Writing relevant and interesting blogs for your audience is much easier said than done. You may have a lot of knowledge about your area of medicine, but writing down your thoughts can be daunting. Often, our clients have the biggest problem with crafting organized, easy-to-skim, and understandable content. This guide will cover the essentials of writing information to satisfy your customers’ questions.
Know What They Are Asking About Your Services
The key to successful content is answering questions your target audience is asking. So, how do you do that? You can utilize resources like Answer the Public, Ubbersuggest, or a simple Google search. Type in your services or products and see what questions come up around the topic.
If you are using Google to see what questions are being asked, scroll to the section of the results that says “Related Questions.” Not all search terms will show related questions, so you might need to add additional words to your phrase to see questions appear.
Choose a Question Or Group of Questions To Answer
Generally, the related questions in search results build off of each other. If you click one question, a drop-down of other questions will expand. Gather one or a few questions you want to answer in your blog post, newsletter, or social media post.
If you’re writing a blog post or page of content for your site, these questions will be part of your content outline. You can also do additional research by clicking on some blogs that answer these questions to see what other information they address in the text. Google chose these blog posts to answer the questions because they did an excellent job of satisfying the reader. Drawing inspiration from these resources can be a good starting point for you.
Decide How Long You Need The Post To Be
How long should your blog be? It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Are you trying to quickly answer questions from someone who already has a working understanding of the topic? Or are you trying to introduce them to a concept they haven’t been educated on?
There are short-form and long-form blogs. Here’s an idea of when to use each:
Short-Form
A short-form blog is usually less than 1,000 words and has concise information about a specific topic. Not all questions need highly in-depth answers. However, it is essential that you don’t publish a lot of pages that only have 50-word answers to questions. This is why we recommend you group questions together to create a theme for your post.
Long-Form
A long-form blog is anything over 1,000 words. For example, this blog will be over that word count because there is a lot of information to cover in a guide about writing. We couldn’t get into all of the details and action points in a shorter post. What’s most important about the length of a post is that you write real information…not a bunch of filler content that’s not relevant.
Choose a Blog Style
You can write many different styles of blogs to lay out the answers to the questions you’re addressing. Here are common ones you can choose from:
Guides
The blog you’re reading right now is considered a guide. We are providing you with a great number of details so you can write a piece of content that will meet your target audience’s needs. Guides cover the instructions needed to do a task or use a product from start to finish. In this guide, we’re giving you step-by-step instructions on what you need to do to write a blog post.
How To’s
How to posts are similar to guide posts, which are usually much shorter. In a How to, you’re going to give instructions to your reader on how to do what they are asking about. It’s ok to provide accurate information on how you would do the task. We know a lot of businesses don’t want to share the “secret sauce” in their content. However, it’s helpful to show how much knowledge and authority you have on the subject. If someone is a DIYer and happens on your blog, they likely wouldn’t hire you to do the work anyway. But, from an SEO standpoint, content with expertise and experience is more likely to appear in search results. It’s to your advantage to give details on how to do something you offer.
Case Studies
Case studies are a good way of showcasing the results and outcomes of the work you provide to a client. You will share information on why the client came to you, the scope of the project, how it went while you were doing the work, and the outcome. You can go into detail on how you made decisions to take a certain direction or challenges you faced and how you overcame them.
White Papers
Generally, white papers are used in B2B marketing. These are in-depth blogs that go into detail on the services or products you offer. You would share data and research backing up your process. You would also answer commonly asked questions about your services and how you work with other companies.
Create a Content Outline
Now that you’ve done some leg work, it’s time to create a content outline. Even a seasoned writer has a hard time tackling a blank page. Creating an outline for your blog post will help you in many ways. For one, you will be able to write your content faster because you are filling out the sections you already outlined. Also, you can keep your place in your blog if you have to walk away from it and come back. Just simply go to the empty sections and write information there.
What Goes in a Content Outline
Here are the things you’ll want to add to your content outline:
Opening Paragraph
Most people only read a few sentences of a blog before they decide if the content is going to answer their question. Your opening paragraph should clearly outline what you’ll cover in the text.
Key Takeaways
To further help a reader figure out if your article is going to help them, write down 4-6 key takeaways from the article. While this appears directly under the opening paragraph, you’ll probably want to write this after you’ve finished your article. This way, you can pull out the primary points you touched on in the text.
Headlines For The Body Of The Article
The next part of the outline will include the headlines for the points you’ll make in the article. Make those headlines as direct and to the point as possible. Include keywords or phrases that would tell a person what you’re going to cover in that paragraph. The headlines of an article allows a reader to skim the text and look for the parts of the content that are most relevant to the
Call To Action
End your article by telling the reader what you want them to do next. If you have an offer you want them to sign up for, contact form, or something else, link to it in this section. Be very clear on the action you want them to take.
Linking To Resources
After you’ve written your blog, it’s time to go back over and link to additional resources that are relevant to the text. You’ll definitely want to find other pages or blogs on your website to link to. This will help Google understand the relationship of these pages to each other. Also, it will keep your readers on the site for longer.
Link to studies you have mentioned or other resources you’ve pulled from when writing your content. It’s a good idea to link to authority sites within your text if it is relevant.
Publish Your Blog
The final piece of content writing is publishing your blog on the website. Add relevant images, graphics, and videos that will keep your audience engaged. Review your published content, make any additional edits that are needed, and then send it out in your newsletter or post on social media. Get eyes on your post as soon as you can after publishing.
We hope this guide has given you tools to get started on your writing journey. It can be a daunting task, but with direction and time, it can become an important investment in your business.
Want Help With Writing For Your Site
The writers at WPamplify are skilled and able to write content that works for your business. Contact us today for a quote on your next copywriting project. We look forward to working with you.