12 Steps to an Effective Blog Post

Having a blog can be a great way to market your business and to help others to experience your brand and your identity. When you create a blog post, you want to be yourself and let your business identity and personality shine through each post.

On top of coming up with quality content on a regular basis that you know your target market is interested in, you want to make sure that each post is effective.

What are some important things that you want your post to do for your website?

1. You want to rank high on search engines for certain keywords and key phrases
2. You want people to comment on your post and start discussions
3. You want people to find your posts and read them
4. Once they are on your website, you want them to link around and visit other pages

There are many other things I could list here, but this is a list of the more important items.

So, how do you write your blog posts in a way that each and every post is working effectively for your website? Follow these 12 steps every time you site down to write a new post:

1. Create a temporary title and decide what topic your post will be.
2. Start with a story or an analogy that explains the point you will make to your reader.
3. Turn your story into an educational opportunity. What point do you want to get across to your reader?
4. Add a call-to-action which is the next step for your reader to take.
5. Add one or two links to other pages on your site or to an external site. Use internal links when possible.
6. Add a photo related to the post topic.
7. Update the title to ensure it matches what you actually wrote and try to include keywords or a key phrase hile still making sure the title makes sense to the reader.
8. Add a category for the post.
9. Add tags.
10. Set a publish date.
11. Save and Publish.
12. Tell people about your post. Add links to forums, groups, social media sites, other blogs, where and when appropriate.

What are some ideas that you use when writing a blog post?