Starting a blog on your website: tips to help you get started
Have you ever thought about starting a blog on your website? If you have, just bite the bullet and go for it. If you have not, it might be something you want to consider…
Among various other benefits, blogs give you the opportunity to offer your expertise on a topic (or topics), increase engagement, and build your brand. A blog can help to build a community around your brand and engage with your audience in a different way.
If you are struggling to get started, the tips below may help to give you a push in the right direction.
Have a clear goal for what message you want readers to receive
Write with a purpose; you don’t want people to come away from reading your post not understanding what the point of it was.
A few tips to ensure clarity:
The grandma check (also sometimes known as the 5th grader check, etc.): read your blog and then think to yourself, would my grandma, or my 5th grader, be able to grasp the takeaway from this? Even if the subject matter is highly technical, you should be able to empathize with bold, italics, or graphics what the main message of the blog is so that people can find it.
Don’t assume people know all of the industry lingo; define important terms so readers can easily keep up.
Start with an outline or template; laying out the order you want to present your thoughts will help you to maintain an organized flow. If you’re jumping all over the place, readers will likely get lost and struggle to understand what you’re trying to say.
Get to the point
More is not always better. You don’t want your readers to lose interest before getting to the point of the piece. Leave out the fluff that sometimes feels necessary to include to make the writing feel substantial. Just think about your own preferences; would you rather read a five page article that could have gotten the same message across in just a page, or just the one page?
Another important point is that more concise thoughts are often easier to digest. Your writing does no good if your audience is unable to understand the intended message because they’ve gotten lost along the way.
Some key ways you can make sure you’re getting to the point:
Write your conclusion first and work backwards; you might find an easier route to your main point when you already have the destination in mind.
Think about the tone of voice that you’re using; if you’re writing a longer blog, can you make it easier to reach the end point by using casual, more approachable language?
Leverage visuals to help make sure your audience gets the key points quickly and simply; if possible, see if you can summarize your blog in an infographic, a few bolded bullet points, etc.
Think of an engaging title
The title is the first thing your audience sees, so it must entice them to learn more. If it fails to intrigue them, all of your hard work in writing the piece will go to waste.
Well, not entirely… but, you get the point.
Be clear about what it offers readers, but try to be creative! It’s worth the extra effort, and will likely even help with your search engine optimization (SEO), as well.
Some tips for coming up with strong titles:
If your friend asked you what the blog was about, how would you say it? Using an approachable title makes the introduction to your blog feel friendlier (if that’s what you’re going for).
Make sure the title speaks to your key point(s); like we said, get to the point.
If there’s something of value in the blog, make it known upfront in a title or subtitle; for example, if you’re including a downloadable guide, a few key tips, or a thorough list that someone can actually use, then make sure they know that gift is wrapped up in your blog!
Do not just make observations, but offer solutions, as well
Avoid just pointing out problems; make sure to offer suggestions, as well, for how to combat the barriers that you discuss. It does your audience no good to solely be made aware of issues but not be given any resources to actually address them.
Offer one-pagers that users can download and refer back to
One-pagers can help to build trust with your audience. If you give them something to have readily at their fingertips and be able to refer back to, they will learn to seek out your advice, and they’ll have an easy way to share the same content with colleagues.
Establish a posting schedule to stay on track with consistent uploads
You may have heard this one before… consistency is key. Regularly offer your audience new content to keep your brand at the top of mind. A posting schedule will help you to accomplish this; give yourself deadlines and be disciplined about sticking to them. If you constantly have new content to offer your followers, you will likely be more successful at creating buzz around your posts and getting your audience excited about your latest updates.
So, start the blog – share your expertise and get your thoughts out there!
If you liked this blog, you might also like…
