Page Post (Ultimate Guide)

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5. Create a few working titles. Choose one later.

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Titles have a lot of work to do in just a few words! They should: 

Create intrigue without revealing too much

Clearly explain what the reader should expect, while leaving them wanting to know more.

Create three to four titles first, then later come back to choose a winner. 

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6. Draft your sub-headings. The all important H2 & H3.

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Like scaffolding placed on the outside of a building, sub-headings are the support structure that allow you to build out your piece. They are a great place to start before diving into the actual writing. They're also super important for SEO when the piece is ready to be published. 

They should: 

Organize your thoughts and give the reader a sense of what they should expect in the section they are about to read

Support the overall theme of your post

Most importantly they need to be Keyword Rich 

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7. Write your post! 

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Perhaps the most difficult piece to teach, there are a few tips to follow.

To start, keep it simple. 

Write one sentence per line. (https://sive.rs/1s) 

Ideate first, then refine. 

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8. Answer all questions. 

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Refer to the content strategy. Or break open a new tab. Google the keyword you're targeting and make sure you're answering any and all questions that Google suggests on the results page. 

For example, writing an article about how to take care of a lawn in winter? Make sure to answer the questions "Can you mow grass when it's wet?" & "Can you cut grass in December? 

Referring to Google's suggested questions is not only a great way to create great content and beat out the competition. It's also a great way to add inspiration when you've exhausted your creative muscle as you near the end of a piece. 

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9. Keep it simple and scannable

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Like most people in 2022, your readers are probably very busy. They don’t have time to wade through long, complicated sentences or paragraphs. it should come as no surprise that the average person only reads 20-28% of the words on a given web page.  

Keep your language scannable. 

Write short paragraphs - no longer than 3-4 lines. 

Readers will not only skip huge sections of your content to find what they need. They will even skim through the actual sub-headings before deciding whether to invest their time in a paragraph. 

So break up sentences. 

Create headers that clearly describe what the reader should expect to find in the paragraph ahead. 

Use bullet points and lists. 

Use images, infographics, and videos to break up the text and keep the reader engaged.

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10. Edit your post

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If you're writing in pairs, or within a department this is a great time to take a break and fire off your work to a colleague. 

If you're working on your own, get up and move around, grab a cup of tea or coffee and sit back down. 

It's such an important part of the process to spot mistakes, poor grammar, or unclear thinking that's made its way on to the page. Act like a Stoic - take all feedback (even if it's coming from yourself!) as an opportunity to create something that's even better. 

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11. Add images & other media assets to support the content.

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Firstly, a good header image is vital. This will be used for the microcontent related to your blog and will also form part of the auto-generated preview when shared on social media. 

Next, consider inline images embedded within the blog post. Embedded images support the text and make your post more visually appealing. They also break up blocks of text and make your post more scannable. 

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12. Choose the call to action to be placed alongside post on website.

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Decide what you want users to do next. Is this a general guide for the average user? Offer more content that goes further in depth. Is this detailed information for your target audience? Link to a signup or lead-magnet where the user can download more information. 

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13. Choose internal links to other relevant site content

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Choose other website articles, guides or resources that users might find useful. Add links in your content to drive visitors to these items. Importantly, if the piece of content you are writing is a piece of cluster content, make sure to link to the appropriate pillar page you are trying to rank. 

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14. Choose external links to authoritative sites

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Choose external links that help support your article. These sites could be industry leaders in a particular field or niche, well-known thought leaders, or even partners targeting the same audience or demographic.

Not only does it help to add credibility to your article as you are referencing other experts in the field - it also lets Google know the niche that you are connected to.

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15. Complete the On-Page SEO Checklist

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• - URL domain.com/keyword-idea
• - Headers (H1, H2, H3) ‘Keyword Idea’
• - Body - ‘keyword idea’
• - Anchor text for ‘additional ‘keyword idea’ click here’
• - Images ‘keyword-idea.jpg’ - alt tag
• - Answer Related Questions
• - Outbound Links (2 to 3)
• - Metadata

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16. Hand over for publishing!

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Now that your piece of content is complete, the next and final step is uploading to the website CMS. 

When part of a good content & SEO strategy you'll find yourself reviewing the performance of your content over time. Returning to improve, update, and keep it fresh!

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