How To Start Writing Blogs For Your Business That Will Get Read

Team sitting around a table while working on how to start writing blogs for their business.

You’ve probably heard that blogging is a great way to get more people to visit your website. And I’m guessing that’s why you’re wondering about how to start writing blogs.

For most of us, the idea of writing blogs for our business website is a little bit exciting because of the potential traffic and revenue increases. But it’s also more than a little scary when you start thinking about things like:

  • How will I find the time to write?
  • What should I write about?
  • Will what I write be worth reading?

However, neither your fears nor expectations get you any closer to learning how to start writing blogs, so let’s start doing that now.

The first thing you need to verify before you ever start writing is that your blog will exist on the same domain as your website.

The KJ Content Marketing blog exists on the same domain as the website. The URL for the website is https://kjcontentmarketing.com/ and the URL for the blog is https://kjcontentmarketing.com/blogging/.

Do you see how the first part of both URLs is the same? If the first part of the URL for you blog is identical to the URL of your homepage, then your blog is on the same domain as your website.

(If you have any questions about whether or not your blog will be on your website, just ask your webmaster.)

The reason this is so important to check out is that you want the search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) to associate your blog posts with your domain. When they do, your domain gets the credit for your hard work instead of Medium or WordPress or some other site.

You’re investigating how to start writing blogs to increase the traffic to your site not someone else’s. Right?

After you’ve verified this technical detail it’s time to do a little prep work for your writing.

1. Put yourself in your ideal customer’s or client’s shoes.

Whatever you choose to write blogs about needs to appeal to your ideal customer. What would they want to read about?

I can tell you right now that they will want to read the answers to the questions you get asked about your products and services. Go ahead and make a list of these questions so you’ll have a few ideas for blogs.

They’ll probably also like to read about things like:

  • How to do something related to your business (just like this article you’re reading now)
  • A list of important information (also known as a listicle) about some facet of the business you’re in
  • Curated content from other thought leaders in your space
  • A series of memes that each display a key point you want your readers to know about followed by a few paragraphs with more details about the key point
  • A timely piece that incorporates something currently in the news (also known as newsjacking)

Once you’ve come up with a few ideas, select one that you’d like to write about today.

2. Research what others have written about on the topic.

You don’t want your post to read like every other post on the topic out there. So, you want to do a little searching for information about your topic. This way you’ll discover what’s already been written online about the topic and, if you didn’t already have it, find the inspiration for your unique take on it.

3. Come up with a great draft title.

Before you start writing your blog, you need to come up with a great draft title. This is helpful for two reasons:

First, it will help you stay focused.

A draft title provides you with a summary of what you want to write about. So as you proceed with the following steps, you’ll be able to laser in on what you want to say and save any other ideas that pop up for another blog post.

Second, it will help you know that you can capture the attention of your potential customers.

You need to design the title of every blog you write to capture your ideal client’s attention and/or promise to answer a question s/he has. That way your customers will be more likely to read your post.

4. Make a list of the major points you want to cover.

When you take the time to organize your thoughts in a list before you start writing, the writing becomes a whole lot easier. This step helps you separate thinking about what you want to write about from thinking about how to write it.

5. Come up with an engaging introduction.

Writing blog posts is a lot like having a conversation. You wouldn’t just jump into listing the 10 things you want people to know about your products if they came into your store. You’d talk with them to understand what they wanted to know.

The introduction of your blog post needs to be a gentle way of letting people know that you really understand what they’re looking for. And what they’re looking for is what you promised in the great title you came up with.

The introduction doesn’t have to be long – just 2 or 3 short paragraphs.

For example, the introduction of this piece is 3 paragraphs long. And it’s in those first paragraphs that I let you know I understand how you might be feeling a little conflicted about learning how to start writing blogs for your website.

6. Write the body of the blog.

Now you can flesh out those major points you listed. You’ll want to make sure that you explain things in enough detail that your ideal customer will understand what you’re trying to tell them, but not too much. You don’t want them to become lost in the details.

7. Conclude your article.

You don’t want to leave your blog readers feeling like you’ve dropped the mic and walked off the stage after you’ve finished covering your major points. You want them to feel that you’ve met the reason they read the blog in the first place by reminding them of the journey you’ve taken them on.

(If you scroll down, you can see that I’ve called out the conclusion of this article, so you can get a real feel for what a conclusion is.)

8. Edit your article.

Editing your blog post isn’t really as hard as it sounds. You’ve got lots of help when you use Word or you can get an add-on like Grammarly if you prefer to write in some other program.

Although even after using the online tools, you’ll want to read what you’ve written out loud. It’s when you actually hear what you’ve written that you’ll find little mistakes that are easy to correct. (The mistake I most often find is that I leave words out.)

9. Tweak your title.

Sometimes after writing a blog post you’ll think of a better title. Don’t feel you have to stick with the original one. Go ahead and change your draft title to one that works better for you and your ideal customer.

10. Include a call-to-action.

The call to action is typically at the very end of the article. It’s where you invite your readers to join your newsletter list, visit another page on your website, make a purchase, or schedule some time to chat.

This is the conclusion.

Hopefully, these 10 steps have allayed your fears and stoked your enthusiasm for writing blogs for your business website. At first, following these steps may seem a little clunky, but as you write more blog posts, you’ll be able to reliably write pieces that your ideal customers want to read which will bring them back to your website again and again.

But if reading this leaves you with more fears or knowing you want the benefits of blogging, but don’t want to do it yourself, know that you can always hire a ghostwriter to help you out.

Still have questions about blogging? We’ve got answers. Schedule a free conversation to discuss your needs with one of the KJ Content Marketing experts.

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Karen Finn, PhD