Guidelines For Writing A Great Blog Post

byCraigBarnes

425 followers

5 years ago

Blogging is the main way members here at WA are taught to earn money as an Affiliate Marketer. Writing consistently great blog posts on a regular or frequent basis is not an easy task. For one thing, many people, including here at WA, do not write well and do not even like to write about anything! Considering how many blog posts a beginning affiliate marketer needs to write to get his/her site a good or excellent rating with Google and the ohter main search entgines, this is a very serious challenge to overcome.

In more than one reputable study, it has been found that blog posts of 3,000 to 4,000 words stand the best chance of ranking extremely well not just in search engines - but on social media sites, too. It definitely takes a considerable amount of time, energy, and attention to write even one blog post of this length. Now, consider the frequency or number of times any blogger probably will have to write for just one blog site. Some bloggers, believe it or not, post daily. Think of that for a few seconds.

Let's say posting daily just isn't realistic or possible for you. That's all right. Do you think you would like to set a goal of posting twice a week. Let's do the math. Four weeks in a month, so: 4 X 2 = 8 blog posts per month on your site which equals: 8 X 3,000 words (instead of the better 4,000) = 24,000 words per month you will need to be publishing! That's a pretty tall order, even for people who like to write and are accomplished bloggers.

Even if you are not planning or trying to publish new blog posts at a rate of twice a week, your goal remains the same. Each and every blog post you write (and publish) HAS to be of excellent quality - period!! Why, you say and ask? Simple. If you do not write great posts, you will hardly be noticed online amongst the hundreds and hundreds of millions of others blogs competing with yours for trying to gain anaudience. I don't know about you, but I don't like those odds at all.

Therefore, for the ramainder of this post, let me share some good ideas with you how to structure each of your blog posts to have the best chance to rise above the competition. If you take a look at the image I chose for this post, it pretty much sums up the main points I want to make.

So, let me try to help you by making a few comments after giving you each main tip.

Topic (Idea) Selection

It should be obvious to most of you that the very first step in writing your post is to choose a topic or subject you are going to write about. How do you do this? The simplest and most direct way is to consider your (target) audience or readers of your post(s). To do this well, you better have at least a good if not very good idea of who your readers are and what they are expecting of you. There is NO shortuct or way around this. You cannot possibly write for everrybody and anybody, and you shouldn't even try! Decide the purpose of your post and the best way to write to connect with your readers to accomplish your purpose.

Careful and Thorough Research

Before you even create your headline, you need to conduct careful and adequate research. Few of us are a true expert in any field. The amount of information we are all exposed to each day is beyond overwhelming. It has become almost impossible for even the real experts to keep up with the explosion of knowledge we all deal with every day - even in their own fields!

There are almost countless sources you can consult and study - both online and offline. Here is a very short list of some you can consider and decide to use:

Books

Magazines

Journals

Textbooks

Internet

Friends

Family

Coworkers

Bosses

Strangers

Videos

Images

Studies

Music

Photographs

Diaries

Nature

Animals

Films

Students

Professors/Teachers

I think you get the idea, or at least, hope so.

The Writing

First of all, what you need to keep in mind are some goals you need to aim for and achieve when you do the actual writing of your post. NOT all writing - whether for a blog post or not - is created equal. To achieve the best results, what are some of the main things your writing has to be? Once again, here is a very short list of the most important things your words have to be:

Engaging - as an affiliate marketer, your main goal is to engage with your reader(s) so they truly feel you are writing the post for them, not only to them.

Interesting - similar to engaging, don't make your words/copy so boring and dull that your readers almost immediately lose interest in reading any further. Keep them interested as part of engaging with them.

Clear - the K.I.S.S. principle still works and will continue to do so for a very long, long time. K.I.S.S. stands for Keep It Simple STUPID!! DON'T write such complicated and confusing sentences and paragraphs that your readers can't possibly even understand what the hell you're trying to say. Enough on this point, I think.

Headlines

From your top and main one, to additonal and later ones in the post, don't neglect the importance of a good or great healline or headlines. Their main goal is grab the reader's attention and make them stand up - or pause - and notice! The headline(s) should pique the reader's interest and make them want to continue reading your post and to find out more.

Finally, A CTA or Call To Action

You're an internet/affiliate marketer, right? DON'T end your post without, hopefully, a Call To Action. There's a very old saying in sales - Don't Forget To Ask For The Sale. Without a sale, you don't earn any commission, do you? Even if you are not outright asking for a reader's business through an affiliate link, at least make their and your times worthwhile. Ask them to take some appropriate action, like signing up for your email list through an ebook offer for example.

That's it for now, folks. Hope this helps some of you.

Craig