Category Archives: Blog Publishing

How to Write a Blog Post with Unique Insights

Writing blog posts with useful insights

Writing blog posts with useful insights

There are millions of blog posts published every day. On top of that, people are writing entry level blog posts using ChatGPT and Bard from Google by the dozens every day. With so much content readily available, how do you stand out. By publishing unique insights that your readers will not find anywhere else.

Writing and publishing blog posts with unique insights shows your readers that you are an expert in your field. This in turn builds trust and credibility. Trust and credibility lead to more readers and more sales.

Writing blog posts with unique perspective is also good for your SEO. Unique insights help you attract backlinks. Since the information you have published is available only on your website, other website owners want to link to your content for the value and information that you are providing. This boosts your blog’s search engine optimization efforts.

Search engines by themselves prefer unique, high-quality content. By writing blog posts with unique insights, you increase the likelihood of your blog posts being indexed and ranked faster, and higher in search engine results. Original content gets more preference by search engines.

Continuously writing and publishing unique insights provides a compelling reason to your readers to return to your blog. You build a loyal audience that appreciates your unique voice and expertise. Regular visitors are easy to engage. They subscribe to your blog. They share your content. They also become advocates of your brand.

How do you write and publish blog posts with unique insights? Here are a few things you can do.

Understand your target audience

  • Research your target audience’s interests, preferences, and pain points.
  • Identify knowledge gaps or areas where unique insights are lacking.

For insightful blog writing, publish blog posts that are relevant and engaging to your target audience. To achieve that, you need to understand them. You need to understand their interests, preferences, and pain points.

Once you have understood your audience, identify knowledge gaps or areas where unique insights are lacking. This will help you write informative and valuable blog posts.

How do you understand your target audience?

Do research

Your website analytics is a good place to begin. Where does most of your traffic come from? What search terms or queries do people use to find your content? This will tell you what information people are looking for or whether you have optimized your content for the right audience or not.

Look at the performance of your past blog posts and analyze the engagement metrics. Pay attention to which topics, formats, and styles resonate most with your audience.

You can interact with people on social media. Ask questions. Talk about their interests. What problems are they trying to solve?

You can also conduct surveys and interviews to get a more in-depth understanding of your audience’s needs and wants.

Monitor industry trends

Stay up-to-date with the latest trends, news, and developments in your industry. Identify emerging topics. Commenting on the leading conversations will help you position yourself as a thought leader.

You can also observe conversations in online communities, forums and publications. Gain inspiration from conversations that are outside of your echo chamber. What are people talking about in related industries?

Identify their pain points

What challenges are they facing? What are their biggest frustrations. Once you know what they are struggling with, you can provide them solutions through your insightful blog writing.

Find out what your audience is interested in

What do they read? What are they talk about on social media? What are their hobbies and interests? These will help you understand your audience better. It may not directly impact your blog writing, but you will gain a perspective, and this will certainly help you mold your language.

Stay informed and engaged for writing insightful blog posts

  • Follow industry news, trends, and emerging topics.
  • Engage in discussions and forums related to your niche.
  • Subscribe to newsletters, blogs, and podcasts that provide valuable insights.

You can follow industry news and trends by regularly reading industry-specific publications, both online and off-line. You can stay updated on the latest news, trends, and developments in your field. How do you do that?

For starters, you can use Google Alerts. In Google Alerts you can set up certain keywords and terms around which when content is published, you get an alert in your inbox. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds of different online publications. You can closely follow industry leaders on specific topics of interest.

There is social media of course. Closely follow conversations on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay informed. You can get updates in real-time.

You can join online communities and discussion forums to engage with people and get a pulse of what’s going on in your industry. There are many social media groups related to your niche.

Prepare a list of influential blogs, newsletters and podcast in your industry that consistently provide valuable insights. Set aside some time to read or listen to such content to update yourself.

You can also attend events that bring industry professionals together. During such get-togethers and workshops, you can build relationships with other professionals in your field and then later keep in touch with them for expert opinions and valuable insights. You can also connect with influencers and experts through social media platforms, particularly LinkedIn and Twitter.

Don’t want to rely on existing content? You can conduct your own original research. This will help you uncover unique insights that are not available elsewhere. With the help of surveys, interviews, and case studies, you can obtain valuable data and information. Gather data over a long period of time and then present data-driven insights to your audience.

Conduct original research for writing insightful blog posts

  • Design and execute surveys, interviews, or case studies.
  • Gather data and analyze it to uncover unique findings.
  • Present your research results in a clear and concise manner.

By designing and executing surveys, interviews, or case studies, you can gather data to uncover new findings that support your arguments.

How do you conduct original research to write blog posts with unique insights?

Design your research

Your research must have an objective. You must know what the purpose of your research is and what you want to obtain out of the several questions you mean to ask people.

Your research method is equally important. The best research method is based on your specific goals. If you want to collect data from many people, you need to conduct a survey. For an in-depth understanding of a topic, interviewing them is the way to go. If you want to learn more about how something works or to identify potential problems, going through case studies is your best option.

Formulate research questions and hypothesis so that you can create specific and focused questions. You need them to collect necessary data. You may like to keep the following points in mind:

  • Start with the research objective: what do you want to learn?
  • Bring down your research objective into smaller, more specific questions.
  • Make sure that your questions are answerable.
  • Make sure your questions are relevant to your research objective.

Share personal experiences for writing blog posts with useful insights

  • Draw from your own experiences to provide unique perspective.
  • Offer real-life examples and anecdotes that resonate with readers.
  • Discuss challenges, lessons learned, and actionable takeaways.

By drawing from your own experiences, you can provide a unique perspective. You can share relatable examples and valuable insights.

For maximum effect,  identify relevant experiences. Determine which of your experiences are relevant to your blog’s niche in the topic you are addressing. You want to share with your audience the lessons you have learned, and the insights you have obtained. You want to share stories and anecdotes they can relate to. The stories and anecdotes complement the theme of your blog post.

A good thing about sharing your experiences is that you are the only person who has had these experiences. You offer a unique and fresh perspective on the topic you are writing on. This will help your audience understand a different viewpoint that they may have never considered before. Share your details with emotions. Talk about the challenges you faced and how you overcame those challenges.

Provide actionable takeaways based on your personal experiences. Present a list of practical advice, tips, and strategies that work in your case and may also work for others. Give them a roadmap that they can instantly follow.

Be authentic – very important. Your story represents YOU. Be genuine and authentic when sharing personal experiences. Avoid exaggeration and embellishments. Remember that readers can instantly sense inauthenticity.

Since these are real-life examples, they will be more believable. If something has worked for you, it can also work for your readers.

Leverage data and analytics for writing insightful blog posts

  • Utilize tools like Google Analytics to identify popular topics and keywords.
  • Analyze user behavior and engagement metrics to understand what resonates with your audience.
  • Use data-driven insights to craft unique and compelling content.

You can write insightful blog posts that resonate with your audience by using data analytics. For that, you can start with Google Analytics. You will need to setup and configure Google analytics so that it tracks and measures traffic and other metrics on your blog. You can gain insights such as traffic sources, page views, bounce rate, average time spent on page, and the search queries being used to find your content.

You can identify popular topics on your blog with Google Analytics.  Which blog topics attract the most organic traffic to your blog? This will help you find out which type of content resonates with your audience, and you can generate new ideas accordingly for your future blog posts.

Google Analytics, or another analytics tools can help you analyze user behavior further. What is the click through rate? What is the scroll depth – how far a user has scrolled down a web page or blog post? What is the conversion rate?

You can prepare an Excel sheet and make a list of high-performance blog posts – blog posts that receive significant user engagement through search traffic or social sharing. Figure out why these posts are successful compared to other posts. Do more people leave comments? Do more people share these successful posts?

By gathering data and analytics, you can incorporate the insights into your blog’s content strategy.

Engage with thought leaders for writing insightful blog posts

  • Connect with influencers, experts, and thought leaders in your industry.
  • Interview them or feature their perspectives in your blog post.
  • Incorporate their insights to add credibility and authority to your content.

Thought leaders are individuals who are experts in their field and have a large social following. By interacting with influencers, experts, and thought leaders in your industry, you can gain access to the knowledge and perspectives, adding credibility and authority to your content. How do you engage and connect with thought leaders?

Identify key influencers and experts in your industry. It’s better if they have a strong online presence and a significant following. They may not respond out of the blues. Follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter or another platform they are active on. Engage with their content. Leave comments. Share their posts. Share your own thoughts. Add value to their threads. This will help you establish a connection and grab their attention.

Once you have established a connection with them, you can send them personalized, concise, and professional messages expressing your interest in collaborating, featuring them on your blog post. Explain to them clearly what value they can bring to your content and how much you appreciate their expert opinion. Clearly communicate specific topics or angles you would like to explore with them. If possible, send them some examples of your previous collaborations.

When the thought leaders you have approached agree for an interview, prepare a well-thought-out set of questions that will delve deep into their area of expertise. Remember you want to extract unique insights that people may find difficult to obtain from other online sources. Formulate your questions accordingly.

Even if you cannot directly interview them, they must publish lots of insightful content on their own blogs or social media timelines. You can feature their blog posts and social media updates on your blog. You can cite their work and research publications in reputed magazines. Remember to give them credit for their contributions.

Draw inspiration from different sources to write blog posts with useful insights

  • Read books, articles, and studies outside your niche to gain diverse perspectives.
  • Explore unrelated industries or disciplines for unique insights.
  • Combine ideas from different sources to create a fresh approach.

How do you draw inspiration from different sources to write insightful blog posts that stand out? You can read books, articles, and case studies. For example, you can read books on psychology, sociology, history, technology, or related fields to gain in-depth knowledge that you can then share with your blog readers. This can be immensely helpful especially when most of the bloggers regurgitate information present on other blogs.

You can also explore unrelated industries and disciplines that may be remotely connected to your niche. Look for parallels, metaphors, or analogies that can be drawn between your niche and other industries. Cross-pollinate ideas. Come up with thought-provoking blog post.

Actively participate in conversations, discussions, and networking events, both online and off-line. Engage with professionals, thought leaders, and experts from different backgrounds to get inspiration and ideas. The diverse viewpoints and experiences of others can inspire new ways of thinking and spark creative ideas for your blog posts.

You can also combine ideas from different sources to give them a new twist. You can take inspiration from multiple sources and create a unique mash up with an entirely new insight.

Read widely. Explore unrelated topics. Be open to new ideas even if at the outset they seem completely alien.

Conduct comparative analysis for writing insightful blog posts

  • Compare and contrast different approaches, methodologies, or theories.
  • Highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective.
  • Your own unique synthesis or opinion on the topic.

By comparing and contrasting different approaches, methodologies, theories, and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses, you can offer readers a comprehensive understanding of your topic. How do you conduct a comparative analysis?

Identify multiple approaches, methodologies, or theories related to your blog post topic. They can be different schools of thought, strategies, or frameworks. Analyze their key elements, principles, or components for each approach. Identify what is similar and what is different.

Once you have identified the perspectives you want to focus on, highlight their strengths and weaknesses. Consider factors such as effectiveness, applicability, limitations, and potential drawbacks. List advantages and benefits of each perspective. Also discuss their limitations and shortcomings.

Simply listing the different attributes won’t to give you unique insights. Finally, you need to offer your own unique synthesis or perspective. Provide insights and recommendations based on your understanding. Which approaches or elements do you recommend? Which approaches and elements you don’t recommend.

Back up your comparative analysis with supporting evidence and examples. You can cite studies, research papers, case studies and observations made by the experts in your field. You can link to data, statistics and expert opinion.

Comparative analysis offers readers a comprehensive understanding of a topic by comparing different approaches, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, and providing your own synthesis or opinion. Supporting your analysis with evidence and presenting information in a structured manner enhances clarity and readability for readers seeking informed decisions and deeper insights.

Encourage dialogue and feedback for writing insightful blog posts

  • Invite readers to share their thoughts, opinions, and experiences in the comments section.
  • Respond to comments and engage in meaningful discussions.
  • Use reader feedback to refine your insights and provide more value.

Encourage readers to participate in the conversation by explicitly asking them for their thoughts, opinions, or experiences related to your blog post topic. You can use open-ended questions to prom readers to share their thoughts. Ask them how they have tackled similar challenges or if they have alternative perspectives on the topic.

Create a positive environment so that they feel welcome. Foster respect and constructive dialogue. Clearly state your expectations for commenters to engage in respectful and relevant discussions. You can also moderate comments to remove spam or abusive language.

Since you are inviting your readers to leave comments, take the time to respond to the comments. Acknowledge the contributions and show appreciation for the insights.

If they ask questions, provide answers. Provide clarifications when they are sought. This demonstrates your commitment to engage.

People don’t always have to agree with you. Encourage constructive criticism and diverse perspectives. Respond to criticism with an open mind.

Use feedback to refine your insights. Pay attention to the feedback and incorporate the insights into existing and new blog posts.

You can also engage people on social media platforms and other online channels. Don’t confine your conversations within your own blog. Respond to comments, shares, inventions on your social media profiles.

Conclusion

To write insightful blog posts, research your audience, provide unique perspectives, back up your claims with evidence, and engage in meaningful conversations with readers.

15 ways you never run out of blogging ideas

Image showing a long road captioned never running out of blogging ideas

Whether you’re running a personal blog or a business blog the success of your blog lies in the fact that you are able to publish regularly without running out of blogging ideas.

Regularity may differ from person to person and business to business, but the more you publish, the better people remember you.

Topics discussed in this blog post include

  1. Take ideas from your existing blog posts
  2. Ask questions from your customers and clients
  3. Use newsjacking to make your blog posts more relevant and topical
  4. Maintain an editorial calendar
  5. Maintain an ideas file
  6. Write multiple blog posts at a time without worrying about completing them
  7. Ask your blog visitors
  8. Use Quora to do research on blogging ideas
  9. Create Google alerts
  10. Use keyword research tools
  11. Use the FAQs of other websites in your niche
  12. Use social media and social networking websites
  13. Use news aggregators
  14. Use Google analytics data
  15. Invite guest bloggers to write for your blog

Although, ideally, it is the quality of your blogging that leaves an imprint on people’s minds, it should also be mixed with frequency.

For example, great blog posts published every day are better for your business rather than great blog posts published every week, every fortnight or every month.

This is slightly an old survey but the challenge of producing great content on an ongoing basis remains around 65% (source).

This means that when it comes to implementing a result-oriented content marketing strategy, the biggest challenge faced by small as well as big business remains continuously coming up with great stuff to write about or talk about.

You may have an awesome beginning but soon you start wondering, okay, what to write about?

You begin to run out of blogging ideas.

This problem isn’t just faced by novice bloggers or bloggers who are blogging half-heartedly just because they think that blogging is good for their business without understanding why.

Even seasoned bloggers, the so-called a-list bloggers also now and then run out of blogging ideas.

What do they do?

They have a system.

The same system I use as a professional content writer while coming up with great blogging ideas for my clients.

These 15 ways will make sure you never run out of blogging ideas

1. Take ideas from your existing blog posts

Many of your blog posts have subtopics and you can always stretch the subtopics into full-fledged blog posts.

Even the bulleted lists may contain new blogging opportunities.

For example, I can use this very bullet point to write a blog post on “How to create new blog posts from your existing blog posts”.

2. Ask questions from your customers and clients

In fact this is the best way of coming up with new topics because as long as customers and clients are doing business with you they are going to have one or another issue and some concern that needs to be looked into.

Ask them questions, turn them into blogging format and create new blog posts providing answers to those questions and this is one of the best way of never running out of blogging ideas.

3. Use newsjacking to make your blog posts more relevant and topical

News is always happening.

If somehow you can create a spin in order to contextually attach the news to your business topic it can do wonders to your inbound marketing efforts.

Suppose a big snowstorm is coming up and the news is all over.

Suppose you sell batteries.

How about creating a blog post that advises people how to prolong battery life during such emergencies?

Here is a blog post that explains what is newsjacking and how to use it for content marketing.

4. Maintain an editorial calendar

Sometimes you run out of blogging ideas because you don’t know what to do on a particular day.

If you have an editorial calendar you always have a topic to write about.

In the beginning of every month chart out your editorial calendar and then stick to it. Read here about the importance of maintaining a content marketing calendar.

5. Maintain an ideas file

This is something like an editorial calendar but you can also do it roughly.

You can use Evernote or Google Keep or even something like ToDoist to maintain lists of blog post ideas that you would like to work on.

6. Write multiple blog posts at a time without worrying about completing them

It slows you down when you worry too much about completing a particular blog post.

Once you have lots of topics with you just keep on adding your thoughts as they hit you.

Evernote can come quite handy in this regard.

Create a dedicated note to particular blog topic and then keep on adding text to it or the research data that you need to use with the blog post.

7. Ask your blog visitors

Many bloggers have a dedicated form on their blogs to ask the visitors what all they would like to read.

This is something like crowdsourcing the generation of your blogging ideas.

8. Use Quora to do research on blogging ideas

People post great questions on Quora – the crowd sourced question-answer website with immense wealth of knowledge.

You can go through the questions being asked in your niche and instead of answering those questions on Quora you can answer them on your own blog.

9. Create Google alerts

People are constantly posting content on the Internet and as this content is posted, you can immediately get email alerts with the links and description of the content.

Just Google alerts can keep you going for many months without running out of blogging ideas.

10. Use keyword research tools

By using these tools – some free and some premium – you can find various combinations of keywords relevant to your niche and this can help you create blogging topics.

Remember that it’s important to create blog topics with your main keywords as much as possible without needlessly stuffing them.

A good example of an online keyword research tool is the Google keyword planner.

11. Use the FAQs of other websites in your niche

Regularly visit the websites of your competitors and see what all topics, especially in the FAQs section, they have covered and then create blogging topics out of those questions and answers.

12. Use social media and social networking websites

You can use something like Hootsuite to create a dedicated column posting updates about your niche.

For example, I’m constantly getting new updates on “content marketing”, “content writing”, “SEO content” and so on in a separate column and from that column I get lots of blogging ideas.

13. Use news aggregators

News aggregators like Feedly, Alltop, Prismatic and Flipboard can constantly supply you with new blogging ideas in your niche.

Some of these platforms also tell you how popular some of the topics are and you can create your blogging ideas accordingly.

14. Use Google Analytics data

If you have a blog you also must have Google analytics script on it that tells you what sort of traffic comes to your blog.

One section in your Google Analytics also tells you what keywords and search phrases are drawing traffic to your blog and you can use this information to create blog content.

15. Invite guest bloggers to write for your blog

This happens when your blog has become a bit known in your niche and people would like to highlight their content on your blog.

For this you need to cross a certain threshold level but once you have done that, it is a great way to make sure that you never run out of blogging ideas.

In fact, once you start inviting guest bloggers you will have to exercise discretion and be careful about what to publish and what not to publish.

Once you have seriously started blogging it’s just a matter of being sensitive towards receiving new blogging ideas.

I have personally observed that when I am blogging regularly I rarely run out of blogging ideas because consciously and subconsciously I’m constantly looking for new things to write about.

How to make it easier for people to read your blog posts

How to make it easier to read your blog

How to make it easier to read your blog

How do you make it easier for people to read your blog posts?

Making people read your blog posts can be one of the biggest challenges you face as a blogger or as a blog writer.

Whether you write for your own blog or for your clients, you want people to read what you write.

It is not blog post ideation.

It is not publishing.

It is not even promoting your blog.

It is making people read your blog posts.

Everybody is in a great hurry.

There is an onslaught of content on the Internet.

7.5 million blog posts are published every day combining all the platforms.

Not just blog posts.

Humongous amount of content is published per minute.

With all this deluge of content, people read your blog posts only when it is absolutely essential for them to read them and if they don’t read them, they won’t be able to achieve something crucial.

Go to Google and search for “blogging tips” and see how many results come up.

How do you choose which link to click?

33% people click the first three links.

Even if a majority of people click the first three links, very few have the patience to read complete blog posts.

I’m not saying you just write points and skip the main content.

There is a way you can make it easier for people to quickly go through your blog posts.

People skim through blog posts, they rarely read

It is said that within the first 30-50 seconds your visitors should be able to make out what the blog post says.

They quickly see the headline.

This skim through the subheadings.

They go through the bullet points.

They read the quotes.

They view the pictures.

And then they quickly leave your blog to visit other, similar blogs.

Even if people don’t read the entire text of your blog post, you can format your blog post in such a manner that people consume the maximum amount of content.

Here is what you can do.

Present your main proposition through the headline

The headline tells people what your blog post offers.

It tells what they’re going to gain when they read your blog post.

It attracts people to your blog post.

It gives them a reason to scroll down and read the remaining text.

If the headline is not inspiring enough, they won’t stay.

Many people leave your blog just after reading the headline because the headline doesn’t captivate them, it doesn’t hook them.

The headline of this blog post is quite straightforward: How to make it easier for people to read your blog posts.

There is no ambiguity.

You exactly know what the blog post is going to tell you.

If you want to learn how to make it easier for people to read your blog posts, you are going to stay and make some effort to read.

Otherwise, you will leave.

End of story.

Write single-sentence paragraphs

Single-sentence paragraphs are less intimidating than big chunks of text.

Just capture one thought in one sentence.

Have one sentence in one paragraph.

Use lots of white space that gives the impression that one is having to read less.

Sentences with lots of white space are also easier to read on mobile phones.

Express important points through subheadings

You may like to read: How to use subheadings to make your writing more effective

You can see that this blog post has multiple subheadings.

The subheadings are in a larger font type compared to the body text.

They immediately stand out.

They convey to you the main point of the smaller text.

By merely going through the subheadings, you can make out all the important points that I’m discussing in this blog post.

You should write the subheadings in such a manner that by merely going through them, your reader can get the complete gist of what all your covering.

Avoid covering too many topics in a single blog post

I have seen many bloggers do that to write longer blog posts.

There is an SEO rumour: the longer your post is, the better are its chances of ranking higher on Google.

Google says it is not true.

Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t).

Nonetheless, just to make sure that a blog post is more than 1000 words, or more than 2000 words, bloggers include many redundant topics that don’t belong to that particular blog post.

Even I have done that many times.

But now I’m going against my own advice.

Write smaller blog posts.

Stick to the main topic.

Give enough information.

Don’t needlessly extend your blog posts.

I will give you my own example: I never read complete blog posts on other blogs that run into 2000-3000 words.

I just quickly look at the information I’m searching for and then move on.

Make the most important point in the beginning itself

Just to make sure that your readers don’t miss out on the most important thing you want to convey to them, say it in the beginning itself.

If you feel that you need to create a narrative and then after you have made people read a few hundred words only then you will come to the main point, you are mistaken.

People may not go that far.

Hence, whatever you want to say, say it within the first 100 words

Use bulleted lists

Bulleted lists

  • Are easier to skim through.
  • Need little text.
  • Allow you to make pointed observations.
  • Are easier to remember.

Some bloggers use very long sentences in bulleted lists, which is not advised.

They even use complete paragraphs which, again, is not advised.

Try to keep each bullet points not more than 5-10 words.

Use block quotes to highlight important points

If you scroll up a bit, I have quoted from a Google link using block quotes.

In case you want people to notice a chunk of text while quickly skimming through your blog post, enclose it within block quotes.

It immediately becomes visible and catches attention.

Use images to make important points

Very few people miss images.

Insert the images around your key points so that when people view the images, they also read your important text.

In fact, whenever you are making an important point that you don’t want people to miss, use a relevant image above or below.

People may not read your complete blog post if they really don’t want to, but the tips mentioned above will help you make them read most of your blog post.

What is the difference between blog writing and content writing?

Difference between blog writing and content writing

Difference between blog writing and content writing

I’m answering this question because people seem to be asking it on Quora what is the difference between blog writing and content writing, otherwise, there is a very thin line between being a blog writer and a content writer.

Every content writer can be a blog writer but can a writer providing blog writing services also provide content writing?

This is a tricky question.

I don’t mean to undermine any form of writing, but in terms of increasing expertise, I would like to arrange different categories of writing as

  • Blog writing
  • Content writing
  • Copywriting

I will tell you why.

Right now, on an average I am working with 15 content writers.

Some of them are very good at blog writing.

Some do good content writing.

None can do copywriting.

Copywriting services are needed for writing the main website content.

It is different from merely writing content or blog posts.

Not a single writer has been able to satisfy my clients when it comes to writing content for websites.

But for this blog post, I’m solely focusing on blog writing and content writing.

Difference between blog writing and content writing

Blog writing can be a habit.

It can be a passion.

You can write a personal blog sharing your opinions on politics, environment, literature, philosophy, and any other topic that catches your fancy and inspires you to write regularly.

Blog writing is less formal and more conversational.

A blog can be written by a person who is not a trained writer and still make a good impact.

Blog writing is not a profession whereas, content writing is.

It doesn’t mean you can provide content writing services and not blog writing services.

I offer blog writing services to many clients.

Just like content writing, blogging can be professional too.

Almost every business that has a website also has a blog.

Businesses hire content writing services for blog writing on regular basis.

Blogging is good for maintaining buzz around your business.

It improves search engine rankings because Google prefers blogs over conventional websites.

This is because blogs have fresh content, and they are updated regularly.

Most of the content on conventional websites is static.

There is really something fresh to offer to Google from websites.

Whereas when it comes to blogs, since they are constantly being updated, there is always something new to offer.

Therefore, most of the businesses and entrepreneurs try to publish a blog regularly to improve their search engine rankings.

Blogs can be written on different topics.

Every subtopic can have its own unique blog post.

This gives people an opportunity to write and publish lots of content.

Sometimes quality of writing is compromised but still, much benefit can be derived as long as the readers find value in the writing.

To quickly wrap up, a content writer can write a blog post but not every blog writer can write content for websites.

Since I have been writing professional content for the past 17 years, I can quickly wear different hats and provide my services as a blog writer, a content writer, and a copywriter.

Compared to blog writing, content writing is formal.

When you are writing content for the main website, you also need to have copywriting skills because your writing is supposed to generate business for the website owners.

6 tips for writing meaningful blog posts

Tips on writing a meaningful blog post

Tips on writing a meaningful blog post

This blog post talks about tips on how to write meaningful and captivating blog posts that are human-centric.

The main points covered in this blog include

  1. Write down the purpose of your current blog post
  2. Keep your title, headline and the text, aligned
  3. Do enough research to make your blog posts authoritative
  4. Write an outline first
  5. Don’t unnecessarily stretch your blog
  6. Make your blog post easily readable

In my previous post I wrote about Google’s “helpful content” algorithm update.

Once this update is active, websites that focus more on search engine rankings and less on the relevancy and quality of content, will lose their rankings.

If search engine rankings from Google matter to you, then you must write and publish content (that also includes blog posts) that is relevant to your readers.

This means writing meaningful blog posts that solve a definite purpose and deliver value to the visitors.

What is the purpose of publishing blog posts?

Search engine traffic matters.

I will be frank here: most of the clients who approach me to write their blog posts have search engine optimization as their first most priority.

Yes, as they read more about Google algorithms, they understand the importance of quality and relevance of their content and hence, they want to publish meaningful blog posts.

But by the end of the day, their primary objective of publishing blog posts is to cover enough topics to improve their search engine visibility, or SEO.

Even Google must know that websites need search engine traffic to get business.

For example, if someone needs a blog writer, he or she is going to search for “looking for a blog writer for my business” on Google.

For this person to find my link, I must publish a web page or blog post describing my blog writing services.

Therefore, to an extent, one needs to write in a manner that makes it easier for Google to make sense of the content and then rank it accordingly.

In the realistic world, there are two reasons why businesses publish blog posts:

  • To give visitors a valid reason to visit the website or the blog as often as possible and through that, become familiar with the website and what it offers.
  • Improve search engine rankings.

Google prefers blogs (or websites) that have lots of content.

When you have covered multiple topics in your niche, it gives you content depth.

It conveys to Google that you have, sort of, developed an expertise on the topic, and therefore, your content should be highlighted for related search terms.

These are the reasons why businesses publish regular blog posts.

What I often suggest to my clients is use the language that is used by the target audience.

This automatically optimizes the blog content.

Tips on writing meaningful blog posts

In the context of writing your blog posts, you first need to understand and acknowledge what “meaningful” stands for you.

Google defines meaningful content as content that provides appropriate answers to the questions people ask.

When people don’t immediately leave your blog post and they read a major portion of it, it indicates that they have found what they were looking for.

They are deriving value out of it.

They get the solution they are looking for.

They can understand and read your blog comfortably.

You genuinely mean to impart useful and relevant information through your blog posts.

Listed below are some tips you can use to write meaningful blog posts for your blog.

1. Write down the purpose of your current blog post

This is a two-pronged approach: your blog post must have a purpose from your perspective and from the perspective of your readers.

What do YOU want to achieve through publishing a blog post and making your readers read it?

What should your readers achieve or accomplish once they have gone through your blog post?

Of course, there is the obvious objective that you want the maximum number of visitors to turn your paying customers and clients.

But this isn’t how the real-world works.

Every blog post must have a singular purpose.

For example, the purpose of this blog post is to share with you my knowledge of how to write meaningful blog posts.

When you implement these tips, my purpose is that you should be able to publish your own meaningful blog posts or even if you hire me as your blog writer, you should have an idea of how I will be writing your blog posts.

Writing an introduction may help you remain focused.

In the introduction you can write why you are writing the blog post and what you want to deliver to your readers.

You may like to read: What is blog post introduction and how to write a great one?

2. Keep your title, headline and the text, aligned

Click bait headlines are frowned upon by Google, and much more after the recent update.

There is a difference between your blog title and your blog headline.

Your blog title is what appears in search results as a highlighted hypertext that people click to visit your website or blog.

The job of your blog post title is to bring people from the search engines to your blog or website.

The headline is the big text that appears at the top of your blog post.

This is the name of your current blog post.

Ideally it appears within the <h1></h1> tags.

The job of your headline is to present a compelling reason to your visitors to read your blog post further.

When I say there must be an alignment between your title, headline and the main text, what I mean is, don’t mislead people into reading something that does not exist.

I again come back to this blog post: my purpose here is to share blog writing tips with you.

I’m not promoting my services.

I’m not promoting an affiliate product (although, AdSense ads appear, they are automatic and they appear with every blog post here).

The sole purpose of this blog post is to adhere to the objective of the headline: tips on writing meaningful blog posts.

3. Do enough research to make your blog posts authoritative

If you are a big agency or an established consultant, you can conduct your own research and publish the data.

If not, there are many authoritative websites that give you authoritative data.

What I mean to say is, always use data and numbers instead of random expressions.

For example, instead of saying “millions of blog posts are publish on WordPress every month” you can say “70 million blog posts are published on WordPress every month” and then link to the source.

As of 2022, there are 600 million blogs on the Internet, worldwide.

Your readers find numbers reassuring.

They are double reassured when they find out that you have taken these numbers from authoritative websites.

It also tells your readers that you make an effort when writing an awesome blog post for them.

4. Write an outline first

An outline helps you a lot if you are working on a longer blog post of around 2000 words.

You may like to read: 6 steps to writing the perfect blog post outline

Writing an outline renders clarity to your blog post.

It makes your blog post readable.

It streamlines its flow.

An outline makes sure that you don’t miss anything important.

It is basically the order of your topics – one beneath the other.

An outline helps you keep your thoughts organized.

It helps you build a narrative.

It is not necessary that you write an outline of your current blog post every time, but if you build a habit of writing an outline before writing a blog post, in the long run it will benefit you a lot.

5. Don’t unnecessarily stretch your blog post

Google says there is no correlation between your search engine rankings and the number of words you use to write your blog posts (source).

Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t).

Many Internet marketers advise you to write huge blog posts like containing 2000+ words.

To achieve this, many bloggers cram their blog posts with lots of additional information that is not relevant to the topic the user has searched for.

Instead, create highly focused blog posts dealing with a single topic.

Yes, you can give some background information.

But if a blog post can be written in 500 words, don’t use 2000 words.

People find so much information overwhelming.

They don’t even read such long blog posts.

They leave midway.

Isn’t it better to write just 500 words that makes it easier for people to read and derive value from your blog post?

6. Make your blog post easily readable

Divide various sections under headings and subheadings.

Write short sentences capturing one idea in one sentence.

Avoid using complex sentences.

Use bulleted points whenever you can.

If possible, use single-sentence paragraphs.

Link to other relevant sections of your blog or website instead of repeating your content.

Two types of people read your blog posts:

Those who quickly scan.

Those who read completely, even the finer text.

You format your blog post for both types of readers.

Use simple language – preferably language used by your readers.

Avoid using complex words.

Don’t use passive voice much.

Most of the people may be reading your blog posts on a mobile phone.

It is easier to read smaller sentences and words on mobile phones.

If they find it difficult to read your blog post, even if your blog post is meaningful, mentally they will get distracted and exhausted and stop reading.

They may be in a state of distraction.

They may not have enough time or patience to read your blog post completely, sentence by sentence.

They should be able to understand what you are trying to communicate by simply going through the headings and subheadings, or at the most, including the bulleted points.

These are a few tips you can use to write meaningful and relevant blog posts.

As Google rolls out its update, it will become increasingly important that you deliver real value to your human readers and focus less on “search engine optimization hacks”.

Simply focus on delivering value in the language people use, and the SEO part should be taken care of on its own.