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How to Write a Good Blog Post: A Complete Step-by-Step Process

You pull up a blank document, ready to write a blog post, but the white emptiness stares back. How do you begin?

We’ve all been there, staring into that vast white space, wondering where to start. I’ve felt that subtle anxiety too. Yet, with the right approach, that daunting task can turn into a delightful journey. With an established process, writing becomes less about filling the space and more about connecting deeply with your readers.

Dive into the steps in this post and uncover the secrets to crafting a blog post that truly engages and resonates with your audience.

Table of Contents

How long does it take to write a great blog post?

Step 1: identify your topic, original research, topical research, competitive research, how-to guide, feature article, product review or comparison, link/article roundup, expert roundup, step 4: create an outline, introduction, body content, step 6: pen a headline, step 7: edit and proofread your content, step 8: add your meta data, step 9: publish your post, it’s all about practice.

As you get into writing blog posts, you might wonder how long you should take to write a good one. Are you taking too long? Should you spend more time?

Orbit Media Studios found that bloggers take an average of four hours and one minute to complete a blog post in their 2022 survey . For reference, these folks wrote an average of 1,416 words per blog post.

But think of this number as an estimate. It takes everyone a different amount of time to write a blog post based on factors like:

• Personal writing speed: All bloggers write at a different pace, and they’re all valid.
• Subject matter knowledge : It’s faster to write about a subject you know over one you don’t.
• Topic complexity: Most people will need more time to write about piezoelectric ceramics than how to blow a bubble with gum.
• Research requirements : It’ll take longer to put together a blog post that weaves together original interviews than one with a few online sources.

Plus, Orbit Media Studios discovered that bloggers who spend more time on their blog posts get more success. Thirty-three percent of respondents who spent six or more hours per blog post reported “strong results.” Compare that number to the 22% benchmark.

You’ll see that the first steps to writing a blog post involve careful preparation. Start by choosing a topic to write about.

Get as specific as possible when you pick your subject. Specificity lets you differentiate your content from blog posts on similar topics and helps you cover an idea in-depth. Let’s say you want to write about how to cook a steak — you could narrow that down to how to cook a T-bone steak on a grill.

After you decide on a topic, establish the angle you want to take. Going back to our example of how to cook a T-bone steak on a grill, you could come from a scientific angle. For your blog post, you could consult a scientist on why certain techniques make a better steak.

Step 2: Do your research

Now that you know what you want to write about, you can research your topic . Blog post research falls into three categories:

Original research comes from data you generate yourself by consulting other people. Not every blog post needs to have original research to have high-quality content, but it can contribute to truly unique writing.

Try these tactics to get one-of-a-kind sources for your post:

• Surveys: Use a free tool like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to ask people questions on a large scale. Find people who know about your topic at your organization, subscribed to your mailing list on the subject, or in an online community.
• Polls: Polls work well for asking a broad audience a single question. Many social media and communication apps have built-in poll features, such as Twitter and Slack.
• Interviews: Ask experts on your subject for an interview over email, on a video call, or in person. Reach out to your colleagues and network to see if they know anyone. You can also use a service like Help a Reporter Out to get expert quotes.

Topical research is the research you conduct around the internet. Use your preferred search engine to find online sources with these traits:

• Authoritative: The author or website should have plenty of experience or credentials on the topic. When applicable, they should use solid research to back up their claims.
• Recent: Aim for resources written three or fewer years ago when possible.
• Helpful: When your reader clicks through to your source, they should get value out of it and understand how it connects to your article.

This type of research often flies under the radar for newer blog post writers. Competitive research involves evaluating other articles on your subject. By understanding the other content out there on your topic, you can find ways to improve upon it.

Don’t just look for what ideas the other blog posts include. Instead, think about what they’re missing. Maybe they don’t cover a point you feel is important, or you could format your content more clearly than them.

Step 3: Choose the type of blog post you’ll write

With knowledge of your topic on hand, it’s time to decide how you’ll present it. Some popular blog post genres include:

List blog posts organize information into a list with headings naming each item. They often come in the form of numbered lists with a title featuring the number of items, such as “5 Ways to Fold a Towel.”

When you write a list blog post, you don’t have to make your list the only content. HelpScout’s 13 Best Practices for Improving Online Customer Service introduces online customer service, then digs into its items.

A checklist blog post provides a checklist for readers to follow to perform a task.

These posts often provide a simplified checklist to follow and then provide more details for each item, like our blog post checklist .

A how-to guide walks the reader through the steps it takes to perform an action.

These blog posts rely heavily on lists and images to help readers understand each part of the process. Melly Sews’s how-to guide to sewing a flat-felled seam uses both.

An interview blog post showcases an interview the author has with someone who has insights to share about the article topic.

You can go about one of these blog posts in two ways. Either list out your questions and answers in a Q&A format or use your interview answers to tell a story. Notion did the latter in Three-time YC founder and first-time mom finds flow in Notion .

A feature article brings together original research and interviews to explore a subject. Since features often involve interviews, they can overlap with interview blog posts.

Some blogs take a feature-first approach to posting, such as Microsoft’s Unlocked blog. One example of one of their features is Can an alphabet save a culture?

In the context of blog posts, an essay presents the author’s argument or opinion. The writer uses research and evidence to back up their points.

Media Strategies Aren’t as Crazy as They Seem from the Animalz blog features real-life examples that back up a unique perspective.

News posts share news from your community or company.

On business blogs, a lot of news posts relate to company and product updates, like SparkToro Now Has 50% More Podcasts from SparkToro.

A case study tells a success story about a product or service. It generally focuses on one event or customer.

This type of blog post requires original interviews with the customer involved so you can get their perspective on your work. With some products, you can share the results of how you helped the customer. Take Buffer, a social media scheduling tool, sharing posts from its customer in this case study as an example.

Product reviews and comparisons evaluate the usefulness of products for the reader. Reviews focus on a single product, while comparisons compare the features of multiple products.

Some of these product posts come in the form of a list ranking the best products in a category, like Zapier’s email newsletter software roundup .

Link and article roundups bring together links to online resources or articles on a specific subject.

Some of these roundups are more purchase-focused, such as Good On You’s roundup of eco-friendly fashion deals .

Expert roundup blog posts present opinions on a topic from multiple subject matter experts.

This format can overlap with other formats, like in Databox’s blog posts that synthesize expert opinions into lists. The Heroes of Business Transparency is one example.

Many people skip or rush through this step even though it’s just as important as the actual writing. A detailed blog post outline gives your article structure and lets you evaluate your overall argument before you write out the full post.

It also helps combat writer’s block. At the outline stage, you only have to get a basic idea down, taking off the pressure of writing a complete idea. Then, when you get to the writing stage, you’ll have your outline to reference when you don’t know what sentence to write next.

Follow these steps to write an outline:

• List each section and subsection of your blog post. Each section could cover a list item, a point in your argument, a step in a process, etc.
• Add up to three main points per section. Here’s where you’ll start forming the ideas you’ll cover. As you practice making outlines, you might find it helpful to get even more detailed at this stage.
• Include any links and examples you want to include for your points. Place your sources where you plan to reference them so you can add them easily in the writing stage.

Here’s a hypothetical outline for a blog post by my cat on why I should feed her a second dinner:

You can go more in-depth with your points in your outline, but here’s how the formatting should look.

I recommend writing your outline in a separate document and copying any headers and links over to your draft document. It can be tempting to write your outline and fill out your draft from there, but your document will get disorganized quickly with this approach.

Step 5: Write your post

Onto the writing itself!

Make sure to follow web writing best practices when you write your content.

People read 25% slower onscreen, and they skim rather than read. Web text should be short, scannable, and structured as linked, topical pages. Nielsen Norman Group

Shortening or “chunking” your content helps readers skim, so try to keep your sentences to 25 words or fewer and paragraphs to three sentences or fewer. Make sure to follow the style guide for your blog if you have one as well.

A blog post consists of three main sections that require different approaches:

Integrate your blog post’s angle and an emotional hook into your introduction. This technique establishes what makes your post unique from the start and draws in the reader.

For example, in this blog post, I’m trying to provide a comprehensive process so you never feel lost when writing. I explained that angle in the second paragraph of my intro.

As for the emotional hook, try putting yourself in the reader’s shoes or telling a story. I used the example of staring at a blank page wondering what to do next because I’ve been there and know others have, too.

You could also use the Animalz technique of using an unexpected hook and referencing it throughout your blog post. This method takes practice and careful thought, but that hard work really pays off.

Whichever hook you use, keep your introduction concise — about three paragraphs or fewer. An intro that goes on too long can lose the reader’s interest.

A quick side note: You don’t have to write your introduction first if it comes easier to you after you write the rest of your post. Mark it for later and revisit it when you have more context to work with.

Your body content consists of all the words between the introduction and conclusion.

As you write this part of your post, try to cover all the information important for your reader to know. If you have a word limit to stay within, consider linking out to resources on complicated sub-topics.

Speaking of linking, include links to other posts on your blog and trusted sources throughout your body content. Search engines prioritize websites that link relevant pages to each other. Plus, it works as a way to cite your sources when you use outside information.

Just make sure that any site you link to is relevant to your post. Adding links for linking’s sake will make it harder to establish authority and search engine performance.

Lastly, make sure your writing is crisp, clear, and concise by keeping paragraphs three sentences or less, and each sentence 25 words or less .

Here’s an example of a well-structured post’s body content.

Time for the grand finale. You have multiple ways to go about writing a conclusion, such as:

• A summary: Summarize the key points you covered in your post.
• A takeaway: Provide a takeaway from the ideas you presented in your post. You could go back to the angle you established at the beginning, for example.
• A redirection: Connect your blog post to another post on your blog and direct your reader there for further reading.
• A bonus tip: Offer one final tip for the reader to use as they apply the knowledge in your post.

When it feels appropriate, you can also add a call to action to subscribe to your newsletter, try your product, or perform another transactional action. Connect your call to action back to the rest of your conclusion so it doesn’t feel pigeonholed.

After you finish writing your first draft, give it a headline . You can write the headline before your post if you like — there’s no hard and fast rule. For this blog post, we’re writing the headline after the content so you have your draft on hand to inspire your headline.

Follow these steps to craft a top-notch headline for your article:

• If you write blog posts with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, grab the top keyword for your article. This keyword should have a direct relation to your subject.
• Write down 25 versions of your headline to give yourself plenty of choices to consider. Make sure your keyword feels like a natural part of each headline if you include it.
• Narrow those 25 options to your five favorites.
• Choose a “winner” from your five finalists.

CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer Studio can help you identify what headlines will hook readers and work for SEO. It has a Google Chrome extension and WordPress plugin. If you don’t have a plan that supports plugins, the extension provides a prompt alongside your WordPress headline.

Every blog post needs editing to shine, no matter how talented the writer is. Give your content plenty of this TLC to create quality results.

Start with a basic spelling and grammar check using your word processor’s tools. Then, you can use a tool like Grammarly or Hemingway for more in-depth fixes. While Grammarly performs an advanced spelling and grammar scan, Hemingway checks sentence structure, like so:

After you perform these checks, you should still read through your writing manually. Your human eyes will catch mistakes the computer misses. Plus, your editing should focus as much on the quality of your ideas as it does on your spelling and grammar.

We provided some tips to make the manual editing and proofreading process easier in an earlier WordPress blog post. I also suggest asking yourself these questions as you go through your content:

• Do my logic and arguments make sense?
• Did I use my SEO keywords? Did I insert them naturally?
• Do I notice any words being used frequently that I can mix up with adjectives?
• Did I vary my sentence structure for more dynamic reading?
• Will my blog post be readable for my average reader?
• Did I follow my blog’s style throughout the post?

Your blog post’s title tag, meta description, and URL all influence how people find and understand it.

The title tag and meta description are the title and description you see for a page in search results. By default, WordPress uses your headline as the title tag and your excerpt as the meta description. But, if they aren’t the proper length for search results, they can get cut off.

It’s best practice to write a separate title tag and meta description so you know they’ll look good. In WordPress, you can edit this data by changing your post’s code or using a plugin .

Yoast and All in One SEO are two popular plugin options. These plugins add a box below your content in the WordPress editor where you can manage your title tag and meta description. They also guide you through writing those search specs well.

Your URL slug is the unique string of words that appears at the end of your URL.

For example, this blog post’s URL is:

Its slug is:

That’s the part of the URL that’s different for each blog post.

WordPress pulls your URL slug from your headline, but that slug usually isn’t optimized for search results. According to Ahrefs , a good slug follows keywords and summarizes the essence of the blog post.

No need for a plugin or fancy coding to edit your URL slug. Go to the Block tab in the right-hand menu, then edit your URL using the URL option. Save your draft or update your blog post to save your new slug.

Now that you have your meta data set up, you can finalize your content for publishing. Copy and paste your blog post from your word processor to your WordPress post. The formatting will carry over to the block editor.

Or, you may have written your blog post within the blog post editor. I generally don’t recommend this approach in case you accidentally click “Publish,” but I know some writers get by just fine doing it. You do you.

If you paste your content from a Google Doc or another online text editor, go through your post and re-upload your images from your computer. The images you paste from another source are kept on your editor’s website, and you’ll want them on your WordPress site for safekeeping.

Once you establish a solid process for writing your blog posts, the next step to mastery is practice. As you adjust your system to your workflow, you’ll know what to do next instead of hoping words will magically appear on your blank page. And we’ll be with you as you practice. Just use this guide to help keep you on track.

Pair your airtight writing process with a good topic generation system , and you’ll become an unstoppable blogger. We can’t wait to see what you write!

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About the author, melissa king.

Melissa King writes actionable blog posts about content, marketing, and productivity for tech companies. Find more of her work at melissakingfreelance.com.

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WEBSITE ESSENTIALS

How to write a blog post: a step-by-step guide

• Cecilia Lazzaro Blasbalg
• 14 min read

Get started by: Creating a website → | Getting a domain →

When you create a blog , you have the opportunity to dive deep into your favorite topics, highlight your expertise and build a community of readers interested in your work. Whether you want to learn how to make a website and blog from scratch, or make blogging part of your business strategy, publishing content online is an effective way to share your knowledge and ideas with the world.

That said, composing a winning entry takes practice. In this A-to-Z guide, you’ll learn how to write the perfect blog post—from choosing the right blog topics and picking the proper format for your articles, to selecting strategic images that generate interest and engagement. By the time you’re done reading this, you’ll have a clear idea of how to create strong blog content that effectively communicates your ideas and stands out from other articles on the web, other types of websites and within the blogosphere .

Ready to get blogging? Get started with Wix today.

What is a blog post?

A blog post is a piece of content published on a blog, typically consisting of text, images, videos or other multimedia elements. Blog posts cover a wide range of topics and can vary in length and format. They are often informal, conversational and engaging, providing information, insights, opinions or entertainment to the blog's audience. Blog posts can serve various purposes, including educating, entertaining, inspiring or promoting discussion.

How to write a blog post in 13 steps

Brainstorm blog topics

Refine your topic with keyword research

Define your audience

Create an organized outline

Write engaging content

Craft an irresistible headline

Choose a blog template

Select a blog domain name

Pick relevant images

Implement calls-to-action

Optimize for SEO

Edit and publish your blog post

Promote the final article

01. Brainstorm blog topics

When writing a blog post, whether you're guest posting for someone else or writing for your own blog, you’ll want to cover topics that bring value to your readers and fall in line with their interests, as well as your own. Rather than trying to find the perfect topic right away, start by jotting down different ideas that come to mind.

There are several places you can look to spark new topic ideas:

Browse other blogs within your niche with competitor analysis . If you’re starting a travel blog , for example, simply Google “travel blog” to see what your competitors are writing about.

Use AI tools at your disposal to generate topic ideas

Use Google Trends to find out which topics are trending.

Look for current events and recent news stories related to your field.

Find out what people enjoy learning about by browsing online courses on Udemy , Skillshare and LinkedIn Learning .

Once you find some interesting ideas online, think about the unique ways you can approach those topics. Consider the various ways you can play around with topic ideas to come up with something that isn’t only trendy and relevant, but that’s also original and fresh. You'll also need to consider making sure your blog post is up to date and this will mean including relevant data and statistics related to the topic.

Let’s say, for instance, that you want to write about chocolate chip cookies. There are a few different angles you might consider taking here based on your target audience and potential for website traffic :

A how-to post that instructs readers how to do something with clearly ordered steps (e.g., “How to Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies from Scratch”)

A curated list that offers a set of recommendations for your readers (e.g., “The Top Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes”)

A tips and advice post that provides expert guidance and resources. (e.g., “Tips for Making Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies Extra Gooey”)

A definition-based blog post that helps explain the meaning of a term or topic (e.g., “What Are No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies?”)

A top trends article that highlights what’s currently popular (e.g., “The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes From This Year”)

A personal or business update that lets you unveil something fresh or recently unknown (e.g., “My New Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Revealed”)

Get brainstorming with these best blog ideas , and check out our professional guide on how to start a blog for more helpful tips. You can also consider those close to you for feedback on your ideas, or branch out to a wider audience and get their thoughts.

02. Refine your topic with keyword research

Part of writing a blog post involves keyword research. This crucial SEO practice is used as a marker to see which terms you can potentially rank high for in certain online searches.

Once you’ve chosen a direction for your blog post, and before you get started with the writing process, you’ll need to figure out the chances of its success on search engine result pages—which ultimately means getting more eyes on your content. In order to succeed, conduct keyword research to find the most relevant queries for your topic.

You can find keywords for your own articles by using various keyword research tools. If you’re new to blogging, you’ll probably want to start with free tools such as Ubersuggest and Google Keyword Planner . Afterwards, you may want to upgrade to more advanced tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs .

While conducting keyword research, keep in mind that the more specific the phrase, the more closely it will match your audience’s intent. On the other hand, broader keywords tend to have higher search volumes—meaning more people are searching for them each month.

Think about the benefits of opting for a broader phrase, like “chocolate chip cookies,” over a more precise phrase, like “how to make chocolate chip cookies.” Choosing the right keywords means striking a balance between high search volume and high intent.

Once you’ve selected your keywords, you can use them to shape the structure of your content. Google those phrases to find out which articles have successfully targeted those same keywords, and spend some time browsing their content. This will give you inspiration for your own article in terms of what to include and how to structure it. Don't forget to also tap into your own experience as an entrepreneur or writer, when choosing what to write about.

03. Define your audience

Now that you know what you’ll be writing about , you need to find out who you’re writing for . Anticipating the kinds of people who will be reading your posts will help you create content that is interesting, engaging, full of relevance and shareable.

Of course, your audience largely depends on your type of blog . If you run a baking blog, you’ll probably be writing for an audience of people who love baking and are seeking recipe inspiration. Even more specifically, if you run a healthy baking blog, you’ll be writing for people who similarly love baking but who want to make their culinary creations healthier. It’s important to keep these nuances in mind when crafting your content, since your goal is to write articles that resonate strongly with readers.

So, how do you figure out your audience in the first place? Start by taking another look at the other blogs in your field. Consider who they seem to be writing for, and the kinds of assumptions they’re making about their readers’ interests and lifestyles. For example, you might find that most of the blogs address a particular gender or age group.

You can also use online forums to find the main questions asked by your audience, or visit Facebook groups to read what topics they like or talk about. This will help you create content that piques their interest, sparks their curiosity and answers their questions.

Whether you're starting a book blog , a fashion blog, travel blog or something else—defining your audience should come first.

04. Create an organized outline

The key to learning how to write a blog post is doing thorough research and planning before you create the article itself. After deciding on the topic and blog format , you’ll need to build the mold for your content. Creating an outline is critical, as it ensures your article will have a strong foundation that you can build on as you write your blog post.

Start by creating subheadings, which are the backbone of an organized outline, under which your paragraphs of text will sit. These small but mighty pieces of content help you break down your article into bite-sized sections, making it easier for you to write and more digestible for people to read.

If it’s a step-by-step guide or a list of tips, start building your outline by listing out all the main points clearly, as in the example below:

Outline: How to Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies from Scratch

1. Gather your ingredients

2. Mix and knead the dough

3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper

4. Scoop mounds of dough onto baking sheet

5. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Add bulleted notes within your introduction and under each of your subheadings. This will help you formulate your main points.

If you find yourself getting stuck, use one of these blog post templates to guide you through the outline process.

05. Write engaging content

Turning something you love and know a lot about into blog posts is a great strategy to attract readers: they’ll come for the knowledge, but they’ll stay for your authentic outlook and first-hand experiences.

Hanna Kimelblat , Blogger and Growth Marketing Expert at Wix

Now that you’ve sketched out the blog post, you can begin typing away (or, use AI to write your blog posts ). Keep in mind that blog posts, like many other types of writing, typically include three main elements: an introduction, the body text and a conclusion.

Let’s start with the introduction. In the first few sentences of your article, you should already grab your readers’ attention. Begin with a relevant quote or statistic, tell a short story, or share an interesting fact. Then, set the tone for the article by sharing a brief summary of what you’re going to talk about in the body text. This gives your readers a reason to keep going.

Next, fill in the body text. In your outline, these are the bullet points beneath each subheading. This is the meat of your blog post, so it should be clear and compelling. Avoid fluff and repetition, and instead offer deep value by sharing your knowledge, research, and insights.

A concluding section isn’t always necessary—in fact, our blog rarely uses one—but it can be useful in the case of storytelling or when wrapping up a very extensive article. You can tie your main points together using a short bulleted list, or by sharing some closing thoughts in a few sentences. No matter the case, you’ll want to end on an engaging note.

At this stage you'll also want to consider your writing style, this is usually determined by your blog audience. If you're targeting a professional business crowd so you might want to consider adopting a more formal writing style; if you're writing for bakers, something more light and fun might be the best style. Within this consider your tone too, blogs, even formal business ones, are meant to open up communication and inspire conversation. Make sure your tone is relevant to your writing style and audience, but also use welcoming and inspiring language where possible.

Other important concepts to consider in your content creation process are:

Viscosity : essentially the ease with which a reader can understand and flow through a piece of text. It is akin to the "fluidity" of the writing and how smoothly the ideas and information are conveyed to the reader. High viscosity in writing implies that the text is dense, complicated, and difficult to read, while low viscosity indicates that the writing is clear, concise, and easy to comprehend.

Rhythm: the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, sentence structures, and the flow of words that create a musical or harmonious quality in the text. It's the cadence and beat that give the writing a sense of movement and can make the language more engaging and memorable.

Creativity : the ability to express oneself imaginatively and inventively through the written word. It involves using one's unique perspective, original ideas, emotion, pathos and artistic flair to craft compelling stories, poems, essays, or any form of written content. Creative writing allows writers to explore their thoughts, emotions, and observations in an innovative and expressive manner. Storytelling is a huge part of writing a blog post and shouldn't be neglected.

Sentence and clause structure: fundamental elements of grammar that govern how sentences are constructed in the English language. They determine the arrangement of words (verbs, adjectives), phrases, and clauses to convey meaning and ensure clarity in communication. Understanding sentence and clause structure is crucial for effective writing and communication.

06. Craft an irresistible headline

When writing a blog post, you don’t only need strong content; you’ll also want a powerful headline . A great headline entices readers and enhances your blog design , ensuring that they actually click on your article in the first place.

Learning how to write a catchy blog title doesn’t have to be hard. All you need to do is keep the following points in mind: clarity, specificity and offering an answer or solution.

Writing a good headline also depends on how well you put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Use the title to promise readers that your blog post will provide valuable insight that will benefit them in some way, whether by satisfying their intellectual curiosity, teaching them something new or helping them solve a problem. This will increase the chances that they’ll click on your article and read it. Just don't go over board and remember to avoid clickbait, which is writing a hyperbole headline just to get clicks through to an article.

Here are some examples of headlines that we are quite proud of, to give you a general idea for your own content:

Create a Powerful Free Landing Page in Under an Hour

20 Best Time Management Apps to Organize Your Life

How to Design an A+ School Website (With Examples)

Make a Change: Using Photography as a Tool to Raise Awareness

If you're looking for inspiration to get started, try out this blog post title generator .

07. Choose a blog template

Writing your blog post may be your first priority, but you’ll also want to package it in an appealing way. Having an article with strong visual appeal is crucial for striking the right chord with your readers. The best way to customize your blog's design is by starting with a free blog template .

Professional designers have created all these blog layouts, and they're fully customizable to reflect your blog's messaging and tone. For inspiration, check out these blog examples to see how others have transformed these templates into beautiful, content-rich powerhouses.

If you’re writing a blog about organic ingredients, for instance, using a natural color palette on your site will set the right tone for the type of topics you’ll be writing about. This same color palette should also be used for your blog logo , as well as on your social media platforms.

08. Select a blog domain name

You should host your well-crafted blog on your domain site address in order for readers to discover it. When it comes to naming your blog , you can gather ideas from a blog name generator and see if the domain name is available.

Spend time thinking about how your blog and domain name fit in with the blog post topics you will cover. Make sure that your name reflects your blog’s persona, topic and niche.

Once you have finalized your name, choose your domain name (also referred to as a URL, for example, www.wix.com). Typically, your domain name will be the same as, or at least similar to the name of your blog.

09. Pick relevant images

Likewise, you should also enhance your blog post with a few great images that illustrate your main points. It’s important that your pictures add value to the subject, rather than serving as placeholders. Pay extra attention to your featured image—this will be the main visual below your blog’s title, and it’s what readers will see when they browse your articles from your blog’s homepage. Infographics are also great to insert within blog posts to reinforce key points or ket stats.

Also consider inserting videos into your blog posts, the best ones are those you've created to match the topic and intent of the video, but you can also use those from third parties, to improve the user experience and engagement rates on your articles.

With Wix, you can add a professional photo gallery to individual posts and embed your own pictures within your articles. You can also choose from an array of media content from Wix, Shutterstock and Unsplash directly within your site’s editor.

10. Implement calls-to-action

In the same way a blog is meant to inform people about specific topics, it can also be used as an important tool that motivates readers to take a certain action. This includes everything from subscribing to your blog to making a purchase.

This element is referred to as CTA, or call-to-action, and is presented as an embedded link or button that states your objective in an alluring manner. Some of the most common call-to-action examples for blogs include “Subscribe,” “Download our e-book” or “Sign up.”

Using CTAs can help you transform your website traffic into engagement and, eventually, profit. While your immediate goal is to get more readers, you may eventually want to monetize your blog further down the road.

11. Optimize for SEO

When it comes to SEO for bloggers , a strong SEO plan involves optimizing your content both before and after writing the blog post. Not only does this include doing keyword research prior to the outline phase (mentioned in step 3), but it also includes using those keywords to polish your final piece.

This begins with sprinkling relevant keywords throughout your article. Let’s say you’ve chosen to target the keyword “business strategies.” Use this exact phrase in your headline, throughout the body text and one to two subheadings if it’s a natural fit.

Next, include this keyword in your metadata. This is the preview text you’ll see for every article on Google, and it includes a title (known as the meta title) and short description (the meta description). You’ll also want to add the keywords to the URL of your article, as well as in the alt text of your blog post’s images. Use these SEO features to give your blog an overall performance boost. Lastly, and make sure you know exactly how long a blog post should be to best rank your post.

12. Edit and publish your blog post

With so many common blogging mistakes out there, you’ll need to thoroughly check your article for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, repetition and any other unprofessional content. Furthermore, make sure your ideas flow coherently throughout each section, signaling a clear and purposeful message to readers. You can read about other essential aspects of blogging in this comprehensive blog post checklist .

We recommend asking a friend or colleague to give your blog article a once over before it goes live, as part of your proofreading and fact checking process prior to publishing. Direct them to look for any discrepancies or ambiguity. It’s also important to emphasize quality over quantity in order to keep your readers interested and to establish your credibility. Then, once you’re happy with your written work, it’s time to hit publish.

13. Promote the final article

Once you’ve written and published the blog post, take the necessary steps to make sure it gets read. Two of the most effective ways to promote your blog post and get readers are email marketing and social media marketing.

Email remains one of the most reliable platforms for marketing, as it allows for a direct communication channel between you and your audience. This highly effective digital marketing strategy involves sending out customized emails to prospective users with the aim of converting them into loyal fans. If you’re interested in getting started, this powerful email marketing service can help you send custom newsletters for your blog.

Beyond emails, sharing your article on social media can also go a long way. For example, if you want to accrue a wide audience, promote your blog on Facebook or Instagram, which have one of the largest and most diverse user bases.

Whichever channels you choose, make sure to actively engage with followers on a day-to-day basis. This will ensure that you not only write a great blog post, but that you get people reading your article, too.

Looking to really get your blog off the ground? Take a look at our Build Your Own Blog online course to get you started.

How to structure a blog post checklist

Headline: clear, catchy and relevant, includes keywords where relevant for SEO

Introduction: hooks the reader, answers search intent where relevant, outline's the blogs purpose and main point

Subheadings: organizes content into digestible and readable sections, follows a logical flow

Body: provides valuable information while supporting points with examples, stats and other evidence, conversational tone

Visuals: includes relevant images, infographics or videos that enhance understanding and reader engagement

Engagement: encourages reader interaction (comments, shares)

Editing: checks for grammar and spelling errors, edited for coherence and style, fact checked

SEO: includes relevant keywords naturally, answers search intent

Readability: uses consistent font and formatting, short sentences

Links: includes internal and external links for additional context

Social sharing: includes social sharing buttons and shareable snippets of information

Review: read through the post one last time before publishing and after published

How to write a blog post FAQ

How to write my first blog post.

Writing your first blog post can be an exciting but daunting task. To make it easier follow these basic steps - choose a compelling topic, plan out your post, hook readers with a killer introduction, provide meaningful content, hone your conversational style and include visuals where you can.

What are 5 easy steps to writing a blog post?

How to write a blog post with ai, how to write a blog post as a beginner, what is a blog post example, what is the format of blog writing, related posts.

How to write catchy blog titles: 12 tips and examples

The ultimate blog post checklist

Blogging for beginners: 20+ tips to jumpstart your blog

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How to write a blog post: A step-by-step guide from preparation to publication

Writing a successful blog post all comes down to the proper preparations. It starts before you even begin writing: what do you want to say and to whom do you want to say it? You might want to get going right away but remember: writing takes some time. And once you’ve written an awesome blog post, you’ll need to invest time in promoting it and keeping the content up to date. Today, we’ll cover all you need to do to write a successful blog post, from the first inception, to long after publication. So let’s dive right in!

Before we get going with our step by step guide, have a quick look at this image that depicts the three phases of a proper writing process: 

In total, there are 6 steps you should take when writing and publishing a blog post. Does this sound a bit overwhelming? Don’t worry, at the end of this post, you’ll find a practical (and downloadable) checklist with an overview of these steps!

What is the purpose of your post?

What is the main message of your post, who are your readers, what information do you need.

• What's the best way to structure your text?

Step 2: Write your blog post!

Optimize your post for the search engines, don’t forget to add images, add categories and tags, optimize for social media, share your post on social media, internal linking to a new post from other posts, include posts in the newsletter, repost on social media.

• Analyze the post's performance

Optimize where necessary

More internal linking, practical checklist, step 1: preparation.

Let’s say you’ve taken a good look at your keyword research and decided upon a topic for your next blog post. Don’t start typing just yet. First, it’s time to prepare the post! That means you have to answer a few questions. And trust me, answering these questions will definitely help you write a great blog. So, let’s have a look at the questions you should ask yourself:

Before you start writing, you should first take some time to think about why you’re writing and what you want to achieve with this specific article. Articles can have different purposes:

• You can write because you want to persuade people. You want to convince them to buy your product or adopt your ideas. 
• The aim of your article could also be to entertain and amuse people. A column is a good example of an entertaining text. 
• Your blog or article could also be informative . In this case, you want to share knowledge about a certain topic. 

Different articles on your website can have different purposes. A blog can be informative as well as entertaining. In any case, it’s important to think about the purpose of your article because it will give you a direction to follow. An article that intends to persuade people should be written differently than an article with a solely informative or amusing function. 

Read more: Why the purpose of your text is important for SEO »

You should also think about what you want your readers to know or take away after they’ve read your text. We refer to this as the message of your text.

For example

If you want to write a post about the importance of well-structured texts, the central question of the post could be: ‘Why is it important to write well-structured blog posts?’

The message of a post about the importance of well-structured texts could be: ‘It is important to write a well-structured text because it will allow people to understand your text better, it will lead to higher conversions and higher rankings.’

In order to formulate your message, you could try to phrase a question which your text should answer. We refer to such a question as the central question of a text. And the text you write should give an answer to your central question. So make sure that your central question is clear. Try to come up with a summarized answer to your central question in one or two sentences. This summarized answer is the message of your article. 

We usually put the message in the introduction of the post (where you tell readers what the post is about) as well as in the conclusion of the piece. Making your message explicit is, in our opinion, especially important in web texts. It helps readers to instantly grasp the message of your article and increases the likelihood people will keep reading.

Ideally, you already thought about the kind of audience you want to reach when you started your website. But it never hurts to remind yourself before writing your text. So, take some time to think about the people you are writing for. Make sure you adapt your text to them and adjust the difficulty level of the information in your article as well as the difficulty of your style (use of jargon, long sentences etc.). A good rule of thumb is to keep things readable and accessible to reach a wider audience .

In some cases, all the information you need to write your text is already in your head. For example, if the chef of a local Italian restaurant wants to write a blog post about the types and uses of pasta, they probably don’t need to open any books. But if they want to write an elaborate culinary history about 500 years of Italian cuisine, they might need some other sources. So, determine whether you need sources (the internet, books, newspapers) to get the information you need for your text. 

You should take the central question of your piece and come up with a number of sub-questions you want to answer. Find and formulate answers to all your sub-questions using your sources (books, the internet, scientific articles, etc.). This will provide you with the basis of your post or article.

After this phase, you might want to make some adjustments to the (central) message of your article. Take some time to phrase or rephrase your message (the summarized answer to your central question) to make it entirely clear.

What’s the best way to structure your text?

The final step in the preparation process is the most important one. You have to decide how you’ll structure the information you want to communicate to your readers. If you don’t think about this beforehand, odds are your text will lack a logical order and will be hard to follow for your audience. A proper text structure is also important for SEO . Not sure how to begin? This post offers practical tips to create a decent structure .

At this point, you’ll have all the information you need and an outline of the subjects you want to discuss in your blog post. And yes, this means it’s finally time to start writing. So get going! And don’t worry, your text doesn’t have to be perfect yet. You can edit things later on.

Try to stick to the structure you decided on and make sure your tone and style are in line with the audience you want to reach. Also, you don’t have to write your blog post from start to end. Feel free to switch between paragraphs, and skip hard bits to get back to later on. Whatever feels most natural to you!

Keep reading: SEO Copywriting: The ultimate guide »

Step 3: Correcting, editing and optimizing

Once you’ve put everything on (digital) paper, it’s time for the editing phase. Now, you should look more closely at your text and smooth out weird sentences and errors. This means checking for mistakes on a sentence and paragraph level, and also evaluating whether the structure of your blog post actually makes sense. If you’re not an experienced writer, it can be very helpful to use online spell checks or to ask someone you know to read your text. Another pair of eyes has a fresh perspective on your text and can, therefore, spot mistakes much more easily.

Optimizing for search engines should, of course, be a big part of preparing your post for publication. For example, it’s important to check the distribution of your keywords, meta description and the readability of your text. As you know, the Yoast plugin offers a lot of help with this step! Check out the SEO analysis tool , and our post on how to optimize your blog post .

Step 4: Practicalities before publishing

Before you send your new masterpiece into the world, there are a few more things to do to improve your post’s chances to do well: 

Images are an invaluable addition to (almost) every blog post. So before publishing your post, you need to add at least one quality image and make sure your images are optimized . Some bloggers prefer to create photos and images before they start writing their texts. Others prefer to first write and then find the correct images. Whether you use stock photos or create your own graphics, make sure you have at least a header image that can also be shared on social media. In Yoast SEO Premium, there is a social preview where you can see what it looks like when your post is shared on Facebook or Twitter. Here, you can also set a different social image if desired.

Categories and tags provide an extra layer of structure for your site, so you really need to give some thought to how you use those. As you’re preparing your blog post, it’s easy to forget to add the right taxonomies. So check whether you’ve done that before you hit the publish button!

Not only can you set your own social image in Yoast SEO Premium, you can also write a different description for Facebook and Twitter than for Google. People who find you through Facebook often have a different connection with you than those who find you through Google. Make sure the description resembles that! 

If Pinterest is a platform that’s relevant to your blog, you should design a Pinterest image before you launch your post. This image should have a ratio of 2:3, which means it’s vertical. Good to know: Pinterest has a scheduling feature, which means you can schedule your pin before publishing the post. Just make sure you put the correct publishing URL in!

Read on: 10 tips to streamline your blog content workflow »

Step 5: After publishing your post

After publishing your blog post, you can either sit back and hope people will pick up your newest masterpiece or you can take action to draw attention to your new post. It’s time to make some noise and get the story out there!

Although social media are designed to keep users on their platforms, your followers love hearing from you. Especially if you write for your social audience, it’s important to post your blog posts on your social media accounts. There are plugins that push your blog posts to social media as soon as you hit publish, but you could also do this yourself.

And although Pinterest isn’t a social medium but a visual search engine, we’ll discuss it here as well. While Google finds out about your new blog post through crawling and sitemaps, Pinterest doesn’t. So, if you want your content on Pinterest, you need to actually tell Pinterest you have a new post by posting to the platform. So if you have not used the scheduler or want to place your pins on more boards, now is the time to do so!

Are you aware of the importance of site structure? To improve your post’s chances to rank, you should add internal links. Int e rnal links are links that are in your text, which tell Google all about context. It’s important to link to your blog post. While writing your post, you most likely already linked to other posts you’ve written. After publishing, make sure you check which blog posts could have a link to your new post and add those links immediately. 

Step 6: A while after publishing your blog post

To make sure your blog posts don’t disappear in the large sea of content out there, it’s important to keep working on promoting and improving them even after they’ve been published for a while. 

A lot of businesses maintain a newsletter. If you send out a newsletter, you have to decide if you are going to share all your recent blog posts, or will only share your funniest or most informative ones. You can share your newest blog post in today’s newsletter. And if it’s still relevant six months from now, or you’re doing a themed newsletter, you can include it again. The bottom line is: If the content is still relevant, it won’t matter if the article is one week or one month old.

You shared your blog post on social media right after you published it, but that doesn’t mean you cannot republish it again after a few months! The same goes for the newsletter. Of course, don’t overdo it, but you can certainly reshare something 6 months after you first shared it. You can even decide to use another social image or another introduction text to give the social media post a different look.

Analyze the post’s performance

After a month or so, you can start to analyze your post’s performance. This is something you need to do regularly, for instance, every three months. You should look at Google Analytics and check Google Search Console to see how people find your blog post, but also whether you’re ranking for the keywords you want to rank for and if you should create more posts surrounding the subject or make the blog post even more in-depth. 

SEO is an ongoing process. One month, you may rank #1 for a keyword, while the next month your competitor has created a better piece and starts ranking first. And did you know that search intent for a keyword can change over time? In short, you should periodically revisit your blog post with the data you have collected, then optimize where necessary. 

Check what your competition does better than you and decide whether you want to optimize. Do you feel it’s worth your time to improve a post if you dropped from first to second place? Optimizing could mean you need to focus more on things like link building , or Schema . Check what your competitors do that you don’t. Don’t copy, but learn from them.

While updating and optimizing your content, it might be a good idea to work from a copy of the original post. This makes it possible to work on your update without bothering visitors with work that’s half-done. By using the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin , you can clone the original post. Simply edit this clone to your heart’s content, then copy the content over to the original post once you are done.

Ideally, you already worked on your internal linking when you just published your post. If you did and kept an eye on it over time, then you can skip this step. If not, you probably need to work on your internal linking again! Use the orphaned content filter in Yoast SEO Premium to see which articles need some attention regarding internal linking.

To keep track of what you need to do to write and publish a perfect blog post, we created a checklist. You can print it out and keep it with you as a cheat sheet when you’re preparing, writing, and fine-tuning your text. We even added some empty checkboxes so you can add extra steps if we didn’t cover something you consider absolutely necessary! Download the free checklist here!

Writing a blog post can be a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. You need to invest time in preparing and writing your blog post. And once it’s written, it’s important that you make sure it gets the attention it deserves by sharing and improving your text. This might seem like a lot, but in the end, you’ll see your content consistently perform well. And trust us, it will be worth it!

Keep on reading: SEO copywriting: The ultimate guide »

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Marieke was Head of Strategy and former CEO at Yoast. During her time at our company she wrote a lot. Topics that she loves writing about include SEO copywriting, site structure and readability.

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How to write a blog post that people will actually read and share

Written by by Brent Barnhart

Published on  September 16, 2019

Reading time  12 minutes

If you’re not 100% sure how to write a blog post that clicks with readers, don’t sweat it.

The reality? Blogging is a major struggle for most businesses out there.

And hey, we totally understand why.

From coming up with ideas to actually putting pen to paper digitally, a worthwhile blog post requires some serious effort.

That said, the benefits of blogging for business are worth racking your brain for. The correlation between businesses that blog scoring more traffic, conversions and leads is well-documented .

The takeaway? Learning how to write a blog post is an invaluable skill no matter what you’re selling.

That’s why we put together this guide breaking down the anatomy of a good blog post and how to write one yourself.

What makes a good blog post, anyway?

Before we get knee-deep into how to write a blog post, let’s talk about what the best blog posts have in common.

Although blogging is certainly a skill, you don’t need to be Shakespeare to start writing ’em.

Instead, simply consider the common threads between blog posts that actually get read and shared.

They solve a problem

Listen: people don’t wind up on blogs by accident.

When we seek out content, it’s because we have a problem that needs to be solved or a question that needs to be answered.

Perhaps you’re looking for the perfect ramen recipe. Maybe you’re looking for marketing tips.

Either way, we’re often hunting for content that provides a solution.

Heck, the Sprout Social blog is a shining example of what we’re talking about. We’ve put together hundreds of posts dedicated to solving problems and answering questions on behalf of marketers.

But solving a problem or answering a question is only half the battle.

After all, there are dozens (or hundreds) of blog posts out there covering any given topic.

So not only should your blog post solve a problem, but also do so in a meaningful way.

This might mean breaking down a complex topic with a more digestible approach or going in-depth on a topic that needs addressing in detail.

Considering that most high-performing blog posts around over 1,000 words according to Orbit Media , conventional wisdom tells us that top-tier posts go beyond basic information and dig into specifics.

Sprout’s own “ Best Times to Post on Social Media ” is a great example, brimming with original data and graphs. That’s exactly why it’s one of our top-performing posts.

They’re easy to read

This might seem like a no-brainer, but readability is easy to overlook.

Spoiler alert: most readers have microscopic attention spans.

If your post puts ’em to sleep within the first few seconds, chances are they’ll look elsewhere for information. This is especially true in a day and age where people can simply watch a video in lieu of reading a blog post.

As a writer, it’s your job to find a balance between relaying in-depth information and keeping your audience’s attention.

You can’t expect folks to slog through a wall of text. Instead, you should make a point to avoid jargon and present your content in a style that doesn’t make you sound like a robot.

For example,  The Verge ‘s “ How to Choose a Fitness Tracker ” is a fairly straightforward example of a simple post that gets the job done. Written at a 9th-grade level and broken up by subheaders and images, the post is easy to scan and understand for just about anyone.

Meanwhile, this post from marketing expert Brittany Berger manages to deliver a valuable lesson in marketing with a simple sentence structure and conversational tone. Presented as playful with a distinct voice and plenty of visuals to break up the text, readers naturally move from line to line wondering what comes next.

Developing a writing style comes with practice. The beauty of blogging is that you aren’t typically tied to strict formatting guidelines of traditional writing “rules” that might make your content sound stuffy.

They’re optimized (but not  too optimized!)

Given the fierce competition among marketers and search engines alike, optimizing your content for SEO (and social!) is a must-do.

Optimization is yet another balancing act, though. From keyword stuffing to clickbait and beyond, writers can’t afford to sacrifice readability and quality for the sake of trying to score clicks.

But as proven by tons of bloggers out there, it’s possible to find that balance between writing for humans and search engines. For example, posts like “ How to Build Your Social Media Marketing Strategy ” are able to hit on crucial keywords in a way that’s natural and doesn’t distract the reader at all.

If you keep these three principles in mind each time you sit down to write a post, you’re already way ahead of the curve.

How to write better blog posts: Our foolproof framework

Okay, so how do you take these tips and put them into action when it comes time to write?

Good question!

Staring at the proverbial blank page is one of the worst feelings in the world for blog writers.

That’s why we recommend having some sort of framework in place when it comes time to write a blog post. This rings true whether you’re starting a post from scratch or are revising older content. Below is our list of tactics and tools to help get you going.

Choose a blog post format before you start writing

Instead of relying on a cut-and-paste blog post template that might come off as cookie-cutter to readers, we recommend simply picking a blog post format before you start writing a post.

Doing so will make it much easier to organize your ideas and actually start writing.

Below are three types of blog posts that typically get shared around. Although these certainly aren’t the only types of blog posts, they’re can be adapted to just about any topic with ease.

• How-to’s , which live up to their namesake by explaining how to tackle a certain task or problem (ex: “ How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review “)
• Listicles , which is simply a blog post formatted as a list (ex: “ The Business of DIY: 10 Things to Make and Sell Online “)
• Question-based posts , which respond to or pose a question with Who, What, When, or Where? (ex: “ Why Netflix Cancelled Your Favorite Show ” or ex: “ When is the Best Time to Send Emails? “)

Let’s briefly break down each of these types of blog posts and why they work so well.

How-to blog posts

The concept of a how-to post is self-explanatory. Such posts provide an opportunity to take a deep dive into a specific topic. How-to posts have very specific search-intent and allow you to target niche audiences looking for expertise.

Given that many Google searches are centered around “how to” queries, it’s no surprise that many businesses use them as the foundation for their blogs. For example, brands like Campaign Monitor put together tons of how-to guides covering specific topics for their audience of email marketers.

Listicle blog posts

Popularized by the likes of Buzzfeed, list-style posts might seem a bit overdone or cliche.

However, it’s hard to ignore their popularity and  why they’re all the rage in the first place.

After all, listicles are easy to digest at a glance and can be skimmed by busy readers. Additionally, subheaders can help people zero in on key points without necessarily having to read an entire article.

Additionally, lists are straightforward for writers to put together and can help break down larger topics into smaller pieces. For writers and readers alike, this sort of simplicity is a win-win.

Question-based blog posts

These types of posts address a specific question readers might have, helping writers hone in their focus on a single topic.

Unlike how-to posts, these types of blogs don’t necessarily teach readers how to do something but rather provide insight to the topic at hand.

These types of posts can be broad in scope but do well to pique the curiosity of the reader. This headline and post from The Takeout is a great example of a question-based blog that’s click-worthy at a glance. Even if you weren’t curious about meatless meats before, chances are you are now.

Make sure your headline packs a punch

There’s an oft-cited claim that 80% of people will decide whether or not to read something based on its headline.

Meanwhile, 60% of people will actually share an article on social media without actually reading it.

In a day and age dominated by clickbait headlines , bloggers are tasked with writing compelling headlines that attract readers without pulling a bait-and-switch.

How do you make it happen, though? Most of the examples we’ve cited so far represent click-worthy, shareable content that you’d see passed around social based on their headlines.

Perhaps what’s most important is framing your article as presenting can’t-miss.

For example, “ The Most Important Social Media Metrics to Track ” doesn’t just cover any social metrics: it covers  the most important ones .

Or consider the “must” in “ 9 Skills Every Social Media Manager Must Have .” By presenting these skills as must-have, readers naturally want to see if their own skills match up the post.

See how that works?

To figure out whether or not your headline packs a punch, tools such as  CoSchedule’s headline analyzer can be a game-changer. In short, the tool assigns a score to your headlines based on readability, “power words” and other elements that drive people to read and share posts.

This tool isn’t the be-all, end-all of headline writing but can definitely help you brainstorm ideas.

Double-check your content and formatting for readability

Conventional wisdom tells us that most people read at a 7th-grade level.

Translation? Businesses should strive to avoid language that’s too lofty, if possible.

Remember: you’re not writing a college essay. Rules such as “five to seven sentences per paragraph” that you learned in English class don’t exactly fly in the blogging world.

Tools such as the Hemingway Editor can help you identify opportunities to make your content more readable. The cut-and-paste app detects words and sentences that might be confusing to readers and highlights them throughout your text.

Many writers also use tools like Grammarly to avoid common grammatical issues and awkward phrases. This is an especially useful tool if you’re new to blog writing or don’t often write long-form content.

We should note that while readability checkers are definitely useful, you shouldn’t expect anything you write to be totally “perfect” based on these tools. The checks they run represent just one set of guidelines, and as you develop a unique writing voice you’ll inevitably vary a bit from them.

Your audience matters too: for example, let’s say you’re writing about a technical subject are addressing a college-educated audience. A higher readability grade is just fine in these cases.

But also consider that it’s possible to cover technical topics without completely going over your readers’ head. Case in point,  Wired ‘s “ AI and the Future of Work ” touches on a topic for the tech-savvy but is written as an accessible 9th-grade level.

You’ve probably noticed by now that so much of figuring out how to write a blog post is a balancing act. The more you write, the easier it is to find those balances over time.

Format your post to be scroll-friendly

Formatting is a huge aspect of readability and shareability for your blog posts.

Think about how the format of your point can naturally draw your reader from one sentence to the next.

That’s why most bloggers restrict their paragraphs to no more than three sentences. This helps create a sense of flow and likewise won’t overwhelm anyone reading a post via mobile.

Posts should also be broken up frequently by subheaders, again making your content easy to scan. Many bloggers try to insert a subheader at least every 300 words.

Beyond subheaders, visuals are also a critical component of format and readability.

Considering that 65% of people consider themselves to be visual learners, don’t neglect the importance of giving your readers something to look at beyond text.

Note that we typically include a variety of examples, images and screenshots throughout our posts here at Sprout. Most bloggers include three to four images per blog post , but writers should feel free to include as many visuals as they see fit.

What sort of visuals are we talking about, though?

Going beyond stock photos or screenshots, consider how you can whip up a graphic or quote with the help of a tool like Canva .

Bear in mind that you can also use social embeds to break up your blog posts, too. For bloggers using WordPress, social links you copy-and-paste will immediately populate without issue.

Agencies, forget quick wins. It's time to play to your existing strengths. #ThinkActAdapt #AgencyLife https://t.co/qsRiFzlcGt — Sprout Social (@SproutSocial) September 10, 2019

Similarly, you can embed YouTube videos in your content as well.

The takeaway here is to find opportunities to keep your readers scrolling with the help of headers and visuals. Doing so not only helps make your pieces more entertaining but also provides a visual representation of whatever you’re blogging about.

Mind what optimization means for SEO

SEO is central to just about any blog strategy.

Of course, sacrificing readability for the sake of SEO is a common mistake among bloggers competing for keywords.

Again, the concept of balance rears its head. For starters, take the time to do proper keyword research via SEO tools and start with keywords you might realistically rank for.

If you’re using WordPress, tools such as  Yoast can help you tick the boxes of search optimization while ensuring that your content is reader-friendly.

Like the other tools highlighted above, you shouldn’t worry about your posts being absolutely “perfect” from an SEO perspective. Few posts will ever get the total green light from Yoast. Simply use such as tools as a guide to double-check that you aren’t missing any obvious opportunities for optimization.

Quick blog writing tips and tactics to keep in mind

By now you probably have a good idea of how to write a blog post.

Your job isn’t quite done yet, though.

Becoming a better blogger is an ongoing process that’s far from over once your posts go live. To wrap things up, here are some quick tips for bloggers to create high-performing, share-worthy content over time.

Analyze your top-performing blog posts

If you want to figure out which of your blog posts are your “best,” look no further than your analytics.

In addition to traffic for individual posts, consider how metrics such as bounce rate and clicks can clue you in the posts that readers interact with the most.

The same rules apply to metrics such as social shares and clicks. Through social analytics , you can discover common threads between the types of content that your readers share.

Don’t forget to promote your content on social media!

Given the hours involved in putting together a quality post, content distribution should be a top priority for each post you publish.

And consider how social media is central to promoting your blog to current and new readers alike. Through Sprout’s social media scheduling and publishing suite, you can schedule and reschedule your posts across social media to maximize your readership. Additionally, tools such as Viralpost ensure that your blog-centric posts go live when readers are most likely to see them.

Be willing to practice and learn from other bloggers

This might be cliche, but becoming a better blogger doesn’t happen overnight.

Through consistent reading and writing, you can develop better writing habits and style all your own. When you spot a blog post that you find engaging, take the time to dig into  why it clicked with you.

Was it the writer’s voice? Was it the level of depth that the post went into? Paying attention to these points and emulating them in your own writing can put you on the path to more compelling content yourself.

How to find and pay blog writers

It’s totally understandable that for many brands and marketing teams, doing all the writing in house is a daunting task. In that case, you’re most likely looking for outside assistance in the form of freelance bloggers.

Onboarding and managing freelancers brings its own set of tasks, but can be well worth it to expand your publishing scale.

One of the most common questions when starting the search is how much you should be paying for a blog post. This can vary greatly based on expertise, the uniqueness of your content or brand niche, and the need to research or source images for the posts you’re requesting.

You might find a writer in the $25 to $150 range for one article on a simpler topic or shorter word count. Posts on more complex topics requiring detailed research, interviews or stats may start at $150 and go much higher depending on factors like the word count or experience level of the writer.

Ready to start writing better blog posts?

Writing a high-quality blog post isn’t a simple as it seems.

At the end of the day, your end goal should be to produce better content than what’s already out there.

Whether it’s through a distinct sense of style or in-depth information, you can figure out how to write a blog post that provides value to your readers.

With the help of these tips and plenty of practice, you can do exactly that sooner rather than later. Learn more about the fundamentals of a winning content marketing strategy to improve your blog.

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How To Write A Blog Post? A Step-By-Step Guide

• Itamar Haim
• on Marketing Blog

Blogging is a powerful tool. Whether you’re a business owner looking to attract customers, an expert wanting to share your knowledge, or an individual with a passion for writing, a well-crafted blog post can establish your voice, build an audience, and even open new opportunities. But how do you get started? What makes a blog post truly successful?

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the step-by-step process of writing engaging blog posts that resonate with readers and achieve your desired outcomes. As we delve into the world of blogging, we’ll uncover how using the right tools can streamline your writing, enhance your blog’s design, and ensure a lightning-fast experience for your audience.

Finding Your Focus & Understanding Your Audience 

Brainstorming topics.

Before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard!), it’s essential to generate some compelling blog post ideas. Here’s where the brainstorming begins:

• Mind-mapping: Grab a pen and paper or use a digital mind-mapping tool. Start with your core niche or area of expertise. Branch out into related topics, questions your audience might have, and problems you can help them solve.
• Analyze Trends: Explore resources like Google Trends to identify popular topics and rising search terms within your industry.
• Customer Questions: If you’re a business, pay close attention to customer inquiries, pain points, and frequently asked questions. These can be a goldmine of blog post inspiration.
• Solve a Problem: The best blog posts offer valuable solutions to a reader’s pain point.

Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you understand what people are searching for and the language they use. It’s a crucial step for making sure your blog posts get found by your target audience. Here’s how to get started:

• Tools for the Job: A variety of free and paid keyword research tools exist, including Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs , and Ubersuggest. These tools help you discover relevant keywords, assess their search volume, and see how competitive they are.
• Target Keywords: Focus on keywords that directly relate to your blog topic and have a decent monthly search volume.
• Long-tail Keywords: Don’t overlook long-tail keywords (phrases with more than three words). They often need more competition and can attract highly targeted traffic.

Understanding Searcher Intent

Search engines like Google aim to provide users with the most relevant results for their queries. Understanding the intent behind a search query is crucial for creating content that truly satisfies the user’s needs.  There are several types of searcher intent to consider:

• Informational: The user wants to learn something (“how to bake bread”).
• Navigational: The user is looking for a specific website (“ Elementor blog”).
• Transactional: The user wants to make a purchase (“best laptops under $500”).
• Commercial: The user is researching products or services with the intent to buy in the future (“best CRM software for small business”).

Aligning Your Content with Searcher Intent

When planning your blog posts, think about the “why” behind the keywords you target. What problem is the user hoping to solve? What information are they seeking?  Here’s an example:

• Keyword: “healthy breakfast recipes”
• Searcher Intent: This likely falls into the informational category. People want to learn new recipes and get ideas for nutritious meals.
• Content Match: Focus on providing a variety of healthy breakfast options, including detailed recipes and nutritional information.

By tailoring your content to the searcher’s intent, you increase the chances that your post will rank well in search results and provide true value to your readers.

Defining Your Target Audience 

Knowing who you’re writing for is essential to creating content that resonates. Picture your ideal reader in your mind. Here’s how to build a clearer profile:

• Demographics: Consider factors like age, gender, location, and occupation.
• Interests and Pain Points: What keeps your audience up at night? What are their aspirations?
• Create Personas: Develop fictional representations of your ideal readers, giving them names, personalities, and detailed backstories. This will help you tailor your writing to their specific needs.

Outlining Your Blog Post 

An outline provides a roadmap for your blog post, ensuring a logical structure and avoiding rambling. Here’s how to start:

• Choose Your Angle: What unique perspective or key message do you want to convey?
• Main Points: List the crucial points you want to cover, supporting your blog’s main angle.
• Headings and Subheadings: Use them to break up text and improve readability.
• Short Paragraphs: Make your content easy to scan.
• Conversational Tone: Write like you’re talking to a friend; be informative and approachable.

Crafting Compelling Content 

Writing a captivating headline .

Your headline is the first impression your blog post makes, the hook that entices readers to click and discover more. Here’s how to write headlines that stand out:

• Keep it Short: Aim for around 60 characters to prevent your headline from getting cut off in search results.
• Use “Power Words”: Words like “ultimate,” “essential,” “secrets,” and “proven” add impact.
• Include Numbers: Studies show that headlines with numbers often get more clicks.
• Leverage Your Target Keyword: For added SEO benefit, incorporate your focus keyword, ideally near the beginning of your headline.

Formulas to Consider

• Listicles: (e.g., “10 Ways to Improve Your Writing”)
• How-To Guides: (e.g., “How to Start a Vegetable Garden”)
• Product Reviews: (Honest and helpful)
• Roundup Posts: Featuring experts in your field
• Personal Stories: (If relatable for your audience)

A Strong Introduction 

Your introduction needs to grab your readers and leave them wanting more. Here’s how to make it count:

• The Hook: Open with a compelling anecdote, a surprising statistic, a thought-provoking question, or a relatable problem.
• Provide Context: Briefly set the stage for your blog post, explaining why this topic matters to your target audience.
• Preview Your Main Points: Give readers a taste of what they’ll learn. This helps them decide to invest their time in reading your full article.

Elementor Tip: Creating engaging introductions can be tough. Let Elementor AI jumpstart your creativity! Generate different introduction variations based on your topic and choose the one that resonates the most.

The Body of Your Post 

This is where you dive deep into your topic, delivering on the promise of your headline. Keep these principles in mind:

• Clear Structure: Use headings (H1 for your main title, H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections) to break up your content. This improves readability and helps search engines understand your post’s hierarchy.
• Short and Focused Paragraphs: Avoid long, dense blocks of text. Keep paragraphs short and focused on a single idea.
• Conversational Tone: Write like you’re talking to a friend. Let your personality shine through! Avoid overly formal or academic language.
• Examples and Actionable Advice: Illustrate your points with real-world examples and give readers clear takeaways they can implement.

The Power of Storytelling 

Stories connect with us on an emotional level, making them incredibly effective in blog posts. Consider:

• Personal Anecdotes: Share a relevant personal experience to illustrate a point.
• Case Studies: Highlight how you or others have successfully applied your advice.
• Historical References: Draw inspiration from historical events or figures to add depth.

Optimization & Visuals 

Basic seo for blog posts .

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps your blog posts get found by your target audience in search results. Here are the essentials:

Strategic Keyword Placement

Incorporate your target keyword naturally throughout your post, including in your headline, introduction, body text, and conclusion. Avoid keyword stuffing, as this can hurt your rankings.

Meta Description

This brief description appears under your title in search results. Write a clear and compelling meta description, ideally including your focus keyword, to encourage clicks.

This is the title that appears in the browser tab and on search engine results pages (SERPs). Optimize it using your focus keyword and keep it under 60 characters.

Internal Linking

Link to other relevant blog posts on your site. This boosts user engagement and helps search engines understand your website’s structure.

External Linking

Link to authoritative websites when relevant. This can add credibility and improve the user experience.

Incorporating Images and Visuals

Visuals break up text, make your content more engaging, and can even boost SEO. Here’s how to use them effectively:

• Image Relevance: Choose images and visuals that align with your content and enhance understanding.
• Free and Paid Resources: For free images, explore websites like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay. For a wider selection, consider premium stock photo sites like Shutterstock or iStock.
• Infographics and Diagrams: Complex concepts can be easily explained using infographics, charts, and diagrams. Consider using tools like Canva or Venngage.
• Optimize for Web: Compress images before uploading to avoid slow load times. Utilize Elementor Image Optimizer for automatic optimization.
• Alt Text: This descriptive text helps screen readers and search engines understand your images. Always include relevant keywords in your alt text.

Formatting for Readability 

How your content is presented visually makes a big difference in user experience. Focus on these elements:

• Short Paragraphs and Sentences: Aim for sentences under 20 words and paragraphs no longer than 3-4 lines.
• White Space: Use ample white space around text and images to prevent your layout from feeling cluttered.
• Bullet Points and Numbered Lists: These are excellent for presenting information in an easy-to-scan format.

Call to Action (CTA)

A clear call to action guides your readers towards the next step. Here’s how to make them effective:

• Clarity: Clearly state what you want the reader to do (leave a comment, sign up for your newsletter, etc.)
• Urgency: Use words like “now,” “today,” or “limited time” to encourage immediate action.
• Placement: Place your CTA strategically, such as at the end of your blog post or within a relevant section.

Editing, Proofreading, & Publishing 

Taking a break and revisiting .

Before hitting publish, step away from your draft for a short while. Returning with fresh eyes helps you catch errors and identify areas for improvement.

Grammar and Spelling Checks 

A polished blog post is a credible one. Here are some resources:

• Built-in spellcheck: Most word processors have a basic spellcheck function.
• Grammarly: This popular tool offers free and premium versions for catching grammar errors and improving writing clarity.
• Hemingway Editor: This tool helps simplify your writing, highlighting overly complex sentences and suggesting better phrasing.
• Pro Tip: Read your blog post out loud to identify awkward sentences and flow issues.

SEO Plugins (Yoast SEO, RankMath) 

SEO plugins offer valuable guidance for optimizing blog posts. Let’s look at two widely-used options:

• Yoast SEO: A popular choice offering real-time feedback on keyword placement, readability, meta descriptions, and more.
• RankMath: A powerful alternative with similar features plus additional options for schema markup and social media optimization.

Note: Both Yoast SEO and RankMath are integrated with Elementor website builder. This makes it seamless to analyze and optimize your blog content directly within the Elementor interface.

Choosing Categories and Tags 

Categories and tags help organize your blog content, making it easier for readers to find what they’re interested in and improving the structure of your site for search engines.

• Categories: Broad topics that encompass multiple posts (e.g., “Blogging Tips”, “Web Design”).
• Tags: More specific keywords related to individual posts (e.g., “keyword research”, “SEO best practices”).

Setting a Featured Image

This image appears as a thumbnail next to your blog post listings and when shared on social media. Choose an eye-catching and relevant image that accurately represents your content.

Scheduling and Timing Your Post 

Consider your target audience and analytics data when deciding the best time to publish. Tools like Hootsuite or Buffer allow you to schedule posts across social media platforms in advance.

Promotion & Beyond 

Social media sharing .

Social media platforms offer a massive audience to promote your blog content. Here’s how to get started:

• Choose the Right Platforms: Focus on platforms where your target audience is active (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.).
• Tailor Your Message: Adapt your post’s headline and introductory text to suit each platform’s style and character limits.
• Images and Videos: Visuals increase engagement. Create shareable images with quotes from your blog post or short teaser videos.
• Hashtags: Use relevant hashtags to help people discover your content.
• Scheduling Tools: Utilize platforms like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule posts in advance and manage multiple social media accounts efficiently.

Email Marketing and Newsletters 

Email is a powerful channel for nurturing relationships with your audience. Consider:

• Newsletter Signup Forms: Use Elementor to design and embed eye-catching signup forms across your website.
• Compelling Subject Lines: Write subject lines that spark curiosity and encourage openness.
• Provide Value: Share exclusive content, roundups of your latest blog posts, or offer special promotions to your subscribers.
• Consistency: Set a regular schedule for sending your newsletter.

Engaging with Comments 

Replying to comments builds a sense of community and encourages participation:

• Respond Promptly: Show readers that you value their feedback.
• Personalize Your Replies: Address commenters by name and tailor your responses.
• Encourage Discussion: Ask questions to foster further engagement.
• Moderate Inappropriately: Set guidelines for your comment section and remove spam or inappropriate comments.

Tracking Results (Google Analytics) 

Monitoring your blog’s performance helps you understand what’s working and where to improve. Google Analytics offers a wealth of insights. Focus on metrics like:

• Traffic: Track how many people visit your blog over time.
• Popular Posts: Identify your top-performing content to understand what resonates with your audience.
• Traffic Sources: Understand where your visitors are coming from (search engines, social media, etc.).
• Bounce Rate: This indicates how quickly visitors leave your site. Look for ways to improve engagement and reduce your bounce rate.

Continuous Learning and Improvement 

Blogging is an ongoing journey! Commit to continuous learning by:

• Read Other Blogs: Find successful blogs in your niche and analyze their content, promotion strategies, and design choices.
• Stay Updated on SEO Trends: Search engine algorithms evolve, so stay informed about the latest best practices.
• Take Online Courses: Platforms like Udemy, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning offer courses on blogging, SEO, and content marketing .
• Network with Other Bloggers: Join online communities and forums to learn from and collaborate with other bloggers.

Conclusion 

Blogging is a journey of constant learning, growth, and adaptation. By following the strategies outlined in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to creating compelling content that resonates with your audience and achieves your blogging goals.

Remember, consistency is key. The more you write, the better you’ll become. Commit to publishing regularly and actively promoting your blog. Experiment and track your results to see what works best for you.

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How to write a blog for a company

Why write a business blog?

93% of companies use a blog and 74% say a blog will be most critical to their content marketing success.

Source: Content Marketing in the UK Content Marketing Institute

When done properly, your business blog will drive traffic to your website, increase sales, establish you as an authority in your field, improve your SEO and give you access to new markets.

“Yes”, I hear you say, “but I have limited time and I don’t know what to say – how do I write a business blog that delivers compelling content, markets my company, yet the readers' love – month after month?”

The answer - just follow these 7 simple steps :

•   Establish the goals of your company’s blog
•   Identify your audience
•   Decide what to write about
•   Write over 1,500 words per blog post
•   Use a Title, Introduction, Body and Conclusion
•   Review your work
•   Market your business blog

1.Establish the goals of your company’s blog

• What do I want to achieve from my blog?
• What do I want my readers to take away from it?

The answers will enable you to set core business goals for your blog.

The goal of your blog should be to educate your readers, not promote your company; however your overall business goals are to generate sales and make a profit.  So, how do you reconcile the two?

The trick is to remember that you’re targeting people at the pre-sales stage in the sales process.  Before buying a new product or service, customers will shop around, weigh-up options and decide which choice is best for them and whether they want to go ahead with a particular purchase at all.

Your goal should therefore be to educate your customers so that they’re:

• More equipped to make the right decision about which product is best for them.
• Feel more confident about using your product or service, regardless of where they eventually choose to purchase it.
• Feel that they can trust your website as an authoritative source of information.
• Or with some blog posts, simply feel that they’ve received a gift and learnt something that helps them towards the same overall goal.

When writing a blog, therefore be generous and be abundant in the information you provide.  Read more on why educate customers in your blog?

2.Identify your audience

• Who is my target audience?
• What are they looking for?

You can’t have a meaningful dialogue unless you know who you’re talking to, and remember: you’re writing for your audience – not yourself!

If you interact with your clients physically, e.g. you run a health centre or a restaurant, then you will have a good idea of who they are from meeting them.  If not, or if you have a new business, then looking at your followers on social media can reveal a lot about your customers, but your website statistics will be your primary source of information on who your average visitor is.

When reviewing Google Analytics (my preferred website statistics software), I focus on statistics that have clear differentials.  If 45% of my audience are male and 55% female, it’s clear that I should target both men and women.  It’s important not to inadvertently overlook a large minority during this process.

One strategy is to put together customer personas with information like:

• Income bracket
• Personality

Customer personas are used by 50% of UK companies according to a survey by the Content Marketing Institute.

Create 1 or 2 of these that reflect who your customers are, then when you’re writing your blog, keep these customer personas in mind and write for them.  If you work with a marketing or SEO company, then pass this information onto them too. 

The second part of the question is what are your customers looking for?  To answer this, ask yourself:

• What problem does your product or service solve?
• What other information will help your customers solve this problem?
• What do your top competitors write about in their blogs?
• What differentiates you from your competitors?  (What are your unique selling points?)
• What other questions or goals will customers looking for your business also have?

Learn more on writing for your target audience .

3.Decide what to write about

“A business blog is important because it is the optimal choice for your content marketing hub. In today’s content-driven world, while you may view yourself as a marketer, you’re really a publisher. You have to provide relevant content for your prospects, customers and the public, who spend over 10 hours a day consuming media.”

Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute.

Once you’ve identified who your audience is and the problem that they’re trying to solve, deciding what to write about becomes a lot easier.  Here are some suggestions for topics if you’re seeking inspiration:

• Answer a question you've been asked by a customer
• What is the best service for me?   (A comparison between two or more different options).
• Detailed guide on how to do something (can either be one aspect of your business, or if you have a niche business, can focus on how your business fits into a wider sphere of interest).
• Success story from someone who has used your company or a case study based on your own success or how you overcame a past failure.
• A list of the top 16 ways to do something, the best 7 solutions to a problem, etc. (lists with unusual numbers attract more attention than lists with round numbers)
• Obscure or controversial facts
• Describe an event (if you attended a business fair, speaking event, etc. then talk about it).
• Share inspirations from a book
• Launch a new product or service
• Do Keyword Research  (Look for questions, or what keywords competitors' blogs rank for).
• History of your product
• Future predictions (this opinion piece should be based on research for what will happen in the next year or two, but can include more wild speculations further into the future).

To really make your blog engaging you may want to take it a step further and include:

• An infographic
• An interview with one or more other experts in your industry
• A video or audio file

Doing keyword research is also a useful way to identify what to include in your blog and how common different search phrases are.  There are often a significant number of people who enter the same exact question into Google and it’s best to consider including the exact wording as part of the blog title to help you appear higher for this question, so long as you add something to it to make it unique and help increase the Click Through Rate.

If your business is an established, well-known brand, then it would be natural that your blog will be more about your own company, events, product launches, etc.  If your business is smaller, then it’s more natural to write about the industry as a whole. You may wish to create a content plan  so you have a clear idea of what content is needed over time.

Remember to keep your blogs relevant, upbeat and educational and/or entertaining (if appropriate).

4.Write over 1,500 words per blog post

Bloggers who write over 1,500 words per blog post are 3 times more likely to get “strong results” than bloggers who write less than 500 words.

(From a survey by Orbit Media of over 1,000 bloggers , who also found that the length of blogs is increasing and is expected to increase further in the future.

Put yourself in your visitors’ position.  Can you truly answer a question in-depth in just 500 words?  Can you do it better than any of the other websites out there that are also answering this question?  Both your visitors and Google value more in-depth blog posts and writing fewer, more in-depth posts will generate far better results than churning out short posts every day.

If you have limited time, a single monthly, high-quality and well-researched blog post is better than lots of small posts.  It’s all about adding value.

5.Use a Title, Introduction, Body and Conclusion

As with any piece of writing, a blog post can be split into 4 components: Title, Introduction, Body and Conclusion.

The title should include one or two relevant keywords and capture the readers’ attention.  For best SEO practice you can:

• Use a short h1 title that appears at the top of the page that succinctly describes the blog.
• Use a longer (40-60 characters) Metatag Title that appears in the search results.

Introduction

You’re not writing a novel, so for a successful post you need to dive right into your topic, rather than gradually building up to it.  A few ways to do this are to:

• Start with a quote
• Make a controversial point (even if you backtrack or clarify later)
• Lead with a paragraph introducing the importance of the subject
• Empathise with the problem the client is facing
• Start with a fascinating fact or statistic (if you feel that the fact is merely interesting, don’t start with it!)
• Ask a question (the same question the reader will be asking)
• Start with the end (tell people the end of the story first, then start the story)

The reader should feel excited about reading your blog post and look forward to reading the whole thing.  Discover more on writing blog post introductions .

Before starting to write your body, research the topic, brainstorm the sub-sections to include in your post and consider the best order to put them in so that they flow naturally.

The most popular bloggers use a range of strategies to break up the body and blogs for a company are no exception.  All the following will engage visitors and increase the time they spend reading your blog:

• Relevant and attractive images (I like to start each blog post with an original illustration and include some other images in the post that can either be illustrations, photos, charts or diagrams).
• Bullet point lists (a good way to use these is to ask a question, then list the answers).
• Secondary sub-headings to split up the main sections.
• Links to other relevant pages on your own site or blog pages on other websites that provide extra information.
• Videos and audio files.

For best SEO practice, main sub-headings should be h2 in html and secondary sub-headings should be h3.  If you use ‘Heading 2’ and ‘Heading 3’ formatting in Word, when you copy it to your website, most modern CMS editors will automatically change it to the right format.

For SEO it helps if some sub-headings include keywords, but it’s more important that they make sense to readers, clearly describe the topic, and engage them.

Each sub-section can include its own Title, Introduction, Body and Conclusion.

“In literature and in life we ultimately pursue not conclusions, but beginnings.”

Sam Tanenhaus, Literature Unbound

While I like to conclude by summarising the main points, the conclusion is also where to put a call to action – a chance for readers to start a new beginning.

For a company’s blog, this might be:

• A link to a product or service page (e.g. would you like to appear on other people’s blogs?  Learn more about our guest posting service ).
• A link to your contact page (e.g. if you’d like Indigoextra to write your blog for you, or for a no obligation discussion on improving your SEO, please get in touch ).
• An invitation to comment on, or share your blog .

6.Review your work

Bloggers who follow a formal review and editing process, particularly those using a professional editor, also report more success.

When you’ve finished your post, review it and ask:

• Is all the spelling and grammar correct?  (If you’ve not already, run it through a spelling and grammar check, as well as doing a manual check)
• Does it make sense and flow naturally?
• Is there anything that reads like a filler?  Should you delete it?
• Is there anything essential that’s missing on this topic?  If so, either add it, link to someone else’s post that provides more details, or make a note of it for a future post.
• Is the title still the best fit for the content?

Edit anything that needs changing and ideally ask a second person to review it too.

7.Market your company’s blog

So, you’ve finished your blog, job done, time to put your feet up and relax!

While you might want to have a well-deserved break for writing a fascinating and in-depth blog, your work’s not finished.  Unless you put your blog out there, people aren’t likely to find it.  To market your blog you can:

• Review other pages on your own site and add links to your new post from old pages or product/service pages where it makes sense to do so.
• Share your blog on social media.
• Write another blog post on a related theme linking to your blog and arrange for it to be posted on a third party website as a guest post.

The simplest way to market your blog is to add a 'Recent blog items' section to the footer of your site showing the last 3 or 4 posts.

For companies with a new blog we recommend that you spend 1/3 of the time writing your blog and 2/3 of the time marketing it on third party websites.

If you have an established company blog, then the ratio changes – spend 2/3 writing content and 1/3 marketing it.

The way SEO works is that a link to a page on your blog will help your website as a whole.  Pages that are rich in information and useful for visitors are far more likely to get shared, liked and linked to than your product pages, unless you create something that people rave about; therefore in the long run creating great content on your blog is also one of the best content marketing strategies.

A successful blog for a company takes time and effort to create, however when you write a blog that truly adds value for your customers, it will significantly increase sales and improve your branding. There’s a reason why the most successful companies all write blogs and it’s not just because everyone else does it, rather it’s based on a solid understanding of business.

Focus on creating high-quality, in-depth content, on what your customers need and on what you can give to them.  Writing a business blog can be a great pleasure and is rewarding both personally and financially.

Indigoextra use advanced techniques to identify the best strategy for your content marketing and offer a range of  SEO copywriting services . If you'd like help with marketing your business or writing your own blog, please get in touch .

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How to Write Blog Posts for Your Company

• 7-minute read
• 22nd November 2022

Blogs are one of the most popular forms of media, so there is no shortage of them giving advice on everything writing-related. But sometimes too much information can be confusing. What do you do when every blog tells you something different?

In the minefield that is writing advice blogs, you need to find someone you trust and who knows what they’re talking about. Our Writing Tips blog gets more than five million hits every year, so we know a thing or two about writing blogs. Let us take you through our top tips for writing business blog posts.

7 Tips to Writing Blog Posts

1. decide what type of blog you want to write.

The first thing you will need to decide is what type of blog you want to write. Is your aim to write a how-to or instruction blog? Or do you want to persuade the reader to buy your business’ products or services? You need to decide this early because the language used in these two blog types is completely different. Instruction blogs should use simple and easy-to-follow language, usually giving direct commands or advice, while persuasive blogs should use more emotive language.

Using the wrong type of language in a blog will be jarring for your readers, so taking time to consider what you want to achieve before you start will greatly benefit your writing .

2. Define Your Customer or Market

Chances are you already have a good idea who your target customer or market is, but it’s important that you use language that reflects this demographic. If your target market is over 60, there is no point talking to them about the struggles of being a millennial in the twenty-first century because it won’t resonate with them and might even put them off using your products or services. Click to read more on creating customer-centric content.

When creating content for your customers, keep your audience in mind. Making use of character profiles, with names, occupations, and likes and dislikes, can help you focus your writing on the person you hope to influence or help. You’ll likely already have these from your market research, which is one less thing for you to do.

3. Create an Outline

Once you have decided what type of content you want to write and defined your market, you need to start thinking about what it is you want to say. This can be the hardest part, so, initially, just get your ideas onto paper (or screen, if you are technologically inclined). At this stage, it doesn’t matter how cohesive they are; you can refine them as you go. There are several ways to develop a constant stream of blog ideas . You could try mind mapping, which has many benefits , including creativity.

Then you can organize these ideas into a more structured form. In this outline , you can include your topic statement (the point you want to make) and any supporting evidence. You can do this for every point you want to make. Creating an outline before you start writing will keep your content focused, help avoid repetition, and make the whole process much easier and more enjoyable.

4. Do the Unexpected

In the ocean of blogs, it’s vital that you stand out . The internet has been around for nearly 40 years, which means that there are likely several, if not many, blogs on the topic you are covering. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write a blog on that topic, but you will have to be creative about how you write it.

As humans, our brains are hardwired to notice patterns. Psychology Today says that this is the very basis of evolution. So, breaking the pattern or doing something outside the norm is memorable. For example, when writing a list-based blog, choose an unusual number. The more perceptive of you will have noticed that there are seven points in this blog. We are so used to seeing lists of 1, 3, 5, 10, or multiples of 5 or 10, that when something different is presented, it catches our attention. And that’s what you want to do: capture your audience’s attention.

Of course, this only works for list-based blogs, but there are plenty of ways you can find a unique angle for your blog.

5. Quality Over Quantity

It might be tempting to churn out blog after blog after blog in the hope that one will catch your audience’s attention, but this can actually hurt your brand image more than it helps it. Readers much prefer content that is well-researched and well-written . Obvious factual errors will destroy any credibility you have been trying to build.

Not only does poor writing make you look like you don’t know what you are talking about (and who would trust someone who doesn’t appear to know what they’re talking about?), but producing ineffective content is expensive . So, focus on crafting quality, actionable content that truly helps your audience with their struggles and that will build their trust.

6. Proofread Your Work

In a similar vein, you must ensure that any writing you put out is grammatically correct and error-free . When you are creating lots of content, it’s easy to allow mistakes to slip through. But nothing destroys readers’ trust more than a spelling mistake that a basic spellcheck should have caught.

Everything you write should be proofread to check for spelling, syntax, and grammatical mistakes. It’s a good idea to get someone else to proofread because the writer often reads what they think is there rather than what is actually there. This is sometimes called writer’s bias. You could have a dedicated person, or you could outsource to a proofreading service (like Proofed ). Whatever you decide, make sure your work is error free, or you risk losing clients.

7. Practice Makes Perfect

Writing is a skill, and one that is challenging to master because it can be so subjective. There are grammatical rules that you should follow to make sure your writing is readable, but sometimes these rules can be broken to achieve a certain effect. Knowing when to break these rules takes time, however. And, as with anything else, practice makes perfect . There are great resources that can help you and your team improve your writing skills , but nothing beats practice.

Writing regularly has other benefits too. Nesslabs.com found that writing (about any topic) can improve your happiness, resilience, gratitude, and communication skills. So, in addition to having great quality content, your staff will likely be happier.

Ready to Scale Your Blog Output?

Writing is not an easy skill to master, but, to paraphrase US President Theodore Roosevelt, nothing worth having comes easy. Blogs are an especially difficult market to break into because it is so crowded. The best way to break through the noise is to create relevant, quality, actionable content. To learn more, check out our guide to help you create and maintain your business blog . 

Thousands of businesses, from award-winning startups to Fortune 500 companies, have benefited from partnering with Proofed. Learn more about how we can help you scale your content production process by scheduling a call with our team today.

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The 8 essential elements of a successful blog post.

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If you were to go skydiving and bet your life on a folded-up pile of nylon, you would first go over a checklist and make sure everything is just right with your gear.

The same principle applies to your blog content if you don’t want it to crash and burn when it hits the internet. The following are eight critical elements that should be included in your blog posts:

1. Magnetic headline

If you've ever met with investors and made an elevator pitch —a quick two-minute presentation about your business—you know that the goal isn’t to get funding right then and there, but to deliver enough information so that the investors will want to hear more.

Your blog is a key part of your company's digital marketing strategy.

It’s the same with a blog headline. It has to

• Give some indication of what your article is about.
• Make the prospect want to at least check out your first paragraph.

In other words, it needs to be magnetic—it needs to pull people in.

Sometimes adding emotional words to the headline will give it the added magnetism required. In other cases, the information you’re offering will, on its own, be enough of a draw. However, even when you’re presenting great content, spice up your headline with a word or two that will grab readers and make it stand out. People are moved to act by their emotions.

2. Compelling lead

I want to be very clear about how I’m using the word “compelling” here. In news reporting, a lead should pull together the important points of the news story. But that’s not necessarily true in a blog. The first sentence or short paragraph of your blog must compel visitors to read your second paragraph—you want to draw your readers in. Don’t take forever to get to the point, and make sure there's sufficient build up so that readers will want to know more about the information you’re presenting and appreciate it once they understand your ideas.

3. Useful subheads

Subheads serve three purposes:

• They break up the type to make the page more visually appealing
• They help your reader navigate to important sections.
• They boost search engine optimization (SEO).

Disclaimer: Regarding my third point, it used to be we insisted on using keywords in one or more subheads, but this doesn’t seem as important anymore. I will explain this more in the next section when I touch on keywords; however, using descriptive phrases that capture your key “ideas” in subheads will probably help your SEO.

The first two points are always important. A long page of continuous type turns away a lot of potential readers. We’ll come back to this in the section on graphics. Also, once readers finish your article, they may want to jump back and go over a point; subheads should help this.

4. Informative and engaging body

The body is the “meat and potatoes” of your blog post. It can be about anything—from new, incisive observations that will revolutionize the life or business of your reader to a funny story about what happened to you on the way to work yesterday. If you’re establishing your authority, you’ll want to author one kind of post; if you’re trying to develop a personal relationship with your prospects, you’ll want to author a different kind of post. The question is, “What’s your goal today?”

As I mentioned earlier, the old rule said you needed to include a sufficient number of keywords into the body of your article; however, recent experience and research has shown that keyword usage and density is far less important to Google today. Google’s algorithm is smart enough now to understand what you are writing about and index your articles properly for searches. Therefore, if you’re doing a good job explaining your topic, Google will understand; you don’t have to riddle it with robotic keywords.

Other Articles From  AllBusiness.com :

• 25 Frequently Asked Questions on Starting a Business
• 50 Questions Angel Investors Will Ask Entrepreneurs
• How to Create A Great Investor Pitch Deck for Startups Seeking Financing
• 17 Key Lessons for Entrepreneurs Starting A Business

5. Appealing graphics

It’s a great idea to include graphics in your blog posts to illustrate points and break up text within the body of articles to make your pages more visually pleasing. Google measures the time spent on your pages, so your graphics, typography, and color scheme should work together to encourage visitors to stick around. Also, when you promote your content on social media, you should include a visually interesting graphic.

6. Powerful call-to-action

Almost every blog article should have some kind of call-to-action, which can take a variety of forms and be achieved through different tactics . Your first step is to decide what action you want your visitors to take. It might be to make a comment. It could be to read another blog on your site, or to check out a product or service you offer. You also could get a prospect’s contact information by offering exclusive content in exchange for an email address.

7. Relevant internal link

Do you like free advertising? We all do, right? This is one reason you should include links to other articles on your site in every new article you write. Would a real estate salesperson just show one room of a house to a prospect? Of course not, and remember, one of your main goals is to get people to stick around your website.

Further, internal links have always been considered good for SEO. I think they benefit your SEO because they increase the number of pages per visit and time visitors are on your site. I don’t think that the mere fact you include a link is very important; what’s important is visitors see the link as relevant to their visit, click on the link, and spend time on the resulting page.

8. Good meta description

The meta description is the snippet Google displays in search results. Left to its own devices, Google will grab the first sentence or two from your article. This, however, may not always be the best way for your article to appear in search results.

All of my previous points concerned what visitors see on the web page—this point is different. The meta description is in HTML code. If you have a WordPress site, a plugin like Yoast lets you easily compose your meta description separately so you can fine-tune it.

You spend a lot of time creating written content for your website. Even if it takes a few extra minutes to go through the eight points I’ve mentioned here, it will be time well spent. Good blog posts have long life spans, so your extra effort will pay for itself several times over.

RELATED: How to Make Money With Your Business Blog

This article was originally published on AllBusiness.com . Read all of Megan Totka’s articles .

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Why Blog? The Benefits of Blogging for Business and Marketing

Updated: September 16, 2022

Published: May 25, 2021

With almost 4 billion people worldwide currently connected to the internet, there has never been a better time for businesses to include blogging in their marketing strategy.

Not only does blogging drive website traffic and promote your products and services, but it also helps you build trust with your potential customers.

In this post, we’re going to highlight the many benefits of blogging for business and how you can get started with creating relevant content that drives inbound links and traffic to your site.

Let’s get started.

What is business blogging?

Business blogging is a marketing tactic that uses blogging to get your business more online visibility. A business blog is a marketing channel (just like social media, direct mail, email marketing, etc.) that helps support business growth.

The Benefits of Blogging for Business

One question many people ask after starting a business is whether blogging is worth it in 2021.

Short answer: Yes! And here the reasons why we say so.

1. It helps drive traffic to your website.

Raise your hand if you want more website visitors. Yeah, me too.

Now think about the ways people find your website:

• They could type your name right into their browser, but that's for an audience you already have. They know who you are, you're on their radar, and that doesn't help you get more traffic on top of what you're already getting.
• You could pay for traffic by buying an email list ( don't you dare! ), blasting them, and hoping some people open and click through on the emails. But that's expensive and, you know, illegal .
• You could pay for traffic by placing tons of paid ads , which isn't illegal but still quite expensive. And the second you run out of money, your traffic stops coming, too.

So, how can you attract new traffic or readers to your site? You can through blogging and optimizing your site for search engines .

Here's how it works.

Think about how many pages there are on your website. Probably not a ton, right? And think about how often you update those pages. Probably not that often, right?

Well, blogging is a great way to solve both of those problems.

Every time you create and publish a blog post, it's one more indexed page on your website, which means one more opportunity for you to show up on the search engine results page (SERP) and drive traffic to your website in organic search.

We'll get into more of the benefits of blogging on your SEO a bit later, but it's also one more cue to Google and other search engines that your website is active, and they should be checking in frequently to see what new content to surface.

2. You can repurpose blog content for social media.

Blogging for your business also helps you get discovered via social media. Every time you create a new article, you're creating content that people can share on social networks — Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest — which helps expose your business to a new audience that may not know you yet.

Blog content also helps keep your social media presence going.

Instead of asking your social media manager always to create brand new content for social media (or creating that content yourself), your blog can serve as that repository of content.

You're strengthening your social reach with blog content and driving new website visitors to your blog via your social channels. Quite a symbiotic relationship, I must say.

3. It helps convert traffic into leads.

Now that you have some traffic coming to your site through your blog, you have an opportunity to convert that website traffic into leads.

Like every blog post you write is another indexed page, each post is a new opportunity to generate new leads .

The way this works is straightforward: Just add a lead-generating call-to-action to every blog post.

Often, these calls-to-action lead to things like free ebooks, whitepapers, fact sheets, webinars, trials, or basically, any content asset for which someone would be willing to exchange their information.

To be super clear for anyone unfamiliar with how traffic-to-lead conversions work, it's as simple as this:

• Visitor comes to website
• Visitor sees call-to-action for a free offer
• Visitor clicks call-to-action and gets to a landing page, which contains a form for them to fill in with their information
• Visitor fills out the form, submits information, and receives the free offer

If you scroll down in this blog post, you'll see a call-to-action button.

In fact, 99.9% of the blog posts we publish have call-to-action buttons , and yours should, too. That is how you turn your website traffic into leads for your sales team.

4. It helps establish authority.

The best business blogs answer common questions their readers and customers have.

If you consistently create valuable content or articles for your target audience, it'll establish you as an industry leader or authority in their eyes.

Pro tip:  Having trouble with the "consistently" part? A tool like HubSpot's AI blog writer can help you generate valuable content in minutes. 

Can you imagine the impact of sending an educational blog post you wrote to clear things up for a confused customer? Or how many more deals a salesperson could close if their leads discovered blog content written by their salesperson?

"Establishing authority" is not a vanity metric as concrete as traffic and leads, but it's pretty powerful stuff. You can use it to measure sales enablement .

Because at the end of the day, that's why many choose to start a blog .

Think about it:

• Suppose prospects find answers to their everyday questions via blog posts written by people at your company. In that case, they're much more likely to come into the sales funnel trusting what you have to say because you've helped them in the past — even before they were interested in purchasing anything from you.
• Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales funnel with more knowledge of your products and services, your place in the market, and your industry. That makes for a far more productive sales conversation than one held between two relative strangers.
• Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts. Not only do these articles help move the sales process along faster than if a sales rep had to create the assets from scratch, but they position the salesperson as a helpful resource to their prospect — thus helping to build trust.

5. Blogging helps with link building.

Inbound links or backlinks are among the 200 factors the Google algorithm considers when ranking a site on its search engine result page. Many experts and small business owners also believe backlinks to be the 3rd most crucial factor in search engine optimization.

Although generating inbound links is essential, 41% of SEO experts say link building is the most challenging part of search optimization.

When you create articles that are not only valuable to your potential customers but also to other companies that your audience sees as industry leaders, it’d be easier to gain relevant links.

Links for authoritative websites serve as a vote of confidence or recommendation from other websites. And it signals to Google that you’re trustworthy and an expert in your industry.

Another benefit of backlinks is that they help you build your domain authority , which helps improve your overall discoverability in search engines.

6. It drives long-term results.

It would be fantastic if you could take a trip to Hawaii, go to the gym, and sleep for as many hours as you want, and still be able to drive traffic to your site.

Good news, though! That's what blogging does — primarily through search engines.

Here's what I mean:

Imagine you sit down for an hour on Sunday to write and publish a blog post. Let’s say that blog post gets you 100 views and ten leads on Monday. You get another 50 views and five leads on Tuesday as a few more people find it on social media, and some of your subscribers get caught up on their email and RSS. But after a couple of days, most of the fanfare from that post dies down, and you've netted 150 views and 15 leads.

It's not over.

Since that post is now ranking, it means that for days, weeks, months, and years to come, you can continue to get traffic from that blog post. So while it may feel like day one or bust, in reality, blogging acts more like this:

So while you're hitting your snooze alarm, surfing in Hawaii, and pumping iron, you're also driving traffic and leads. The effort you put in yesterday can turn into hundreds of thousands of views and leads in the future.

What’s more, you can monetize your blog content in many creative ways. Business models such as affiliate marketing mean you can generate an income from blogging on just about any topic — from makeup and beauty to camping and motorcycles.

There’s a wide variety of affiliate programs out there where you can generate an income from referring people to relevant products and services.

When it comes to blogging, most of your sales will likely come from your older articles.

More than half of the traffic generated each month on the Hubspot blog comes from posts published in previous months. They come from old posts.

The same goes for the leads generated in a current month — about 90% of the leads we generate every month come from blog posts published in previous months. Sometimes years ago.

We call these types of blog posts "compounding" posts. Not every blog post will fit into this category, but the more evergreen blog posts you write, the more likely it is that you'll land on one of those compounding blog posts.

In our research, we've found that about 1 in every ten blog posts end up being compounding blog posts .

To me (and hopefully to you), this demonstrates the scalability of business blogging.

While you might not see immediate results, over time, you'll be able to count on a predictable amount of traffic and leads for your business without any additional resource investment — the work to generate that traffic and those leads are already done.

If you'd like to learn more about the long-term impact of blogging and how to reap even more benefits from the blog posts that are ranking in organic search for your business, check out this article, "The Blogging Tactic No One Is Talking About: Optimizing the Past."

7. It helps you share company news.

Another benefit blogging affords every big, and small business is a medium to share their company news and stories.

Blogs can contain not only articles but also news that highlight what a company is up to.

Have you hired a new content marketing manager? Share it on your blog.

Interviewed online marketing and industry experts? Post it on your blog.

Have a brilliant case study that showcases how your products and services help customers? Tell your audience about it on your blog.

Are you hosting a local fair or trade show? Drum up attention for the even through your blog.

Not only does sharing company news on your blog humanize your brand, but it also helps your audience see that you’re not always about selling.

Secondary Benefits of Business Blogging

There are other reasons businesses might want to start a blog , but I think they're smaller and stray from the core benefits of blogging.

For example, I love to use our blog to test out extensive campaigns on the cheap before investing a lot of money and time into their creation. I also love to use our blog to help understand our persona better.

And while this shouldn't be their primary use, these are all significant usefulness of a business blog, but they're secondary benefits to me.

How to Start Blogging for your Business

You’ve seen the benefits your business blog can get you — more traffic, leads, authority, and a better relationship with your audience. And you’re undoubtedly itching to get started.

Our guide on how to start a successful blog has everything you need.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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27 Best Business Blog Post Examples

Blog Post Examples Categories

• Pricing and cost 
• Product and service problems
• "Versus" and comparisons 
• Reviews and ratings 
• "Best of" lists 
• "How to" overviews
• Infographic showcases
• Industry news reactions

I've mentioned this on multiple occasions, but one of my biggest gripes about the content marketing world is that we spend so much time talking about how important creating quality, revenue-generating content is to our strategies, but we rarely show what high-quality blog content looks like . 

Sure, I stumble across the occasional article that says, "Oh, yeah, here are a few blog post ideas to consider, and don't forget your call-to-action!"

For the most part, however, us digital marketers are left to our own devices to figure out how the proverbial blog content sausage gets made — almost always without a roadmap or guide to show us what our end product should look like.

🔥 Free course: The 6 money-making topics you need to cover in your strategy

We sit down at our keyboards, blog topic mentally "in-hand," and hope that what we produce will answer the most pressing questions and concerns our readers have, in a way that is visually pleasing to look at and captures attention. 

As IMPACT's editor-in-chief, this is one of the most common questions I address with internal and external contributors:

"I know what I need to write about, but I don't know what the end product should look like. Do you have any blog post examples that I can look at? "

Whether you are just now planning to start a blog for your business or you're a digital marketer who has been blogging for some time on behalf of companies, my goal in this article is simple:

To make your lives much, much easier — and to make creating revenue-generating blog content fun (really!) — by showcasing a broad range of world-class blog post examples across a variety of industries and subjects . For ease of use, I've broken up this list by blog post category.

🔎 Related: 'The Big 5' blog topics guaranteed to drive traffic, leads, and sales

I've hand-selected the articles below, as each of them are a case study in how to write great blog posts that not only engage readers, but also help move the needle on some aggressive digital sales and marketing goals.

Also, I highly recommend that you bookmark this link , as I will continue to update it overtime, so this becomes an evergreen resource for all digital marketers and content managers.

OK, let's dive in! 

Pricing and cost blog post examples ( The Big 5 )

It used to be that you could gloss over conversations about pricing and cost in marketing materials the way one might sidestep politics and religion at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

But today's modern digital consumers are no longer content with vague "request a quote" forms. In fact, they expect to be able to easily find content about pricing and cost expectations for something they're considering purchasing online without ever having to speak with a human being.

Just think about the last time you made a big purchase — and how frustrating it was when you couldn't find pricing information. 

🔎 Related: The only blogging tips guide you'll ever need

For example, I recently replaced the entire fence at my house. It was only later that I realized I mentally disqualified any vendor who didn't have some form of pricing information on their website. Either as a blog post article or on a more clear-cut product pricing page.

Of course, often the answer to the question of how much something costs is, "It depends," but that doesn't mean you can't create informative blog post content about pricing and cost, wherein you describe the factors and variables that drive the cost of a particular product or service up and down.

But don't take my word for it. Here are a few fantastic examples that show it's not only possible, but also profitable to create pricing and cost-based blog posts:

How Much Do Fiberglass Pools Cost? (River Pools & Spas)

There is no simple answer to this question, but they do a beautiful job of showcasing how to talk about the pricing of a product with tons of variables. Basically, it's the one-stop-shop for any consumer who is considering a fiberglass pool and needs to develop a deep understanding of the financial variables that will influence the ultimate price tag for their potential pool project.

Cost to Hire a Project Manager for an Office Build-Out or Renovation, Fees & Rates (Aquila Commercial)

What I love about this article is that it deals with that textbook answer of "It depends," and then showcases how you can answer that question in a detailed way that still leaves an audience feeling more knowledgable than ever before. They even included a video!

How Much Do YouTube Ads Cost in 2020? (IMPACT)

I can't tell anyone how much their YouTube ads budget will be (or should be, for that matter), but I can tell them how YouTube prices their ads, what the averages are, and what they should expect to spend.

I also threw in a few pointers about what you need to have in place first before you even consider spending a dime on YouTube ads. 

How much do Google Ads cost? (pricing and budget)

I love this article from IMPACT Paid Media Specialist Dan Baum because Google Ads is a super tricky topic to tackle from a cost perspective.

There isn't a single dollar amount he can give — on top of the fact that there are a lot of factors that can influence cost. But, more than that, there are a lot of different things people can or may want to end up paying for on top of just the ads themselves, like working with a paid media agency or PPC platforms and tech. 

Since it's such a dense topic, Dan opened with a "TL;DR" version at the top before diving into the nitty gritty details. Seriously, if you consult on or sell something similarly complex, you need to look at this ideal example of a cost article.

How much does business insurance cost? (Berry Insurance)

Berry Insurance's pricing page alone is a shining beacon of an example for businesses who are concerned the pricing of their products/services is too complicated, too variable, or too impossible to pin down. 

And this blog article is a continuation of how great they are at creating super valuable, actually educational content about cost for a service that is, quite frankly, kind of challenging to explain and understand without feeling like someone is trying to be wishy-washy.

Product and service problems blog post examples ( The Big 5 )

You know what your buyers want to avoid more than anything else in this entire world? Buyer's remorse. They don't want to make a big investment in any or products or services, only to have that decision blow up in their face, because they didn't do enough research.

Enter stage left, the urgent need for you to be creating blog post articles about problems with your products and services — and no, there are no industries exempt from this .

When we say you need to write about problems, there are two types of problems we're referring to:

• Problems explicitly with a problems, service, or solution; OR
• Problems someone might experience through the course of their duties or in relation to whatever problems your products or services might solve.

Let's look at some examples to show you what I mean by these two different categories of problems, and what those articles look like in practice.

5 Common Problems with Raw Water Treatment and How to Avoid Them (SAMCO)

SAMCO is a B2B company that offers water solutions and technologies to a wide variety of industries including oil and gas, power companies, refineries, and so on. One of their solutions is raw water treatment, so it only made sense that they wrote this article.

The best part? It's purely educational and not a thinly-veiled sales pitch. They go out of their way to empower their audience with information, thus positioning themselves as the most trusted voice in their industry. (Which is, ultimately, how you win business.)

Problems with Managing Your Own Property (Good Life Property Management)

Another great area of problems to explore in your blogging strategy is the types of problems someone might experience in their role, if that role is someone you typically target as a decision-maker — or, at least an influencer in the decision-making process.

It demonstrates you understand their most pressing challenges and concerns in their day-to-day, which is key to winning their trust as a resource. 

Top 5 Fiberglass Pool Problems and Solutions (River Pools & Spas)

If you sell a specific product or set of products, you need to get completely honest about what problems someone might experience. I know, I know. You don't want to talk about what might go wrong, but the reality is that no single product is perfect. Moreover, not every single potential buyer is the best fit for what you're selling.

With that in mind, check out this River Pools example, where they candidly discuss the most common problems with fiberglass pools — their flagship product. Plus, I love how they included a video.

The Problems with Working with a HubSpot Partner Agency (IMPACT)

Products and services aren't the only things that have problems you need to talk about — service providers and vendors (particularly in the B2B space) have problems you need to talk about, as well. Again, you probably don't want to shine a spotlight on your own problems, but it's important that you do.

For example, we're a HubSpot partner agency , but that isn't always the right choice for a company in the market for support with their digital sales and marketing. So, we wrote about it in this article, which is a world-class example of how you can write about your own problems in a way that's candid, informative, and still builds trust with the right-fit customers.

Comparisons blog post examples ( The Big 5 )

Once a buyer knows what problem they're trying to solve — or, generally, the type of solution they need — they are going to start evaluating their different options, before they pull the trigger on making a choice.

Again, similar to writing blog post articles about problems, comparisons blog post articles help buyers feel as if they're making a more informed decision, so they can avoided that dreaded feeling of buyer's remorse later. 

This is especially true since every product or solution on the market in every single industry today is not the right choice for everyone. Every personal individual, family, or business has a unique set of needs and circumstances, which will dictate what the right choice is. 

Below you'll find a few different types of comparisons blog post examples to show you how showcase a variety of comparisons in your blog content.

General Liability vs. Professional Liability Insurance: a Comparison

Berry Insurance is back again with another "by the book" (and I mean that in a good way) example of how to nail a comparison article.

My favorite part? This comparison article does a great job of opening up immediately on the pain point their target audience is experiencing — "If you need business insurance you’re probably confused about all the types of insurance you’re hearing about. I mean, how many types of liability policies are there?" — in a super relatable and human way. 

I wish more businesses empowered their content creators to sound like actual, breathing humans instead of Business Voice-Enabled Robots.

Project Manager vs. Construction Manager: What's the Difference? (Aquila)

Sometimes it's not about comparing product or service A to product or service B. Sometimes, you need to talk about who are the best people you need to hire to get a project done. This fantastic example from Aquila, we're talking about the best fit for an office build-out. 

Metal Roofing vs. Shingle Roofing: Which Should I Choose? (Sheffield Metals)

There is so much to love about this expertly crafted, product-based comparisons blog post example from Sheffield Metals. It includes video, the title immediately communicates to the reader, "This article will help you make an informed purchasing decision," and detailed comparisons between the two roofing options across a range of different measures.

The Sheffield Metals crew then took this article over the top by including an entire section on considerations you need to take into account before making any roofing purchase decision — budget, roof design, your HOA or municipality, and more.

WPEngine vs. GoDaddy: Which Is Better for Hosting Your WordPress Website? (IMPACT)

No, we don't sell WPEngine or GoDaddy website hosting for WordPress websites. But it's probably one of the most important decisions a company will make about their business website hosted on WordPress, and they usually don't even realize it. (Short version: The hosting you choose for your WordPress website will drastically impact how well your content shows up in search results.) So, we wrote about it in this detailed comparison article.

Again, while this facilitates a different purchasing decision outside of the services we offer, it showcases our understanding of high-performance websites (for which we offer website strategy and web design services) and our expertise in technical SEO. 

🔎 Related: How to write a great problems-based blog article

Reviews and ratings blog post examples ( The Big 5 )

Candid reviews about products, services, solutions, and so forth must be a part of your content marketing strategy.

Again, because no matter what your industry is (B2B, B2C, e-commerce, etc.), your buyers want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly — especially the ugly — of what they're getting into before they make a purchase. 

If you think you're exempt from writing reviews articles, remember the last example from the comparisons category, in which we wrote about WPEngine vs. GoDaddy for WordPress website hosting. We don't sell website hosting, but it a topic very closely connected to services we do provide to clients.

Now, let's get to the examples...

Most Reliable/Least Serviced Appliance Brands for 2019 (Yale Appliance)

I love this blog post example for reviews and ratings topics from Yale Appliance, because it (a) showcases how to do this style of blog post well, (b) clearly demonstrates why they've seen the level of success they have with content marketing, and (c) it outranks content from industry giants like Whirlpool, GE, and so on. That's pretty amazing for a plucky Boston-based company.

(Also, iIf you're looking for a real-world case study of how successful a company can be with the right content marketing and blogging strategy, look no further than Yale Appliance .)

An Honest Review of HubSpot Video (IMPACT)

We're not HubSpot and HubSpot Video is not our product. But we're a HubSpot partner agency, and our clients look to us for HubSpot training and expertise . So, we go out of our way to review HubSpot products for our audience. But we also publish reviews on relevant books , SEO tools , website platforms , and more.

That's how we establish ourselves as the most trusted voice in the digital sales and marketing space. So, it's not just about what you explicitly sell or provide — think outside the box and be that go-to educational resource for everything that matters to your target buyers.

Best-in-class/best of blog post examples ( The Big 5 )

A lot like reviews and ratings-based blog posts, your audience is also going to be looking at content that tells them what the "best" of something is. Best tools, best vendors or providers in a geographic area, best and so on. 

Basically, they need you to do the heavy-lifting for them. 

What are the best (ha!) "best of" blog post examples? I'm glad you asked... 

Who Are the Best Pool Builders in Richmond, Virginia? (River Pools & Spas)

The key to writing a "best of" list where you're dying to put yourself on it is to not put yourself on your own list under any circumstances . It will immediately erode your credibility with your readers. In their eyes, who are you to call yourself the best at what you do, right? You're biased toward yourself and your own interests.

Here's the funny thing, though — and why I wanted to share this example. Even if you write an entire article where you don't list yourself and then enumerate all of the virtues of your competitors, you need to remember one thing. Your readers are on YOUR WEBSITE and not your competitors' websites.

In fact, Marcus Sheridan (who wrote this article in 2012 and has kept it updated since then) noted that they had a prospect who chose them over a competitor because they were so honest and forthcoming about their competitors — and that sent a positive message to that particular buyer, and she gave River Pools her business instead.

Your Official Guide to the Best 8 Breakfast Tacos in Austin, Texas (Aquila)

Aquila Commercial does not sell breakfast tacos in Austin, Texas. But they do "own" the Austin, Texas, market for real estate (for commercial tenants and landlords), which means they need to demonstrate their knowledge of businesses in the area.

It's a wonderful example of how you can get creative with what you feature in your content marketing strategy — think outside the box; what other topics do your potential buyers care about?

The 31 Best Value Proposition Examples You Wish You Had (IMPACT)

"Best-in-class" and "best of" lists also include a common type of blog article — blog posts that showcase world-class examples of something. Visual example-based content is very powerful, as your readers can learn so much from them and get inspired.

( Heck, you're on one of those articles right now. I didn't just choose random examples of blog posts — I hand-picked the best and most educational examples of blog posts for you to learn from.)

"How to" blog post examples 

Blog articles that teach someone how to do something are invaluable, but they are often executed so poorly.

In my role, the most common problems I see with "how to" blog posts are including too little detail (or too much), not providing visuals when they're needed or would be super helpful to the audience, and using too much industry jargon, rather than writing to the knowledge level of the audience. 

The following "how to" blog post examples are a must-see for any industry. Even if the following topics are completely unrelated to what you do or provide, each of these embody the universal principles every "how to" blog article should embrace.

How to Prepare Groundwater Monitoring Reports (EMS Environmental Inc.)

I like this "how to" blog post because it talks about a process that has apparently changed quite a bit in recent decades due to technological advances — specifically with automation. It also includes visuals to provide context and break up some fairly dense content, as well as different types of automation solutions someone could consider to create these reports. 

How to Plan Your Kitchen Appliance Project (Yale Appliance)

As anyone who owns a home knows, managing any sort of home project is always more complex than it seems — and kitchen appliances are no exemption. This article from Yale Appliance takes buyers through the entire process, from choosing a contractor to personalizing your space, with diagrams, expert tips, and more. 

Google Analytics Checklist: Is Your Website Data 'Clean' & Accurate? (IMPACT)

On its face, this may not look like a "how to" blog post example, but it is. In fact, if you write any sort of checklist-based article, you need to treat it as such, because you're teaching someone "how to" do something, usually with a set of steps in a prescribed order.

This example not only explains how to do set up your Google Analytics for your website, it also includes expert analysis on why this process is important, best practices for initial set up, and so on. In fact, it was so good, Google shared the article on their social channels . (If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is.)

Infographic blog post examples

Infographics may not be as popular for blogging strategies as they once were, but they can still be a powerful traffic-driver for your content marketing. But only if you do it correctly.

There are two types of infographic articles:

• A blog post highlighting an infographic from a different source.
• A blog post highlighting an infographic you created and want others to share.

Here is an example of each type:

The History of Social Media [Infographic] (Social Media Today)

The above example from Social Media Today is a textbook example of creating an infographic article from a source outside of our organization.

Whenever you're publishing an infographic you didn't create, you need to do a few things — include a keyword-optimized title that include "[Infographic]" in it, write an introduction that provides detailed context for what you're about to share (along with a link to the original source), the infographic itself, and then (again) proper attribution to the original source of the infographic.

In this style of blog post, there is no such thing as sourcing the original creator too much; improper or unclear attribution can lead to lots of problems. In fact, don't assume that someone is OK with you sharing their infographic. If you cannot find the original source of an infographic, where they've clearly stated they're OK with others sharing their work (and provide instructions to do so), you should reach out to the original creator before you publish yours.

Podcast Statistics (2019) - [Infographic] (MusicOomph)

If you want someone to find your infographic and share it with the world, there are a few things you need to do that this example from MusicOomph does flawlessly:

• Optimize your title around a broad, high-volume keyword (even if the title in the infographic itself is a little more exciting), along with "[Infographic]" at the end. 
• Include embed code, so people can share your infographic easily — you can put attribution links in here automatically, so someone doesn't accidentally forget to link back to your original content.
• Provide context and content — highlighting some of the powerful statistics showcased in the infographic, for example — in text. Some people might just want to read the content but, more importantly, Google cannot read text on images. If you want your infographic to rank well in search engines for others to find and share, you need to have content on the page beyond the image and a brief introduction.

Bottom line, if you're creating a blog post that shares your infographic, you need to focus on optimizing it for search so it gets found online and making it easy for others to share your infographic once they find it.

News reaction blog post examples

Depending on your industry, news reaction (or even newsjacking ) blog articles could be a profitable addition to your content marketing and blogging strategy.

In fact, at IMPACT, we have an entire portion of our content strategy devoted to industry news and updates that provide context and actionable takeaways for top digital sales and marketing news stories. (Staying on top of what's happening in our industry is a big challenge for business leaders and marketers alike.)

Quite frankly, a lot of companies are failing to capitalize on industry news as a blogging opportunity. In fact, most only publish "news" that pertains to company announcements that are really just press releases. 

But if you're a business like ours, where you want potential buyers and clients to view you as a strategic partner with cutting-edge expertise in a given space, here are a few examples of ours that will (hopefully) inspire you to diversify the content you're creating.

Facebook Exposes Data of 419 Million Users (IdentityForce)

I love this example, because it's well-sourced, gets to the point of what people need to know, and then provides resources (theirs and others) to help readers take action if they're impacted by the breach.

How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Affects Parking Deductions for Tenants and Landlords (Aquila)

Aquila does a great job in this article of providing context to a new piece of legislation that went into effect, impacting their primary audience groups — tenants and landlords. Often when something happens that's newsworthy in an industry, your audience isn't looking for basic news reporting. They want context and takeaways that enables decision-making, which is exactly what you'll find in this example.

The Rise and Fall of Nacho Analytics: Important Lessons for Site Owners (IMPACT)

When Nacho Analytics — an extremely powerful competitive analysis tool for digital marketers — abruptly shut down this past August, folks in our industry were left with a lot of questions. Our small but mighty digital "beat reporting" operation did a fantastic job here of providing detailed background and analysis on what happened (and why), as well as what lessons digital marketers need to take from the story.

"I want to learn how to make more money with our business' blog!"

Oh, you want more, do you? I don't blame you. Once you get started creating content that will actually make money for your company... well, "it's a helluva drug." 

So, here's what you need to do:

• Get your hands on my absolutely free content calendar template , so you can keep your strategy on track.
• Learn about the six most important, revenue-generating content topics you need to include in your strategy — this is a FREE IMPACT+ course ! 
• Then, finally, take my free course on how to build a content strategy the right way in the digital age .

If you have questions, you can find me in the content managers board on IMPACT+ . Until then, happy blogging! 

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• Guide: How to Write Content for Your First Business…

Guide: How to Write Content for Your First Business Blog Post

When you have a business going and you're starting a blog, you probably know that it's a marketing channel and an opportunity to attract and engage with readers. You've almost certainly heard that it's a critical part of modern marketing. The question is, where do you start? What do you write first?

The temptation is there to make a "hello world" post, an introduction of who you are and what your blog is about. I get the urge, but I can tell you one thing upfront: no one reads those. Introducing yourself is for your About page. Your blog posts need to be valuable, and a basic introduction like this is some team-building exercise doesn't cut it.

You might as well treat your first blog post just the same as you would treat any blog post. There's nothing inherently special about it, and no reason to give it special treatment. Sure, you may give it some fanfare through your marketing channels, newsletter, social media, and whatnot, but the point is to start by giving people useful content they can find value in reading.

Of course, there are things that you can do to make fewer mistakes along the way. Almost all bloggers look back to their first blog post and wince. I wrote this article to, hopefully, reduce the chances of that happening.

Let's get started!

30 Second Summary

Starting a blog for your business is more than an introduction post. To attract readers, your first post should be as valuable as every other you publish. Begin with topic ideation, both top-down and bottom-up. Then, build your content strategy by defining your unique selling point, target audience, and SMART goals. Set your publishing frequency and blog post length based on your capacity and industry standards. Pick a compelling topic, outline it, and then write the content. Enhance your content with formatting, images, internal and external links, and calls to action.

Perform Topic Ideation and Brainstorming

Before you can set even your first word on paper, you need to know what direction you're writing. For that, you need topic ideation.

Topic ideation is the process of coming up with topics and ideas to write about. While some people think this is just sitting down and thinking hard until ideas pop out, it involves a lot of different techniques, strategies, and tools.

I like to take topic ideation in two directions: top-down and bottom-up.

1. Top-down ideation works like this. You start with your overall topic, the focus of your business, the focus of your passion. A food blogger might want to focus on desserts, or Keto recipes, or their journey experimenting with veganism, for example. As a marketer, I focus a lot on content marketing, SEO, and inbound marketing topics.

You start by taking your overall subject and breaking it down into parts. With marketing, I might break it up into social marketing, inbound marketing, blog marketing, paid marketing, and so on . Yes, there's overlap between these, but that's fine.

From there, continue breaking down each subject. Blog marketing becomes posts about writing, posts about publishing, posts about research. Social marketing breaks down into different social networks and platforms.

Continue this trend until you have individual, bite-sized topics. "How to write your first blog post" is what inspired this post you're reading right now, for example.

2. Bottom-up ideation works in the other direction and is where a lot of the tools and SEO work comes in. Rather than starting with the big topics and breaking them down, you start by looking around you at the ground level . Answer questions for yourself like:

• What sites are my competitors?
• What sites do I aspire to match?
• What content do I, as a person passionate about this topic, like reading about?
• What questions do I have about my industry?

Every answer to one of these can fuel research.

Research means looking up several things about each topic. What is already written about that topic out there? What is the competition, what is the strength of that post? What gaps do they have, what questions do they leave you with? What keywords do they target?

Any time you find a site in the same niche as yours, you can browse through their blog and steal their ideas. Plagiarism is stealing their content; stealing their topics is completely fine. Write down their blog post titles, focus keywords, and major points.

The fun thing is, each of these can be multiple ideas. You can:

• Write the same basic post they did, covering the same information, either broader or deeper than they did.
• Write a much, much better version of the content than they did, creating 10x content .
• Write a post that acknowledges theirs and adds to it, further proving their point and elaborating on what they said.
• Write a post that acknowledges theirs and refutes it, presenting a counter-argument and evidence against their conclusion.

All of this stacks up over time. I have huge spreadsheets full of ideas, some of them years old, some of them fresh from last week. This spreadsheet is an invaluable resource. Yours will start small, and that's fine. Any time you have an idea, see the content you can run with, add it to the spreadsheet. Even if the idea isn't used right away, some of the best ideas ripen over time.

Build Your Content Strategy

Topic ideation is part of building an overall content strategy. This is a lot of up-front work, and to be honest, I don't necessarily recommend it for everyone starting a fresh blog. On the one hand, it sucks to put a ton of effort into planning something, only for it to fail. On the other hand, plans can help you succeed where flailing around with no goal won't.

Building a content strategy can be done in phases. Now, early on, you want to start by building the basic framework and overall strategy. You can add meat to the bones and flesh it out more later on.

• Define your unique selling point, the thing that makes your blog stand out from others in your niche.
• Define your audience, the groups of people you're trying to reach with your blog posts.
• Define SMART goals for your blog .

There's more to it, of course. I wrote a much more detailed guide to develop a content plan, which you can read here .

Set Your Goals

The next thing you want to do – trust me, we'll get to writing soon – is determine your goals and patterns. These apply to your blog as a whole and your blog posts individually. There are two primary decisions you should make here.

1. Determine how often you're going to publish new blog posts. This is your publishing frequency, and it's a good idea to keep it consistent. One of the most important things a new blogger can do is establish a pattern. People will come to internalize how often new content is published and will start to check for new content.

How often should you publish new articles to your blog? It depends on how much content you think you can handle creating. One post a week is often fine for new blogs. The industry standard is 2-3 posts per week. Some larger blogs publish every weekday, every day, or multiple times per day. I find the stress of writing that much content makes it much harder to keep up, and isn't worth it nearly as much. At the end of the day, it all comes down to consistency. If you pick a number that is too high, you'll be stuck spending tons of time writing content and you'll burn out, or your content quality and your performance will suffer. Quality always comes before quantity.

Alternatively, of course, you can hire someone to write for you. My inbox is always open and my phone is always on hand!

2. Determine how long your blog posts will be. This is the second major determination you need to make: word count.

We create blog content that converts - not just for ourselves, but for our clients, too.

We pick blog topics like hedge funds pick stocks. Then, we create articles that are 10x better to earn the top spot.

Content marketing has two ingredients - content and marketing. We've earned our black belts in both.

Good blog posts are at least 1,250 words long. Shorter blog posts suck . Many blogs are pushing that number higher. I, personally, aim for 2,000 words for every blog post I write. Some end up larger, and some much larger, but that's my baseline. I strongly recommend attempting to write longer posts so you know how difficult it can be with some topics, so you can decide what is reasonable for you.

Pick and Outline a Compelling Topic

Now it's finally time to start writing. Well, writing your outline. Very rarely can you just sit down and write a blog post from start to finish.

Instead, you should outline the overall point of your post.

• Pick a topic. One of your topics from your topic ideation step will work here. You want something that is not overly broad, but not overly narrow; determining this sweet spot takes experience, so don't worry too much if you get it wrong.
• Research other posts that exist on that topic. What is their structure? What is their argument? What points do they make? What questions do they leave you with?
• Decide on your thesis. What is the point you want to make? How do you have to go from introducing the topic to proving that point? What arguments do you need to make along the way?
• Write down your points, then organize them into a logical order. Don't make logical leaps; add new points to make your flow make sense.
• Break down each point into sub-sections, such as evidence, key facts, and a conclusion for that point.
• Determine if any points need to be expanded or cut.

Eventually, you'll internalize this process to the point where you don't think of it as a process anymore. I've been blogging for nearly a decade, and at this point, I can bust out an outline in a few minutes that is 90% of the way there. I have to tweak things sometimes, but the core structure and logical flow just come to me. You'll get there eventually.

I have a more detailed rundown on how to outline a blog post here , along with some templates, if you're interested.

Write Your Content

Now that you have your outline, it's time to write. This is a personal activity. Some people work best in a linear fashion, starting with an introduction, working through points, and ending on a conclusion. Some people like to write the core, important points individually, flesh out the introduction and conclusion, and then add whatever other glue they need to tie the whole thing together.

I'm one of the linear workers. I start at the top and work through my logical flow. I've found that this helps me identify gaps, holes, or logical leaps I might otherwise miss if I'm writing in a disjointed fashion. For you, well, it's up to you.

Expand each point in your outline into a paragraph or section, and by the time you're done, you should have a nice long blog post.

Once you've written your content, edit it. You can use tools like Grammarly, or you can use behavioral quirks like reading the post out loud to catch errors. Whatever works for you. I like to use a combination of tools and reading my post a couple of times from start to finish. Using software helps, but it isn't always perfect.

Get Into Good Habits Immediately

Your post may be written, but you're not done. Blog posts contain much more than just words, after all. Here's what you need to add.

1. Formatting. Good blog posts are written to be skimmed. Yes, I know, it sucks to write 2,000 words and know the average reader is going to read 200 of them. Still, reading 200 words and having their question answered is a lot better than seeing a wall of 2,000 words and bouncing off, never to return.

Formatting means:

• Use a single H1 tag for your title.
• Use H2 tags for subtitles for individual sections.
• Make liberal use of bulleted or numbered lists.
• Use bold, italics, and underline to emphasize points and evidence as necessary.

That's more or less it. Some blogs use color and highlights, emojis, or other accents. I use a few of these custom icons and elements, like the highlight boxes and custom list item snippets in this post, but others I don't bother with. It's a personal choice. These can help make your blog posts more attractive, boost your user experience, and in return, they can have a positive impact on your performance.

2. Images. Every blog post should have images. I recommend one every 300 words or so, but this can vary depending on the post format. I've done much denser posts, and much less dense posts, so it's just a rule of thumb.

There are several things to internalize about images.

• Guarantee you have rights to use the images. No Google image search results here. Stock photos, screenshots, or images you take yourself, only.
• Make your images as relevant as possible. Literal relevance like screenshots or photos of a process is great. Metaphorical relevance like a picture of a chain for an article on links is fine. Irrelevant images are bad.
• Add alt text to your images. This is great for SEO and good for accessibility.
• Smush your images. Small file sizes are important for site load times, and page speed is important for SEO.

This is what I mean about good habits. If you skip any of these, you'll have to go back to do them later, and that's a huge tedious problem to solve.

If you establish the habit of doing them right now, you'll be much better off over the next year.

3. Internal links . Your early posts will have a hard time linking to other pages on your website. You can work in a link to an About page or a product page, but there won't be much until you get more blog posts published. Make note of this and consider coming back to edit some in later. If you decide to use internal links, they should always be relevant and useful. How many should you add? That depends . See what I did there? That link is to a post I wrote on internal linking and best practices.

4. External links. Whenever you mention a topic or a point or need evidence to support a conclusion, present it. If you aren't covering the whole topic or the whole point in your text, link to someone who already has. If you're citing evidence you didn't research yourself, link to the source. Backing up your facts and claims is important, and it gives both users and search engines confidence and context. Without citations, you could just be making up your content and spreading misinformation. This is doubly important for sensitive industries like medical and legal topics.

External links are important for the greater network of SEO and marketing. They also require careful use of the rel="nofollow" attribute. That can be tricky, so here's a guide .

5. CTAs. Don't forget to include a call to action every so often in your post. I put one up above, and here's another one: leave me a comment if this guide has helped you with writing your first post, please! I know a lot is going on here, and it's a lot more work than you might have expected, but it gets easier, I promise.

This guide skims the surface of what is required to run a business blog successfully and to write your first blog post. It will give you a birds-eye view of the things you should be focusing on. I linked six other guides I wrote that expand on a few of these points, but be sure to check out the blogging section of our blog for more advanced tips and insights.

What did you think of this guide? Did it help you? Do you have any questions for me? Please let me know in the comments below and I'll reply promptly! I look forward to hearing from you.

James Parsons is the founder and CEO of Content Powered, a premier content marketing agency that leverages nearly two decades of his experience in content marketing to drive business growth. Renowned for founding and scaling multi-million dollar eCommerce businesses through strategic content marketing, James has become a trusted voice in the industry, sharing his insights in Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc, and other leading publications. His background encompasses key roles across various agencies, contributing to the content strategies of major brands like eBay and Expedia. James's expertise spans SEO, conversion rate optimization, and effective content strategies, making him a pivotal figure in the industry.

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March 03, 2022 at 6:15 pm

I'm very new to this so this is definitely very helpful. Thank you.

March 04, 2022 at 5:42 pm

Hey Andrew, no problem! I'm glad this was helpful to you.

March 16, 2022 at 9:29 pm

I appreciate the work you put into this guide. This is helpful for those of us just starting out.

March 25, 2022 at 2:10 pm

Thanks, Yanna!

May 25, 2022 at 4:05 am

Very helpful and practical, thank you!

May 25, 2022 at 1:21 pm

Thanks Noelle! I'm really happy it helped you. You're welcome 🙂

September 25, 2023 at 12:23 am

Hi, Great guide for first-time business bloggers! Crafting valuable, relevant content is key to engaging your audience and driving success. Thanks for sharing these tips!

September 26, 2023 at 5:43 pm

You're welcome!

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60 Blog Post Ideas For Businesses In 2024

Running low on blog post ideas?

Your blog is a huge asset and can be used as a tool to foster a community, while driving sales.

But you need content ideas to make it work.

In this post, you will find 60 blog post ideas you can use to craft content that grows your business.

These blog post ideas are ideal for entrepreneurs, marketers, and businesses alike.

Note: To help make this article more digestible, we have added an infographic containing each of the blog post ideas.

You are welcome to save this infographic for future reference or even republish it on your own blog (if you do, please upload the image directly to your blog and add a credit link to this article).

Below the infographic, you’ll find the full article that comes complete with examples to help you get started.

1. Current trends

People love to learn what the current trend is this week. Whether they’re on Twitter looking at what’s trending or reading a post on the latest happenings in their industry, a current trend blog post is an easy addition to your content schedule.

While you can look at what’s hot now, a great way to use this idea is to predict what the trends will be in the future. For example, Designmodo looked at website design trends for 2020 .

2. Report current news in your industry

Depending on your business, there could be breaking news in your industry that might alarm or cause questions from your audience.

This is none truer than when Google announced their new mobile-friendly rules for popups to the masses. Since OptinMonster’s business revolves around lead capture and popups, there were some concerns from their customers.

The owner, Syed Balkhi, wrote a post on the blog on how this news affects OptinMonster .

3. Post a case study

Case studies are a great way to show how valuable your product or service is. They may be even more powerful than a testimonial since they show a real person having success with your product or service.

Woobox helps you run marketing campaigns through social contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways. They feature case studies on their blog of how using their service can help businesses reach their goals.

4. Interview an expert

For some businesses, interviewing an expert in your industry is a good way to give your audience true value. Industry experts usually have insider tips and strategies that they can share with your audience, providing them with valuable knowledge.

Pagewiz is a landing page optimization tool and part of their blog strategy is to do case studies and also interview industry experts .

5. Showcase a new feature

Part of having a business blog is to keep customers or clients updated about new features or services. While the blog post itself isn’t highly engaging, it is highly informative and valuable to your target audience.

Dropbox recently released Dropbox Paper, a way for your team members to have one central place for all their notes and work. Their blog post showed three ways their readers can use Dropbox Paper for their next meeting .

6. Point out common mistakes

People love mistakes. Not making them, but reading about them. In fact, the click-through rate for negative superlatives in your headline is 63% higher than headlines that use positive superlatives.

As an example, Hootsuite has a blog post on what social media marketers are getting wrong about SEO .

Note from Adam:  Be careful with injecting too much negativity into your headlines.

Sure, being more negative can often translate into more traffic. After all, more traffic is what we want, right?!

But the truth is that too much negativity, when it’s not needed, means venturing into click-bait territory.

A good example are those ‘SEO is dead’ type blog posts – they paint a bleak picture that just isn’t true.

So, the key is to ensure that you avoid making your readers think: ‘wow, that’s 5 or so minutes I’ll never get back…’ – that only serves as a way of losing trust with your audience.

7. Write a how-to post

One of the most popular types of blog posts is a how-to. Why? Because people search online for answers to their problems. And a how-to post can provide those answers.

It also lets readers know that it’s a specific post that will dive into one thing. For example, on the Elegant Themes blog, they have a post about how to do advanced photo editing in the back end of WordPress .

This post is a comprehensive step-by-step guide on how to edit photos in WordPress.

8. Meet the staff

While your About Us page will hold the most information about the people in your business, writing a blog post about your staff can help your audience relate to your business on a more personal level.

This is also an excellent way to introduce your audience to one person on your team.

Starbucks does a wonderful job featuring baristas from all over on their blog and on Instagram too.

9. How customers use your product

People, generally, are nosey. We like to know what other people are doing or thinking. So, why not satisfy their curiosity on your blog? Report on your blog how customers use your product in their life.

Evernote has a series called, How Evernoters Use Evernote . They show how people use their product, which helps highlight a lot of little things about the product that may not have been mentioned in detail before.

10. Reports about your product

If you knew that your product was #1 or in the top 10, wouldn’t you want to scream it to everyone at the top of your lungs? Well, since you can’t do that online, the next best thing is to blog about it!

For example, the productivity app Any.do shared their excitement about being one of the most used apps in America.

11. Do a weekly roundup of relevant news

No matter what industry you’re in, there’s always a lot of news, as well as a lot of platforms to find these news stories. Doing a weekly or weekend roundup of the best and most relevant news for your audience would be very helpful.

Torque, a WP Engine publication, did a weekend roundup of the latest news about WordPress.

12. Promote your webinars

For a lot of entrepreneurs, hosting webinars is a common marketing strategy. For some, notifying their subscribers is enough to ensure a high attendance rate.

But if you want to grow your email list and traffic, promote your webinar on your blog. Many SaaS brands have found that webinars convert particularly well and run them regularly. Not just to sell their product but to educate their existing customers.

The upside of educating your customers on your product is that you will reduce churn rates .

13. Feature guest posts from experts in your industry

Another way to feature thought leaders in your industry is to see if they would be willing to write a guest post for your blog.

This is a great way to grow your traffic since the guest poster will more than likely let their audience know about their guest post. And the more prominent the expert is, the higher the chance you have for generating more traffic and leads.

Leadpages has some influential guest posters on their blog – like Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to Be Rich – to give valuable tips to their audience.

Note: this post is no longer available online.

14. Highlight customer stories

Another way to humanize your brand is to show customer stories on your blog. Feature one customer and have your audience get to know them.

For example, FreshBooks, a small business cloud accounting software, has long featured customer stories on their blog.

15. Tell the history of your field

A popular idea for business blogs is to do a series about the history of your industry or aspects of it. This helps your readers appreciate how far your industry has truly come.

It’s also another way to liven up your blog if your business is somewhat boring. For example, Timesheets.com is a cloud-based expense tracking, scheduling, and timesheets software.

Trying to write a blog post about that topic might be hard, but Timesheets.com has a long-standing blog since 2009. And one post they did was the history of timekeeping .

16. Host a quiz

A great way to make your blog more engaging and interactive is to host a quiz. Quizzes can also reveal information about your readers and customers, helping you adapt your product or service for your ideal customer.

On Grammarly’s blog, they frequently have fun quizzes like this one about studying grammar in school .

If you use WordPress, you can use one of these plugins to create your own ‘viral’ type quizzes.

17. Update your readers

A lot of brands have a loyal audience or even brand ambassadors. These readers are not only interested in your products or services, but also interested in the behind-the-scenes of your business.

This helps them relate to you on a deeper level and humanizes your brand.

For example, Nathan Barry, the entrepreneur behind ConvertKit, gives an insight into how he’s growing ConvertKit .

18. List things to avoid

A great business blog helps readers with their problems and challenges. They understand their target market has additional desires and problems that their product or service may not help. But, that’s okay, because if you can help your audience, they will forever be grateful and much more likely to become brand ambassadors.

Contently, a content marketing solution platform posted publishing tricks brands should avoid , targeting their audience and providing valuable information.

19. Create a roundup of experts in your industry

A very popular way to reach a new audience and network with more industry experts is to do a roundup post. Approach thought leaders, influencers, and experts that relate to your industry and pick their brain on one topic or question.

For example, a few years ago Adam asked 40+ influential bloggers to share one piece of advice they’d give to new bloggers looking to stand out online.

Note: While these posts can still get good results, they have become overdone to the point where some influencers don’t take part in them anymore. A good way to make yours stand out is to use the answers from experts as quotes in a lengthier post that you’ve written yourself. Stephen Panico explains more  over on the BuzzStream blog .

20. Run a survey and list the results

Another way to get interactive with your audience is to survey them. Ask your subscribers to do a quick survey and let them know that you’ll publish their collective results on the blog.

This helps you get some indication of how your audience is using your product. Peel – a smart remote app – ran a survey last year and realized that their customers are just warming up to the idea of smart technology, which may or may not have impacted how they approached their marketing strategy.

21. Answer frequently asked questions

As a blogger, entrepreneur, or marketer, I’m sure your inbox is flooded with emails from your followers asking questions. Instead of answering one at a time, why not pool the questions and create a blog series?

Harsh Agrawal of ShoutMeLoud used this idea and created a blog post answering a list of questions from his readers.

22. Create a seasonal post and relate that to your product or service

While writing evergreen content is a solid SEO strategy for your blog, creating occasional seasonal content can help you attract more readers at that time. People may be heavily searching for a seasonal topic and run into your post.

Seasonal copy also fits well with a lot of products or services.

The fitness app, MyFitnessPal has a great way to help their readers by taking advantage of seasonal food topics, like pies .

23. Do a “day in the life”

For the solopreneur, doing a day in the life or taking an office tour is a nice little treat for your followers. Part of the reason people buy from you is because of YOU! They can relate to you, or they enjoy your personality and the whole package.

Dr. Oz is a popular TV doctor, and for a lot of people, that’s all they see. So, when he takes a moment to show a down-to-earth Dr. Oz and his office, it only strengthens his brand.

24. Offer tutorials or step-by-step guides

Even though people may have bought your product, they may not be aware of all that it can do.

This is especially true for digital products like plugins, themes, or lead generation tools .

However, this doesn’t just apply to marketing niches. Beauty bloggers can offer step-by-step tutorials on how to use specific make-up products, music bloggers can offer in-depth guides on learning particular skills etc.

For example, over at YourCreativeAura.com they have a monster blog post covering basic music theory for beginners .

25. Interview a thought leader

Thought leaders or influencers usually have a lot of knowledge and can offer insights into your industry.

As a business, making those connections with experts and influencers is key to growing your brand and getting noticed.

Smarp, an employee communication app for businesses, has an influencer insight series on their blog.

26. Thank your customers

A great way to thank your customers is to blog about it. Without them your product or service might not exist, right?

Keith, developer of the writer software, Scrivener, thanked Scrivener users on his blog saying,

[W]e’ve been blown away by our fantastic users. We have had numerous users on our forums helping other users out, helping them get set up. We have had countless users on Twitter, Facebook and our forums telling us how much they love Scrivener for iOS, and telling writers who have never heard of Scrivener all about it. We have had over 150 very kind users already give us great reviews on the App Store in different territories. Just: thank you!

27. Blog about an update or past problem

For new products, problems are going to come up, especially if it’s a product with a lot of moving parts.

ConvertKit exploded onto the web, and professional bloggers and small businesses are using this email service provider in droves.

ConvertKit has used their blog to communicate with their customers about certain problems, like subscription bombing. ConvertKit let their users know of their new captcha integration to combat this nasty problem in a blog post.

28. Review non-competitive products

Depending on your business, you can review non-competitive products. For solopreneurs, this might be an affiliate product like a course or eBook. For an app business, this might mean other apps in other industries.

For example, Tone Island is a website that writes about guitar related equipment such as pedals and amps. This post on Klon Centaur style guitar pedals is a good example.

For a hypothetical example, let’s say you built guitar amps – you could write about guitars and pedals on your site. This would bring in visitors who would potentially be interested in your products since they’re so closely related.

29. Spotlight key people in your business

For a lot of business owners and marketers, invitations to conventions, summits or learning opportunities are par for the course. This is a great opportunity to blog about the event and how it benefited key people in your business.

This is what GoDaddy did with their post about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing . This post featured key people on GoDaddy’s team who triumphed over their struggles and are now successfully working in computing.

30. Highlight one customer and their problem

Instead of featuring influencers or staff, you can help your customers with their problem by featuring them.

Mint, a money manager, personal finance, and budgeting service, features one customer a month and helps them with their financial problem in their Mint Money Audit series .

31. Create a roundup for the year

Towards the end of the year or even every month you can do a roundup of the “best of the best” related to your industry or your product or service.

Leadpages does a monthly roundup of marketers and entrepreneurs using their landing page templates.

32. Talk about stats in your industry that relate to your audience

Part of a business blog’s purpose is to provide news and stats on topics that relate to your audience.

For example, a social media automation tool like MeetEdgar knows that news on what’s happening with social media platforms is helpful for their audience. This post talks about how people use Facebook differently now than before.

33. Run an experiment that’s relevant to your product or service

Redbooth, an online task and project management software for teams, decided to experiment with procrastination .

Since their software helps you stay focused and productive, on their blog they decided to see if procrastination can actually be productive. This is a great blog topic to use for your company blog as it’s engaging and can be exciting for readers to see the results.

34. Make a pros and cons list that’s related to your product or service

CreditCards by Offers.com helps you save money by finding the best deals and coupons for credit cards.

One of their credit card types is a student credit card and on their blog they looked at the pros and cons .

For product-based or app-based companies you can definitely use this type of blog topic idea for your blog.

35. Do a series on one topic

To extend your content schedule, consider running a series on your blog. This makes it easy to come up with topics, and since you’re focusing on one theme, it can help draw in an audience that’s interested in that topic.

For example, Spokal – a content marketing tool – has a startup spotlight series where they feature startups from around the world.

36. Answer a common problem

A great blog post is one that can help your audience and what’s better than having your whole blog post talk about one problem? If you’re a business or a marketer, take one problem that’s associated with your industry or product and dissect it and offer a solution.

Warfare Plugins’ blog answers an important problem for their audience – how to recover your social share counts if they’ve been lost .

37. Do a series on how you and others use your product

For your audience, it’s a neat thing to see how the creator of a product uses their own product or how the staff uses it. This gives some insight into how others use the same product differently.

Wunderlist – a planner and organizational app – did a series on their blog on how they use Wunderlist for recruiting.

38. Give away a freebie

A great way to increase your email list is to offer a lead magnet or freebie to your audience .

You can also offer it in a blog post. Zapier, an automation workflow app that connects your apps for better efficiency, offered their new eBook, The Ultimate Guide to Project Management as a freebie on their blog.

39. Do a roundup of your favorites

Whether you’re a bigger company, small business, or a solopreneur, your audience will appreciate you sharing your faves. These favorite items don’t have to relate to your product or service either.

MeetEdgar did an Edgar’s Fave Five post on what they were reading at the time.

40. Create a post about myths in your industry

A clever tactic entrepreneurs use when promoting their product is to create a post to dispel any myths surrounding their product.

This type of post speaks to the readers that aren’t fully invested in your service or product and can convince them to buy once they finish reading it.

This is what Caitlin Bacher did when she introduced her Instagram course called Wham Bam Instagram .

41. Show how you failed

Being transparent online can be a challenge for a lot of people. But the thing is, when you show a vulnerable side of yourself people will remember you and believe you more than if you painted a rosy picture of your business and blog.

Neil Patel of Quick Sprout wrote a blog post about why his first business failed . By publishing this post, he can help other marketers and entrepreneurs avoid any mistakes on their business.

42. Use annual events and relate them to your product or service

In November, men grow mustaches for Movember and writers participate in NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month.

As an entrepreneur or marketer, you can use annual events like these as a topic for your blog and try to relate them to your product or service.

Or better yet, do what Headspace did and create a video that talks about the event while promoting your business.

43. Feature a success story

Show off how great your product or service is by sharing a success story from one of your customers. This can help your readers understand your product and see how transformative it can be.

For example, Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple promotes a Primal lifestyle with his blog and books. He shares a lot of success stories from people who adopted the primal diet and lifestyle.

With over 300,000 subscribers, he’s doing something right!

44. Write an open letter to your audience

An open letter usually refers to a published letter that either protests or appeals to one thing or to a particular audience member.

As a business owner or creator, you can create an open letter to your audience explaining your stance on a certain topic.

This is what Pippin did over on Pippin’s Plugins’ blog .

45. Welcome a new team member

For a lot of solopreneurs, adding that first team member is an exciting event. As such, it makes for an engaging blog post and it introduces your new team member to your customers or clients.

For Zao, a WordPress agency, this is what the owner did. He introduced new hire Justin Sternberg and cited a new chapter in his business.

46. Rant about it

Remember when Twitter dropped a bombshell and told everyone they were no longer supporting share counts on the Twitter buttons?

Well, Warfare Plugins had a thing or two to say about that news .

If your business is impacted by some big piece of news, go ahead and rant about it. If enough people do it, that news can change for the better!

47. Do a product review

One way to add more value to your blog is to review other products. And solopreneurs may wish to use affiliate links to generate an additional income stream.

By giving your own opinion on a product, you build your credibility and help your audience find products and tools they need.

We do this here at Blogging Wizard. A great example is this detailed review of Thrive Leads .

48. Create a content locked blog post

Do you know what a content lock is? It’s a way to increase your share counts or to capture emails by limiting access to your blog post content.

The reader must share your post, or enter their email address in the opt in form, and once they do, the rest of the blog post content is revealed.

For example, Photowebo, a site for photographers, used this method for their post on 33 Blog Topics for Photographers, and How Audience Matters .

To get started, you can use a WordPress opt-in form plugin that has the content locking feature. Thrive Leads is a good example.

49. Compare your topic with something that is totally unrelated

Use a pop culture reference, movie, TV show, song, or fashion trend and compare that to your niche or industry.

It makes for a great blog post as it’s completely unique and offers a fresh perspective on your product or your niche.

Bidsketch provides customizable proposal templates for freelancers and solopreneurs. On their blog, they compared growing your business to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu .

50. Do a behind-the-scenes post

For companies and entrepreneurs, doing a behind-the-scenes of what goes on is another way to show transparency and authenticity to your audience.

Flywheel, a managed WordPress hosting solution, revamped their visual brand . From showing their new logo to letting everyone know their font selections, this is a jam-packed post.

51. Create a list post of just stats

Instead of mentioning one or a few stats related to your industry, why not create an entire post made up of stats?

We’ve got a great example here at Blogging Wizard: 25 Social Media Marketing Statistics & Facts To Turbo-Charge Your Engagement .

It’s a great way to increase your social shares, sell your services or products, and create a blog post for your content schedule.

52. Dive deep and tell a story

Pick a topic and tell a story about it, but dive deep. Tell it from the beginning and lead up to the present.

For example, Contently has a post on the untold story of Facebook Live . This story can help their audience understand the impact Facebook Live has had and how it can help their business or blog.

53. A call to arms post

When big news hits your industry sometimes having a call to arms is the best way to show where your business stands.

A call to arms post is a protest about what is going on in your business and this is a great way to grow your brand and let your fans know what your passions are.

Speaker Dirk Beveridge talks with the CEO of Graybar in his podcast, about the changing landscape of business model innovations.

The disruptive environment we find ourselves, in Kathy’s mind is nothing short than a call to arms. That as leaders we must create a sense of urgency throughout our organizations to rethink the business models of the future and find new ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value.

54. Do a comparison post

Following on from the idea of writing product reviews, you can take this a step further by publishing a comparison post on two popular items like themes or plugins. Or you can compare various items at once.

A great example is this comparison we wrote about WordPress landing page plugins .

55. Do a video blog post

Video is all the rage now. With Facebook Live and YouTube, it’s a great channel to practice your marketing strategies for your business.

Why not incorporate video on your blog? Gary Vaynerchuk has a video series where he answers readers’ and followers’ questions .

56. Host a giveaway

Boost your email list, traffic and readership by hosting a giveaway. For solopreneurs, this is the perfect way to grow your blog!

Blogger Chantel Arnett  hosted a giveaway  after only publishing 11 posts. This is as great way to increase traffic and subscribers.

If you’d like to run your own giveaway or contest, check out my post on social media contest tools . There are a few free options in there so you can get started right away!

57. Create a cheat sheet

While cheat sheets often make for a good lead magnet, why not create a blog post around a topic and then condense it and make it a cheat sheet?

These types of post are highly useful for busy people and if it offers just the things they need, then they’ll be sure to refer to your post.

58. Do a project or challenge

Marketers and entrepreneurs can use their blog to show behind-the-scenes of their work. One way to show this is with a project or challenge you’re doing.

It might be a collaboration project or just a personal one where you’re trying something new in a different industry.

59. Create a top-takeaways post

If you’re a solopreneur, your readers value your opinion and choices you make. A great blog post to have is one about the key takeaways from an eBook, an event, course or anything else. Let your audience know the key points you felt were important from something you did or read.

For example, blogger Amy Dowling from My Life From Home, shared her takeaways from her first blogging conference .

60. Talk about your competition

Many businesses or entrepreneurs don’t frequently mention their competition on their blog. But, Slack did!

Slack is a messaging app for teams and recently Microsoft announced they are working on a similar application and will be competing with Slack.

Slack decided to give their take on this news .

There you go! A list of 60 blog post ideas for your business blog.

Now, you won’t be wondering what to blog about any more. You’ve got plenty of blog post ideas to help you hit the ground running.

It’s worth mentioning that you should always vary the types of blog posts that you publish. This is part of the reason why creating a content calendar is so important .

If you need help with crafting headlines for your posts, check out my post on headline writing tools . And check out our article on how to write a blog post for more help.

Related reading:

• 17 Best Website Ideas For Beginners (+ Examples)
• 8 Lifestyle Blog Examples To Inspire You
• 30 Free Advertising Ideas To Grow Your Business

Elna Cain is a freelance writer who offers ghostwriting, copywriting and blogging services. She works closely with B2C and B2B businesses providing digital marketing content that gains social media attention and increases their search engine visibility.

How to Create a WordPress Blog (2024 Guide)

Have you ever considered sharing your passions, ideas, or expertise with the world? Creating a WordPress blog is a great way to do that. As a beginner, you might be wondering where you should start. Thankfully, building a beautiful and engaging WordPress blog is easier than you think, especially with Divi + Divi AI .

In this step-by-step guide, we’ll walk you through the process of how to create a WordPress blog, from choosing a domain to crafting your first blog post and designing a stunning blog website with Divi.

Let’s get started.

• 1 What You’ll Need to Create a WordPress Blog
• 2.1 Step 1: Choose A Domain Name
• 2.2 Step 2: Purchase A WordPress Hosting Plan
• 2.3 Step 3: Install and Configure WordPress
• 2.4 Step 4: Install The Divi WordPress Theme
• 2.5 Step 5: Write Your First Blog Post
• 2.6 Step 6: Design Your Blog With Divi + Divi AI
• 2.7 Step 7: Add and Install Additional Plugins
• 2.8 Step 8: Add a Sign-Up Form
• 2.9 Step 9: Monetize Your Blog
• 3 Divi + Divi AI Make Creating a WordPress Blog a Breeze
• 4 Frequently Asked Questions

What You’ll Need to Create a WordPress Blog

Before we dive into how to create a WordPress blog, we should mention a few important things you’ll need to get started:

• Domain Name: This is your blog’s unique address on the internet, like yourwebsite.com . Choose something memorable that is relevant to your content and brand.
• WordPress Hosting Plan: Think of web hosting as your blog’s home on the internet. It stores all of your website files and makes them accessible to visitors. There are different types of WordPress hosting available, but don’t worry, we’ll discuss those in a later step.
• WordPress Theme: Think of this as your website’s outfit or look . It’s the design visitors will see when they land on your website. WordPress has thousands of free themes on the WordPress repository , and there are plenty more available for purchase through third-party vendors, such as Elegant Themes .
• WordPress Plugins: Plugins add extra features and functionality to your blog. There are plugins for almost anything you can imagine, including contact forms, social media , SEO, and security.
• Content Creation Tools (optional): In addition to WordPress plugins, some creators may prefer to solicit help from other tools. These could include AI writing tools , such as Rytr or Jasper , or an AI art generator , such as Adobe Firefly or Jasper Art .

How to Create a WordPress Blog

Now that you have a better understanding of what you’ll need to get started, we can take the steps to show you how to create a WordPress blog. From choosing a domain name to designing your site, this tutorial will cover everything you need to do to set up a successful blog.

Step 1: Choose A Domain Name

Your domain name is your blog’s prime piece of online real estate. It’s the address people will type in to find your content, so choosing the right domain name is important. A catchy and memorable domain name makes it easier for people to find and remember your blog. It also helps establish your brand identity and can even play a small role in search engine optimization (SEO) . To help you choose, here are a few tips to keep in mind when in the market for a new domain:

• Keep it Short and Sweet: Aim for something easy to remember and type
• Use Relevant Keywords: Include words that reflect your blog’s niche or topic
• Keep It On Brand: Consider using your blog’s name or a variation of it
• Check for Availability: Use a domain name registrar , such as Namecheap , to see if your desired name is available

Namecheap is one of the most recognizable names in the domain registrar business. In fact, it offers one of the easiest and most affordable routes to take when registering a new domain name . They offer competitive pricing, with most domains costing less than $10 for the first year. They are also one of the only domain name registrars that offer free Whois privacy, which hides your personal contact information from public view. Namecheap also provides plenty of variety regarding top-level domains (TLDs). Aside from the traditional .com, you can find more specific extensions, like .blog, or location-based options like .co.uk. However, it’s important to choose a domain name extension that’s good for SEO so that your site has a better chance of performing better in the search engine ranking pages (SERPs) .

Get Namecheap

Step 2: Purchase A WordPress Hosting Plan

Imagine your domain name as your blog’s catchy address, but you also need a place to build your house. That’s where WordPress hosting comes in. A WordPress hosting plan provides the storage space and resources needed for your blog to be up and running on the internet. Here’s a breakdown of what to consider when choosing a WordPress hosting provider:

• Shared Hosting vs Other Options: The most common and affordable option, especially for beginners, is shared hosting . With shared hosting, your website shares space with other websites, which is perfectly fine for starting out. There are also Virtual Private Server (VPS) and dedicated hosting plans that offer more power and control, but they come at a higher cost and are better suited for high-traffic websites.
• Features: Look for a hosting plan that includes features specifically designed for WordPress. This might include one-click installs, automatic updates, and compatibility with popular WordPress plugins. This type of hosting is referred to as managed WordPress hosting , and serves as the best option for WordPress for most users
• Storage and Bandwidth: Storage space determines how much content you can store on your website, while bandwidth affects how much traffic your blog can handle. For a new blog, you won’t need a massive amount of storage or bandwidth, but choose a provider that allows room for growth
• Uptime and Reliability: This refers to how often your website is accessible to visitors. Look for a hosting provider with a high uptime guarantee (ideally 99.9% or higher) to ensure your blog is always available
• Customer Support: Having reliable customer support is crucial in case you run across any technical issues with your hosting. Choose a provider known for responsive and helpful support staff

SiteGround Is the Clear Choice For Optimized WordPress Hosting

When looking for the best WordPress host that’s both fast and packed with features, the clear choice is SiteGround . It offers optimized WordPress hosting , which means its server and configuration is specifically designed to host WordPress websites. It’s widely recognized for its excellent server performance and speed optimization tools, such as the SG Optimizer plugin . SiteGround also offers everything a WordPress user wants or needs, including one-click WordPress installations, automatic updates, and many freebies.

Every SiteGround plan comes with at least 10GB of storage, 10,000 monthly site visitors, unmetered traffic, and a free domain, SSL certificate , site migrations, content delivery network (CDN) , and free email , starting at $2.99 per month . If you need a more robust plan, SiteGround makes it easy to upgrade your hosting plan with zero downtime, ensuring that as your site’s following grows, you’ll be able to handle it.

Get SiteGround

Step 3: Install and Configure WordPress

Depending on your chosen hosting provider, installing and configuring WordPress can be easy. When you opt for SiteGround, they’ll do all the hard work of installing WordPress for you. Should you select a different provider, you may need to take steps to install it yourself. If this is your specific scenario, we have a definitive guide to installing WordPress on our blog to help you get up to speed.

For this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the steps to install WordPress on a SiteGround hosting plan. After signing up, log in to your account and click the Set Up Site button.

The next screen offers three options, including setting up your site on a new domain, existing domain, or temporary domain. If you purchased a domain from Namecheap or another domain registrar, choose existing domain . Otherwise, setting up your new WordPress installation on a temporary domain is a good idea. That way, you can work on your site without worrying about anyone peeping it before you are ready.

Choose Start New Website on the next screen.

Next, choose WordPress , enter an email address, and create a password. These will be your login credentials for WordPress. Once complete, click continue .

SiteGround will start setting up your WordPress website, installing its suite of plugins, and optimizing your installation for performance. The process usually takes a few minutes, so you can start configuring WordPress settings.

The WordPress Dashboard: A Brief Overview

When you first log into WordPress, you’ll have a little learning to do. All of WordPress’ tools are located on the left-hand side of the screen on the toolbar.

We won’t go through all of the settings here; rather, we’ll provide some helpful articles to help you understand how to navigate the dashboard:

• Posts: Similar to pages, posts are how you populate your blog with content. Whether you want to write an article about raising kittens or cook a new recipe, posts are the building blocks of WordPress content
• Media: This is where all of your documents, images, and videos are stored. You can upload, edit, or delete files in the Media Library .
• Pages: These contain all of your blog’s static content. Think of a home, about, or blog page. Pages can be used to create landing pages to run Google ads, new projects, and more.
• Comments: Interact with your site’s visitors through WordPress’s built-in comment system.
• Appearance: Install new themes, edit templates ( full-site editing ), and more
• Plugins: Install, deactivate, or delete plugins, which are WordPress extensions that add extra functionality to your website
• Users : Add new users, edit permissions, assign user roles, and edit their profiles
• Tools: Import or export XML files for moving content between WordPress sites, get a glimpse into your website’s health, and edit theme and plugin files
• Settings: Assign a home page, manage permalinks , manage comment and media settings, and configure privacy settings

Step 4: Install The Divi WordPress Theme

With a basic understanding of WordPress settings, you can advance to the next step, which is installing a WordPress theme. For this tutorial, we’ll use Divi by Elegant Themes. Divi is one of the most popular WordPress themes in the world, and for good reason. Divi comes packed with features, such as a drag-and-drop Visual Builder that allows you to create beautiful websites on the front end without coding. It also provides over 200 design modules to build your blog, including a blog module, image gallery, accordion, email opt-in form, and more.

There’s also the Theme Builder , which lets you create custom templates for different parts of your website. This includes page templates (like blog posts or product pages), header and footer templates, and archive page layouts. You can even create global color palettes, styles, and elements that apply across your entire site. That way, you won’t have to change a design element on every single page of your website.

Divi also offers plenty of ways to streamline your workflow . You can select and edit multiple design elements simultaneously, utilize keyboard shortcuts, copy and paste styles between different elements, or easily find and replace colors, fonts, and other settings.

But perhaps Divi’s best feature is Divi AI , an onboard design assistant that can create engaging on-brand copy, generate lifelike images, write code, and create full web pages, all thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) . We’ll walk you through the steps to use Divi AI to write your first blog post and design your blog in the next steps, but if you’d like to learn about all that Divi AI can do, check out our in-depth how-to: How to Use Divi AI: Everything You Need to Know .

Purchase A Divi Subscription

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to sign up for an Elegant Themes subscription to use Divi. The cost is much more affordable than its competitors, thanks to its ability to create unlimited WordPress sites, either by scratch, through a premade layout , or by generating web pages with Divi AI. Those already an Elegant Themes member will only need to sign up for Divi AI, at just over $16 per month , if paying annually. For this tutorial, we’ll assume you want to join the Divi Community and must sign up for a plan.

Start by navigating the Elegant Themes website and clicking the pricing button .

Next, choose your plan. You can purchase the standalone theme for $89 (yearly) or opt for the Divi Pro plan, which includes everything Divi has to offer for $277 per year . Divi Pro includes Divi Cloud , which functions like Dropbox. You can save modules, sections, or full layouts to the cloud and use them on any Divi website you own. It also includes Divi AI and Divi Teams , which allows users to collaborate with co-workers or clients. You can set up permissions for each user, only granting them access to the products they’ll use. Divi Teams gives each user their own account where they can generate API keys, download Divi, contact support, and manage their own Divi Cloud libraries. Lastly, Divi Pro gives you access to Divi VIP , which guarantees support 24/7 within 30 minutes of opening up a ticket.

After purchasing a plan, you’ll be redirected to the Elegant Themes Member Area, where you can download the Divi theme .

Generate An API Key

Before writing our first post, we need to create a unique API key for our WordPress website. An API Key ensures that Divi’s core framework is updated regularly and grants access to new features as they become available, as well as any additional Elegant Themes product you purchase.

To generate a new API, head over to the account tab and click Username & API Key .

Scroll down the page until you see the Generate New API Key button.

Give your new API a label, then hover over the field to copy the key. Be sure to also copy your username and store it in a safe place, as you’ll need it in the next step.

Install The Divi Theme

With Divi downloaded and your API key created, we can now install It on our WordPress blog. To do so, navigate to the admin dashboard in WordPress and click Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme .

Click the Upload Theme button to add Divi.

Click Choose File , locate the Divi theme on your computer, select it, and click the Upload button to add Divi to WordPress.

Once the File is loaded into WordPress, click Install Now .

Finally, click the Activate link to make the theme live on your website.

Activate The Divi API Key

The last step is to paste the username and API key we copied in the previous step. Navigate to Divi > Theme Options > Updates .

Paste your username and API key into the fields and click Save Changes .

Step 5: Write Your First Blog Post

Congrats! You’ve built the foundation for your WordPress blog. Now, it’s time to create a blog post. High-quality blog content is the lifeblood of any successful blog. It’s what establishes your expertise, engages your audience, and ultimately drives traffic to your site. Here are a few tips to craft captivating blog posts that resonate with your readers:

• Know Your Audience: Before writing your first blog post, it’s important to understand your target audience ‘s needs and interests. Be sure to tailor your content to address their questions and provide solutions that resonate with them.
• Choose Engaging Topics: Pick subjects relevant to your niche but also intriguing enough to capture attention. Brainstorm topics based on your own expertise, conduct keyword research, and read up on current trends. Use a keyword research tool, like Semrush , to help you find relevant keywords and identify your competitors.
• Focus on Value: Every blog post should offer value to the reader. Provide insightful information, offer practical advice, or entertain them with your unique perspective.
• Write with Clarity and Conciseness: Strive for clear, concise writing that’s easy to understand. Employ an AI writing software , such as Divi AI or Sudowrite , to help you streamline existing copy or create new content.
• Proofread and Edit: Typos and grammatical errors can detract from your professionalism. Consider using a tool, such as Grammarly , that can help you identify spelling errors and detect plagiarism.

Keep in mind that your first blog post can be challenging. The key is to start creating, get your voice out there, and learn from the process. Your content will naturally evolve and improve as you continue writing and engaging with your audience.

Create A Blog Post Template With Divi

Armed with knowledge, we can start creating our first blog post. One of the first things you want to do is create a new template for your posts using the Divi Theme Builder. This will serve as the look for each post and keep things consistent. Alternatively, you can download one of our theme builder packs, which includes everything you need to build your blog, including a header and footer, templates for posts, categories, archives, and an author page. Check out our Divi Resources category to browse our options. If you’d like to learn how to build a blog post with AI using methods other than Divi AI, check out this post .

For this tutorial, we will concentrate more on creating the post template and using Divi to make it. To create a post template, navigate to Divi > Theme Builder . Then, click Add New Template .

Next, click Build New Template .

In the next step, you’ll choose what type of content you’d like your template to be applied to. Select All Posts and then click the Create Template button.

Next, click Add Custom Body to build your post template.

Finally, click Build Custom Body to launch the Divi Builder.

We won’t go through all of the steps to design a blog post template here, but we have several tutorials on our blog that will walk you through the process.

Create Your First Blog Post

We can create our post now that we have a blog post template. Start by navigating to the WordPress admin dashboard. Navigate to Posts > Add New Post .

When the screen refreshes, you’ll see the default Gutenberg editor . Since we have a blog post template created, we can use blocks to write our post. However, we’ll use the Divi Builder and Divi AI to create a new blog post so that AI can generate the content for us. First, we’ll give our post a title . Next, click the Use Divi Builder button.

When the page refreshes, you’ll have three options: Build from scratch, choose a premade layout, or build with AI. We’ll opt for Build with AI .

Our template takes care of the title, featured image, and post details but doesn’t include the post’s content. We’ll enlist the help of Divi AI for that. Scroll down to the post section where you see a blank section .

Click the green plus icon to add a row.

Select the single-column layout .

Next, add a text module .

Write Blog Post Content With Divi AI

Divi’s text module comes with a paragraph of placeholder text. Select it to highlight it, and then delete the copy. Next, click the AI button at the text area’s top right corner.

Next, click Write with AI .

A dialog box will allow you to choose the type of content you want to create. You can select from paragraph, title, button, blog post, or social media post. Select Blog Post .

Next, you’ll enter a description for what you want to write about. You can write a short description or include a full blog post outline. Under added context , select no context . Under Guide Me, select creative as the tone of voice , enter any must-use keywords , set the content length to about 2000 words , leave language at the default settings , and then click the Generate Text button.

Divi AI will analyze your prompt and generate text. Once complete, you’ll have a keyword-rich blog post.

Once content is generated, Divi AI can refine it for you. You can use AI to improve the text, including rephrasing it, making it better, rewriting it in a different tone, and more.

Step 6: Design Your Blog With Divi + Divi AI

With our first blog post created, we can concentrate on generating our static pages with Divi AI. Divi + Divi AI makes creating a WordPress blog effortless. As previously mentioned, Divi has a powerful front-end Visual Builder that allows you to drag design modules onto the page. Divi AI can generate text, images, code, and complete layouts.

Create The Pages For Your Website

Before we can generate layouts with Divi AI, we need to create the page structure for our blog. We’ll start by adding a few pages, including Home, About, Blog, and Contact. Head over to Pages > Add New Page to get started.

Give your new page a title and then click the Publish button.

Repeat the steps above to create the rest of the pages for your WordPress blog.

Generating Layouts With Divi AI

With our page structure in place, we can generate a page using Divi Layouts AI. Let’s start with the blog page. Return to your page list and select the blog page . Click Edit with Divi .

Like in the previous step, select Build With AI when the page refreshes.

Describe the type of page you want to create (in this case, a blog page), add any additional information you’d like the AI to have, and select your custom fonts and colors. Since we have a blog post template, we’ll use the same colors and fonts to keep things consistent. Choose Roboto for the heading font and Lato for the body font. Next, select #000000 for the heading and body font color. Lastly, choose #ef9695 and #  for the primary and secondary colors. When all your settings are in place, click the Generate Layout button.

Divi AI will start generating your layout. It will create a wireframe, add Divi design modules, and generate text and images.

Repeat the steps to create the remaining pages for your site. Thanks to Divi AI, creating an entire blog takes mere minutes, unlike traditional methods.

Step 7: Add and Install Additional Plugins

With our blog post, pages, and navigation menu created, we can shift our focus to plugins. Think of plugins as the tools that enhance your WordPress blog’s functionality. They can add new features, improve security, optimize performance, and even help you manage your content more efficiently. Here are some must-have plugins to consider for your blog:

• SEO Plugins : SEO is crucial for getting your blog discovered online. Plugins, such as Rank Math , can help you optimize your content with relevant keywords, improve readability, and generate XML sitemaps for search engines.
• Security Plugins : Website security is also an important part of keeping your blog up and running. Plugins like Solid Security and WP Activity Log are great options for adding two-factor authentication (2FA), monitoring activity, and protecting you from hackers.
• Anti-Spam Plugins: An anti-spam plugin, such as Cleantalk or Akismet, is a must-have for any WordPress blog. They’ll automatically reduce spam comments , saving you time and keeping your comment section clean and professional.
• Contact Form Plugins : Allow users to easily reach out to you through a contact form on your blog. Plugins such as WP Forms , provide a simple drag-and-drop editor to build all types of forms, including registration, login, and contact.
• Image Optimization Plugins : Images are great for visual storytelling, but large files can slow down your website. Plugins like EWWW Image Optimizer and ShortPixel , optimize your images without sacrificing quality, ensuring fast-loading pages and a smoother user experience.
• Google Analytics Plugins : Track your website traffic and analyze visitor behavior with a plugin, such as MonsterInsights . Understanding your audience helps you tailor your content and improves the overall effectiveness of your blog.

Extend Divi With Integrations and The Divi Marketplace

As a Divi user, you have a wealth of integrations and third-party options available in the Divi Marketplace . By default, Divi offers a ton of functionality, from creating contact forms to adding email opt-ins and more. However, there will be times when you’ll need to add a third-party plugin. For example, if you’re planning on turning your blog into a learning management system (LMS) or membership site, plugins such as LearnDash , Toolset , and MemberPress all integrate seamlessly into the Visual Builder.

Looking to add events to your site? The Events Calendar plugin adds Divi modules to the Visual Builder to allow you to add events to any page on your site. Those who want to add Divi-specific plugins can find a plethora of options in the Divi Marketplace that will improve Divi’s already amazing functionality. For example, you can add the Blogging Toolkit , which provides over 50 blog and post templates to give your site a fresh look. There’s also Divi Blog Pro , which provides unique layouts for your blog page, including a masonry layout, a carousel, and other cool extensions to make your posts stand out.

There are also plenty of free options in the WordPress repository that provide all kinds of functionality to help you create the blog of your dreams.

Step 8: Add a Sign-Up Form

Building an email list is a powerful way to connect with your readers on a deeper level and nurture a loyal following. Email lets you directly reach your audience with updates, new blog posts, exclusive content, or special offers. It offers a more personal approach compared to relying on social media alone. Email marketing lets you segment your audience and send targeted content based on their interests or preferences. A personalized approach is a great way to increase engagement and conversion rates.

By default, the Divi Theme comes with a robust email opt-in module. That said, you can also use one of Divi’s most powerful plugins, Bloom . Available with an Elegant Themes subscription, Bloom offers six different display types, including automatic pop-ups, triggered opt-ins, or exit intent pop-ups. Bloom also integrates with all of the best email marketing services , including HubSpot , Mailchimp , Aweber , SalesForce, and more.

If you’d like to learn more about everything you can do with Divi’s email opt-in module, check out this post that outlines different ways to use it. Additionally, you can learn how to style your Bloom email opt-in to match your site’s branding.

Step 9: Monetize Your Blog

Once your beautiful, informative blog is built and your audience grows, you should consider monetizing your blog . With monetization, you can turn your passion into profit. There are several ways to do it, including displaying ads. There are advertising plugins available that will help you set things up, including Advanced Ads , which works with Google Adsense, Amazon Ads, and more.

You can also promote other companies’ products or services through affiliate marketing. Affiliate products allow you to earn a commission anytime someone makes a purchase. Affiliate marketing plugins , such as Pretty Links , make it easy for beginners to manage all of their affiliate links in one place, customize them to your preferences, and integrate seamlessly with Google Analytics.

Other ways to monetize your blog include selling digital products, setting up a membership website, or offering paid services like freelance work. Plugins, such as Easy Digital Downloads , make it easy to create and sell digital products and also offer several payment gateways you can integrate directly into your WordPress blog.

Divi + Divi AI Make Creating a WordPress Blog a Breeze

You’ve explored the essential steps for creating a WordPress blog. The journey from making your first blog post to establishing a loyal following might seem daunting, but with the right tools by your side, it can be a rewarding and exciting adventure. 

This is where Divi and Divi AI come in. Combining an intuitive drag-and-drop Visual Builder , the ability to build page templates , and the AI tools to generate text, images, and full web pages makes Divi a no-brainer. With Divi, you can create a beautiful, informative, engaging blog that captures attention and thrives online. Start your journey today and turn your passion into a platform for sharing your voice with the world.

Are you interested in learning more about the products featured in this post? The table below provides pricing and links for each.

Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve thrown a lot at you in this post, and while it covers most everything, you could still have some questions. Check out our FAQ section below to find the answers.

How do I start a WordPress blog?

Which wordpress plugins should i install, how do i improve seo for my blog, how can i make money from my blog, what are some common mistakes beginners make with wordpress, is divi beginner-friendly, what are some alternatives to divi, what is divi ai, what makes divi ai different from other ai tools, is divi ai free to use.

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Explore plans, pricing and features. Click here to get started. 👇

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By deanna mclean.

Deanna McLean is a blog author, and web developer. She studied graphic design at the University of Mississippi and loves all things, Hotty Toddy. (If you know, you know.) As an adventurous creative, there is nothing Deanna loves more than taking her son and two dogs on excursions in her Jeep.

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WPBeginner » How to Start a WordPress Blog in 2024 (Beginner’s Guide)

How to Start a WordPress Blog in 2024 (Beginner’s Guide)

Last updated on May 14th, 2024 by Editorial Staff

Do you want to start a WordPress blog the right way?

We know that starting a blog can be a terrifying thought, especially when you are not geeky. Guess what – you are not alone.

Having helped over 2 million+ users create a blog, we have decided to create a step-by-step guide on how to create a blog for beginners without any technical knowledge.

In this in-depth guide, we’ll walk you through the entire process. We’ll also talk about working on your blog and growing it steadily.

The process is easy to follow whether you are 20 years old or 60 years old. However, if you need help, our expert team will help you set up your blog for free. → Click Here to Get Your Free WordPress Blog Setup! ←

What Do You Need to Start a WordPress Blog?

There are three things you need to create a WordPress blog:

• A domain name idea (this will be the name of your blog, i.e., wpbeginner.com)
• A web hosting account (this is where your website lives on the internet)
• Your undivided attention for 30 minutes.

Yes, you read it right. You can start a blog from scratch in less than 30 minutes, and we will walk you through the whole process step by step.

In this tutorial, we will cover:

Step 1. Pick Your Blog Name and Platform

Step 2. install wordpress blogging software, step 3. selecting your wordpress theme, step 4. creating your first blog post, step 5. plugins & customizations, step 6. making money from your blog, step 7. mastering wordpress, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Ready? Let’s get started.

Video Tutorial

If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.

The biggest mistake beginners make when building a blog is choosing the wrong blogging platform . Thankfully, you’re here and won’t be making that mistake.

For 95% of users, it makes more sense to use WordPress.org, also known as self-hosted WordPress.

That’s because WordPress is open-source, which means it is 100% free to use. You can install plugins, customize your blog design, and most importantly, make money from your blog without any restrictions (see the difference between WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org ).

WordPress is also the number one website platform used by all successful blogs, including our own. To put it in perspective, 43% of all websites on the internet use WordPress!

Now you might be wondering why WordPress is free . What’s the catch?

There’s no catch. It’s free because you have to do the setup and host it yourself.

In other words, you will need a domain name and web hosting .

A domain name is what people type to get to your website. It’s your blog’s address on the internet. Think google.com or wpbeginner.com

Web hosting is where your website files live. It’s your website’s house on the internet. Every blog needs web hosting .

A new domain name typically costs around $14.99 / year, and web hosting plans normally cost $7.99 / month.

That’s a lot of money for beginners who are just starting out.

Thankfully, Bluehost , an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and a generous discount on web hosting.

You can also use other popular WordPress hosting companies like SiteGround or Hostinger , and still be able to follow our blog setup tutorial.

We recommend Bluehost for beginners because it is one of the oldest web hosting companies on the internet. They are also the largest brand name when it comes to WordPress hosting because they host millions of websites, including many of our own.

On top of all this, Bluehost has been working with WordPress since 2005, and they are committed to giving back.

That’s why they have promised us that if you cannot get your blog online within 30 minutes by following this tutorial, then our expert team will complete the process for you without any cost. They will compensate us, so you don’t have to. Contact us for free blog setup help.

NOTE: At WPBeginner, we believe in transparency. If you sign up with Bluehost using our referral link, we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money and get a free domain). We would get this commission for recommending just about any WordPress hosting company , but we only recommend products that we personally use and believe will add value to our readers.

Let’s go ahead and purchase your domain + hosting.

Open up Bluehost in a new window and follow along.

The first thing you need to do is click on the green Get Started Now button to get started.

On the next screen, select the plan that you need (Basic and Choice Plus are the most popular).

After that, you will be asked to enter the domain name for your website.

Lastly, you will need to add your account information and finalize the package info to complete the process. We recommend going with the 12-month plan because that’s the best value.

On this screen, you will see optional extras that you can purchase. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you purchase these, but we generally don’t recommend purchasing them right away.

You can always add them later on if you decide that you need them.

Once completed, you will receive an email with details on how to log in to your web hosting control panel (cPanel).

This is where you manage everything from support emails to FTP access among other things. But most importantly, this is where you install WordPress.

When you sign up with Bluehost using our link , they will automatically install WordPress for you, so you can start building your blog right away.

Simply log in to your Bluehost account, and then click the Login to WordPress button to get started.

You can also log in to WordPress by going to yoursite.com/wp-admin/ directly from your browser.

If you are using a different WordPress blog hosting service like SiteGround , Hostinger , WP Engine , etc, then you can see our comprehensive guide on how to install WordPress for step-by-step instructions for those providers.

Most of the above blog hosting companies are now also automatically installing WordPress to help non-techy users kickstart their blogging journey.

Once WordPress is set up, you’re ready to create your blog pages, customize your blog’s design, and start blogging.

The visual appearance of your WordPress blog is controlled by blog themes . When you first visit your blog, it will look something like this:

This is not very appealing to most people.

Customizing the look and feel of your blog is by far one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of the journey of creating your WordPress blog.

There are thousands of pre-made WordPress themes that you can install on your site. Some of them are free themes, while others are paid premium themes.

You can change your theme by going to your WordPress dashboard and clicking on Appearance » Themes .

Go ahead and click on the Add New Theme button.

On the next screen, you will able to search from 11,000+ free WordPress themes that are available in the official WordPress.org themes directory. You can sort by Popular, Latest, Block Themes, as well as other feature filters (i.e. industry, layout, etc.).

You can take your mouse over to a new theme, and you will see a Preview button.

Clicking on it will open the theme preview where you can see how the design would look on your website.

The preview of your theme may not look exactly as shown in the screenshot, which is normal as you will get to customize and set it up later.

What you need to look for is design, colors, typography, and other elements.

The best tip to select the perfect WordPress theme is to strive for simplicity in design. It helps you keep things clean and clear while offering a good experience to your users.

If you need help selecting a theme, then please refer to our guide on things you should consider when selecting a perfect WordPress theme .

When you have found the theme that you like, simply bring your mouse on it, and it will show the Install button.

Click on it and wait for the theme to be installed. After that, the install button will be replaced with an Activate button. You need to click on it to Activate the theme.

Once you have installed your theme, you can customize it by clicking on the Customize link under the Appearance menu.

Depending on the theme you choose, there will be built-in widgets and customization options that let you tweak your blog design.

Note: If you cannot see the customize link under the Appearance menu, then this means you are using a block theme . Block themes use the WordPress block editor to edit and customize a WordPress theme.

You can edit a block theme by visiting the Appearance » Editor page.

You can get even more design control with a WordPress page builder like SeedProd or Divi , which let you create a custom header, footer, sidebar, and more without writing any HTML code.

These plugins give you more design control than what you get with Wix or Squarespace while giving you the full freedom of the powerful WordPress content management system.

Once you have selected your WordPress theme, you are now ready to create your first blog post.

Alternative: You can get your dream blog designed by expert WordPress developers at an affordable price with WPBeginner Pro Services . Custom web design includes bespoke homepage design, professional logo, 5 templated subpages, blog setup, and more.

To write your first blog post, click the Posts » Add New menu in your WordPress dashboard.

You will see an editor area where you can write your first blog post.

WordPress uses a block-based editor that allows you to create beautiful content layouts for your blog posts.

To familiarize yourself with the editor, see our WordPress block editor tutorial .

Once you’re done writing, go ahead and click on the Publish button on the top-right corner of the screen to make your blog post publicly available.

On the posts screen, you will notice several other sections, such as Categories and Tags. You can use these to organize your blog posts into sections.

We have a great write-up on the difference between categories vs tags , which we highly recommend that you read.

To utilize all the features on the posts screen, you should read our article on how to add a new post in WordPress (video included) .

It covers how to embed videos, add blog images, headings, table of contents, sub-headers, bullet lists, call-to-action buttons, social media posts, and all other shortcuts you need.

Often, beginners are confused between Posts and Pages menus in the WordPress dashboard. That’s why we have also written a complete guide on the difference between posts vs pages in WordPress .

If you need help brainstorming new blog post ideas to write about, then here are some helpful resources:

• Free blog post idea generator tool by WPBeginner
• 103 blog post ideas that your readers will love
• 73 types of blog topics that are proven to work
• How to write a great blog post (structure + examples)
• How to create an effective content plan in WordPress

Many pro bloggers choose their specific topics strategically by doing keyword research. This helps their content rank higher in Google search and get more traffic.

We have a step-by-step guide on how to do keyword research for beginners using the exact same method that we use on WPBeginner.

Once you have written your first blog post, you probably want to get started with adding other usual elements to your website, such as a contact page, galleries, sliders, email lists, forums, etc.

To add all these additional features, you need to use plugins.

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. They allow you to add new features to your site (without writing any code).

There are over 59,000+ WordPress plugins available in the free WordPress plugin directory alone. This means no matter what you want to accomplish, there is a plugin for it.

We have a step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin .

That being said, let’s take a look at how to use plugins to add some essential features to your WordPress blog.

How to Create a Contact Form in WordPress

Every website needs a contact form. It allows your users to email you directly. Since WordPress doesn’t come with a built-in contact form, you will need a WordPress form builder plugin to add a contact form to your site.

We recommend using the WPForms Lite plugin. It is a free version of the popular WPForms plugin, which is #1 in our list of best contact form plugins for WordPress.

Over 6 million websites use WPForms!

You can install the plugin by going to Plugins » Add New page and typing WPForms in the search box. Next, you need to click “Install” and then “Activate”. Upon activation, you need to head over to the WPForms » Add New page to create your first form.

This will open the WPForms builder interface.

First, you need to enter a name for your contact form and then click on ‘Simple Contact Form’ template.

WPForms will now create a simple contact form for you with all the required fields.

You can click on any field to change it or add a new field from the left column.

Once you are done editing the form, click on the save button at the top right corner and then exit the form builder.

You can now create a new page in WordPress by going to Pages » Add New Page and naming it ‘Contact.’

On the edit screen, you need to add the WPForms block into the editor.

After that, select the form you created earlier from the drop-down menu.

WPForms will load a live preview of the form in the editor.

You can now save and publish the page and visit it in your browser to see your contact form in action.

It’s a best practice to test your form to make sure you’re receiving the notifications. If you don’t get the notification, then you should see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending emails .

If you need more detailed instructions, then see our step-by-step guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress .

As a blogger, the best part about WPForms is that it grows with you. Aside from simple contact forms, you can also use it to create reader surveys , polls , guest post submission forms , and more.

How to Setup Google Analytics Tracking

Google Analytics helps you see how many people are visiting your blog, where they are coming from, and what they are doing on your website.

It is best to install Google Analytics when starting your blog so you can see how much it has grown over time.

First, you need to visit the Google Analytics website and sign in using your Gmail account.

Once you are logged in, you can go ahead and sign up for a free Google Analytics account.

You will be asked to provide your information and website URL. After that, you will be presented with your Google Analytics tracking code.

You can stop here because we will be using a plugin to automatically fetch and add this code to your blog (along with setting up proper WordPress tracking).

Switch to your WordPress admin area to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. It is the free version of the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, and it is the easiest way to add Google Analytics on your site (trusted by over 3 million websites).

Upon activation, you need to visit Insights » Settings page to configure the plugin settings.

On the settings page, click on the ‘Connect MonsterInsights’ button to connect Google Analytics to your WordPress site.

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup. Once done, you will be able to see your website analytics report straight from your WordPress dashboard under the MonsterInsights tab.

For detailed instructions, see our article on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress .

How to Optimize Your WordPress Blog for SEO

Most beginners don’t optimize for SEO when creating a blog. SEO or search engine optimization helps users find your blog in search engines.

If you want more traffic, then it’s crucial that you optimize your blog for SEO right from the beginning.

To get started, you first need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin. It is the complete WordPress SEO plugin that will help you optimize your blog.

The plugin comes with a quick configuration wizard to help you walk through the setup.

It will help you configure a WordPress sitemap, write proper keywords and meta descriptions , add schema markup, and more.

We also recommend you follow our complete step-by-step WordPress SEO guide to set up your blog’s SEO.

Now there are other SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, RankMath, etc, but we recommend using AIOSEO because it offers the most beginner-friendly interface for new bloggers. We use it on all our blogs, including WPBeginner.

The free version of AIOSEO is pretty good and is used by over 3 million websites.

Aside from a WordPress SEO plugin, you can further optimize your blog content by using a keyword research tool . These SEO tools help you come up with new content ideas that people are searching for around your topic.

You can even see the exact keywords your competitors are ranking for, so you can create better content and outrank them.

This helps you maximize the traffic on your new blog site right from the beginning. For more details, see our newbie’s guide on how to do keyword research for your own blog.

More WordPress Plugins and Customizations

There are a ton of other WordPress plugins that you can install. Often, beginners find it a bit overwhelming to search for the plugins they need.

At WPBeginner, we often feature the best WordPress plugins to help you add the functionality that you need.

Here is our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins that you should check out.

• Backup – Duplicator is the best WordPress backup plugin . You need to create regular backups of your website in case something ever goes wrong.
• Security – Sucuri Security is a free security scanner for WordPress. We have a complete step-by-step WordPress security guide for beginners that will help you secure your blog.
• Performance – We recommend using either WP Rocket (premium) or WP Super Cache (free) to speed up WordPress. For more on this topic, see our article on WordPress speed and performance with step-by-step instructions.
• Design & Customization – We recommend using either SeedProd or Divi page builder for customizing your homepage design, creating custom landing pages, or even creating custom themes (without writing any code). For more on this topic, see our article on the best WordPress page builders (compared) .
• Traffic & Subscribers – We strongly recommend using push notifications by PushEngage . This lets you connect with visitors after they leave your website. It’s our top 5 traffic source on WPBeginner. For more details, see how to add push notifications in WordPress.
• Email Marketing – We recommend using Constant Contact or HubSpot as your email marketing service . To get more email subscribers, we recommend using the OptinMonster free plugin to create high-converting popups, scroll boxes and calls to action.

Need a WordPress plugin or tool but not sure which one to use? Take a look at WPBeginner’s Solutions Center . It is a curated library of the best WordPress plugins and tools, hand-picked and thoroughly tested by our WordPress experts.

If you are curious about all the plugins and tools that we use on our website, then check out WPBeginner’s Blueprint . That list contains all the tools that we use to grow the WPBeginner blog.

Need more recommendations? See our expert pick of the must-have WordPress plugins and tools for all websites (hand-picked by our founder, Syed Balkhi).

Now that you’ve created your personal blog and customized it to your liking, you are probably wondering how I can actually make money blogging.

There are a lot of different ways to successfully monetize your blog. However, there is no such thing as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Don’t be fooled by the pictures of expensive cars and mansions because those are all fake.

Unlike other “make money online” articles, we have created the most comprehensive guide on how to make money from your blog using WordPress.

That’s a 4000+ word guide that everyone who wants to make money with their blog needs to read. We have shared our 15+ years of online wisdom in that ultimate guide.

As long as you’re willing to put in the hard work and effort, you’ll reap the reward. Remember, there are no shortcuts.

Here are some of the best ways to make money from your blog.

1. Google AdSense

Many bloggers make money by showing ads on their blogs. If you make a blog with monetization in mind, then Google AdSense is the best way to do this.

It is the largest advertising platform for bloggers and publishers. Acting as a middleman between you and the advertiser, Google allows advertisers to bid for keywords matching your content. This allows you to get the best rates possible for the ads.

For more details, see our article on how to properly add Google AdSense to your WordPress blog .

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the second most commonly used monetization strategy among bloggers. Basically, you recommend your favorite products/services to your readers, and when they make a purchase, you get a referral commission.

The key in affiliate marketing is to recommend high-quality products and services that you already use and trust.

There are plenty of affiliate marketing plugins and tools for WordPress that can help you make more money when promoting affiliate products. We recommend using PrettyLinks or ThirstyAffiliates as a must-have.

We also have a complete step-by-step affiliate marketing guide for beginners, that will help you get started with choosing the right affiliate program and strategies to monetize your blog today.

3. Online Store

Many bloggers make money by selling things directly from their blogs. This could be physical products or digital downloads like ebooks, artwork, music, and more. Some bloggers even offer consulting services.

If you’re looking to sell digital products like eBooks, then we recommend using Easy Digital Downloads because this is the plugin that we use ourselves. It has all the features you need to sell digital downloads.

If you’re looking to sell physical products, then we recommend using WooCommerce because it is the best eCommerce plugin for WordPress . It is also the most commonly used eCommerce platform in the world.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to easily create an online store using WordPress .

Some bloggers don’t want the hassle of creating a store to sell their own products, so they create an Amazon affiliate store , which lets them sell other people’s products from Amazon and earn a commission.

On top of the three methods above, you can do so much more with your WordPress blog. You can make WordPress blogs specifically for reviews , fashion blogging , food blogging with recipes , and more. Each of these blog types brings you more unique opportunities to make money.

You can also turn your blog into a membership site to offer premium content and courses. We have a detailed guide on how to create and sell online courses with WordPress.

WPBeginner is the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.

At WPBeginner, our main goal is to provide cutting-edge, helpful WordPress tutorials that are easy to understand for small businesses, bloggers, and non-techy WordPress website owners (see more about us ).

To expand your WordPress knowledge, you should check out:

• WPBeginner Dictionary – The best place for beginners to start and familiarize themselves with the WordPress lingo
• WPBeginner Videos – New to WordPress? WPBeginner Videos offers free WordPress courses for beginners.
• WPBeginner Blog – The central place for all our WordPress tutorials.

For more discussions, you may want to join our free Facebook group WPBeginner Engage . With more than 97,000 members, the group is focused on helping beginners and non-tech users do more with WordPress.

You can also subscribe to WPBeginner’s YouTube Channel , where we regularly share video tutorials to help you learn WordPress.

Lastly, you can use Google to type your question and add WPBeginner in front of it. Our users find this trick to be always helpful because it makes it easy for you to find the RIGHT answer for your WordPress questions.

In case you don’t find an answer to your question, don’t worry. Simply use our contact form to send us a message. Our always helpful, full-time WPBeginner support team will be happy to assist. We love helping users get started with WordPress.

Having helped thousands of people start a blog, we have answered quite a lot of questions. Below are the answers to the most frequently asked questions about creating a blog.

Can I create a blog without WordPress?

Yes, there are several other blogging platforms available. We have compared them all, and WordPress is by far the best website builder solution in the market for making a blog with complete ownership and freedom.

Can I build a blog without hosting?

No, that’s not possible. Web hosting is where your website files are stored. All websites need web hosting. To start a blog, you will need your own domain and web hosting.

Is it free to start a blog on WordPress?

WordPress itself is available for free. However, you’ll need to pay for hosting and domain name. Alternatively, you can start with a free blog on WordPress.com, keeping in mind the limitations of WordPress.com and how it differs from WordPress.org .

How do I come up with a good blog name for my site?

Most personal blog names are named after their creator. Other blogs are named after the topic or industry they are in. We have an AI powered business name generator that you can use to come up with blog name ideas.

What is the best blogging niche?

Choosing the right niche for your blog makes it easier to create engaging content and make more money online. Our experts have researched the 7 best blogging niches that you should consider when starting your blog.

We also created a list of the 18 most popular types of blogs to help you get inspiration.

How much does it cost to start a blog?

The cost depends on the add-ons that you buy. We have a complete guide on how much does a WordPress website cost as well as tips on how to save money.

Most blogging tools are either free or come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try them risk-free.

Can I create a blog without my parents knowing about it?

Yes. You can make your WordPress blog private and hide it from the internet. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to make your WordPress blog completely private .

Can I start a WordPress blog and make money with Google Adsense?

Yes, you can use your WordPress blog to earn money from Google AdSense . We have a step-by-step guide on how to add Google AdSense to WordPress .

How can I create a blog and remain anonymous?

If you want to have a public-facing blog but want to remain anonymous, then you need to make sure that your domain has WHOIS privacy turned on. Often, people use a pseudonym/nickname to write under. You should also create a unique email just for your blog. It goes without saying, don’t post your pictures or anything on the blog. For more detailed instructions, see our article on how to blog anonymously using WordPress .

How do I add a podcast to my WordPress blog?

WordPress makes it super easy to start a blog and add a podcast to it. We have a step-by-step guide on how to start a podcast with WordPress .

Can I build a blog in my own language?

Yes, you can use WordPress in other languages . You can select your language during installation or from the Settings page in the WordPress admin area. WordPress is fully translated into more than 56 languages and partially translated into dozens of other languages. Many top WordPress themes and plugins are also available in multiple languages. You can also translate a theme or a plugin that you want to use on your website.

How do I create a blog in multiple languages?

Want to start a blog in Hindi, Spanish, or multiple languages? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a multilingual website in WordPress .

Can I design a blog with no coding skills?

Absolutely. You don’t need any programming, coding, or design skills to create a professional-looking WordPress blog.

WordPress themes are easy to customize, and you can just point and click to set up your theme. There are WordPress themes like Astra, which comes with ready-made starter websites that you can import with one click.

There are other powerful themes like Divi , which give you complete drag & drop design options for customizing your blog.

Then there are powerful drag and drop page builders like SeedProd and Divi builder that work with any WordPress theme. You can use it to just drag and drop items and design your own pages.

You can even create your own custom theme without writing any code.

Can I add a photography gallery to my blog?

Yes, WordPress comes with a built-in gallery feature that makes it easy for you to add photo galleries to your blog posts.

Professional photographers can also use premium WordPress gallery plugins to better showcase their photos and even sell photos to make money from their photography business.

How can I create a professional email address for my blog?

If you’re serious about your blog, then we highly recommend that you create a professional business email address (it’s free).

All successful bloggers use professional email addresses to stand out and make better partnership deals to grow their blogs.

Can I switch blogging platforms later?

When creating a blog for the first time, often beginners make the mistake of choosing the wrong platform like Medium, Tumblr, Blogger, or others.

The good news is that, yes, you can easily switch to WordPress. We have detailed tutorials on how to switch from:

• Medium to WordPress
• Blogger to WordPress
• WordPress.com to WordPress.org

Where do I find photos for my blog?

All great blogs use high-quality photos in their blog posts and social media. We have created a beginner’s guide on how to find royalty-free stock photos for your blog, videos, and social media.

We hope that you found our tutorial on how to start a WordPress blog to be helpful. You may also want to check out our article on 27 actionable tips to drive traffic to your new WordPress site , and our checklist on 18 important things to do after installing WordPress .

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our  YouTube Channel  for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on  Twitter  and Facebook .

About the Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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506 Comments Leave a Reply

Syed Balkhi says

Jun 8, 2024 at 2:24 pm

Hey WPBeginner readers, Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner? Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes. You can get more details about the contest from here . Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

May 26, 2024 at 1:28 pm

If a blog require users to login to view certain content, would it be necessary to write code?

WPBeginner Support says

May 28, 2024 at 1:05 pm

Hajjalah says

Apr 20, 2024 at 2:59 am

I followed this article and successfully created my first blog on WordPress.org. I usually search this website if I face any issues on my blog and thankfully, I am always able to find a detailed article addressing the issues. I am now focusing on growing my website traffic.

Apr 22, 2024 at 10:31 am

Melody Mbewe says

Apr 4, 2024 at 11:44 am

Thank you for this comprehensive beginner’s guide! Starting a WordPress blog can be daunting, but your step-by-step instructions make it approachable for anyone. From choosing the right hosting to customizing themes, this article covers all the essentials. Can’t wait to dive in and start my own blogging journey

Ahmed Moeez says

Apr 2, 2024 at 7:12 am

that’s a Really Indepth and Practical guide. thanks, WPBeginner for providing this valuable information.

WPBeginner Comments says

Apr 2, 2024 at 11:29 am

Glad that it was helpful!

Nusrath Alam says

Mar 18, 2024 at 1:28 am

Hi, Your blog/website is very informative! Thank you! I’m planning to start a new travel blog, and I have a question – do you recommend that the posts are written directly in the WordPress editor, or is it better to write several posts first in Word or something like that and then copy/paste or import them into WordPress before making it public? What’s the best way?

Mar 21, 2024 at 10:56 am

There is no best way for writing at the moment, it would depend on your personal preference. The main advantage to using the block editor would be less editing your content to match the formatting from another editor.

Peter Iriogbe says

Jan 1, 2024 at 3:36 pm

Thanks for the content. But how do I manually use my custom domain and hosting server without buying through Bluehost? I have already installed WordPress on my PC. How do I do that? Please.

Jan 3, 2024 at 10:10 am

It would depend on your specific host, for getting started we would recommend taking a look at our article below:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-host-a-website/

Dec 28, 2023 at 5:47 pm

Thanks for the time you use for putting up these pieces on this page. This is an A-to-Z guide on how to start a blog website and earn money. I recommend beginners follow the step by step mentioned in this article.

My little advice to a starter is not to focus on making money when you are just starting. While making money by blogging is cool, it should not be your main focus because if you do you might lose your commitment when your expectations are not met instead publish content as much as possible and optimize for a better ranking to get more traffic to your site. Afterward, look for ways to start making income from it.

Dec 19, 2023 at 7:36 am

Wohoo, surely it is an ultimate guide for anyone who want to start their own blog.

No wonder why wordpress is the best CMS, especially for beginners.

Don’t rush the process in one night, bookmark this page and continue build your website later..

MOINUDDIN WAHEED says

Nov 20, 2023 at 3:11 am

While starting out for a new blog the most confusing aspect is the outcome that we see is too much time taken. For years, sratching your head writing articles, posts and getting nothing. I had started a tech blog in 2017 and wrote articles for nearly one year. I couldn’t earn a single penny from that blog and consequently I left it. It seemed all my hardwordk went in vein with no tangible outcome. Now when I see your posts and go through the minute details, I have a solid opinion now. It takes time and also a planned practical roadmap. If that roadmap is followed I think it can be turned into full time job. Writing a blog post is tough. Finding a perfect niche is on the tougher side. Is there a timeline of when our blog will start generating revenue?

Nov 20, 2023 at 2:04 pm

There is no specific timeline for when a site will start generating money but for a starting point we would recommend taking a look at our list below: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/make-money-online/

Moinuddin Waheed says

Jan 29, 2024 at 11:12 pm

Thanka for the reply. I have gone through the link and found it to be very useful and practical steps to implement to make money online. I am implementing all these tips and tricks on my website every passing day and hope to get its benefits one day. Thanks for the inspiration.

Kabsha Majid says

Nov 12, 2023 at 4:33 am

It’s both to-the-point and detailed at the same time. Just an awesome post.

Nov 13, 2023 at 2:41 pm

vahid fahimi says

Nov 8, 2023 at 12:37 pm

This was great. I just started and it was really helpful. Thank

Nov 9, 2023 at 10:09 am

You’re welcome!

Ahmed Omar says

Nov 4, 2023 at 8:34 am

This is an extraordinary detailed post about how to start Thank you very much. It will take time to go through all the related links

Nov 6, 2023 at 1:12 pm

You’re welcome, we hope you find our links helpful!

tushar says

Sep 26, 2023 at 10:23 pm

Very Helpful ! Clear all Picture

Sep 27, 2023 at 10:25 am

Glad you found our guide helpful!

Farhad says

Sep 26, 2023 at 5:47 pm

How can I create a “community” page where my blog readers can discuss topics raised in my posts? Thank you.

Sep 27, 2023 at 10:16 am

For what it sounds like you’re looking for, we would recommend taking a look at our article below:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-turn-your-wordpress-site-into-a-social-network/

Dennis Munyao says

Sep 25, 2023 at 2:09 pm

I have been putting off my decision to own a blog for a long time but after reading your post, i feel ready to venture into blogging now.

Sep 26, 2023 at 10:05 am

Glad we could help give you the confidence to start!

EMMANUEL says

Sep 7, 2023 at 11:41 am

Am planning to start my website creating journey and i come across this site and with all these informations, thanks so much for all these knowledge. i appreciate.

Sep 8, 2023 at 9:44 am

You’re welcome, we’re happy our guides are able to help get you started!

Sep 1, 2023 at 4:04 am

thanks a lot i appreciate that a lot

Sep 5, 2023 at 1:45 pm

You’re welcome! Glad our guide was helpful!

shivani singh says

Aug 28, 2023 at 12:30 pm

Thank you for giving us useful information

Aug 29, 2023 at 10:20 am

Jervice Cj says

Jul 17, 2023 at 8:17 am

Thank you, really helpful

Jul 17, 2023 at 11:30 am

You’re welcome, glad to hear our guide was helpful!

Yogesh Singh says

Jul 9, 2023 at 1:48 am

Nice article, but i have a question i am working on a website where i am posting articles everyday so it will be called blog or not because i am not using any wordpress and other platform?

Jul 10, 2023 at 2:35 pm

That would depend on the overall organization of your site, for a better understanding of what people mean when they say blog and website we would recommend taking a look at our article below! https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-is-a-blog-and-how-is-it-different-from-a-website-explained/

Brya Hamza says

May 30, 2023 at 4:51 pm

May 31, 2023 at 10:16 am

Matt Burn says

Mar 1, 2023 at 12:51 pm

Great guide this, I am definitely going to be using this when I start my blog properly tomorrow

Mar 2, 2023 at 8:48 am

We hope our guide makes it that much easier for you!

Manish says

Feb 22, 2023 at 12:08 am

Thank you for the information….it’s really useful.

Feb 22, 2023 at 9:59 am

Glad our guide was helpful!

Nikhil Khunteta says

Feb 13, 2023 at 1:50 am

Wonderful!! Thank you for posting the informative blog. Your posts are more interesting and informative.

Feb 13, 2023 at 1:40 pm

zain ali says

Jan 5, 2023 at 11:09 am

I am thinking of starting a blog. Reading this gave me a lot of great information as I am new to this. I plan on reading some of the links you added for more information on various topics. Thank you for having this here!

Jan 6, 2023 at 9:22 am

Musa Rafiq says

Jul 30, 2022 at 7:32 pm

Thank you for the wonderful tutorial. This really helped me write my own first blog.

Aug 1, 2022 at 11:05 am

Melissa Millard says

Jun 24, 2022 at 3:16 pm

Thank you for this post. I am just being introduced to blogging in a course I am taking. We are using WordPress to create blogs. Honestly, I find the whole process a little intimidating. I appreciate you taking the time to walk beginning through the step to create a blog.

Jun 27, 2022 at 9:35 am

Khuliso Mashau says

May 29, 2022 at 3:52 pm

What an informative post. Thank you so much. I found this post just at the right time when I was struggling with setting up my WP.

May 31, 2022 at 11:49 am

Glad to hear our guide was helpful!

May 18, 2022 at 11:32 am

Thanks for the super-informative article. I can see from other conversations here that it is possible to have the blog on a separate page within the website – presumably then I can use WordPress to create a whole website with many different features, e.g. a blog, a separate podcast, a page for showcasing my work portfolio, etc.? Would it also be possible to have more than one blog this way, i.e. for different types of content?

May 19, 2022 at 11:36 am

That can be done and the simplest way to implement it would be to use categories for your content and instead of a posts page, use the category pages for the individual blogs. The category pages work like the posts page but would only list the posts in that specific category.

Abigail says

Apr 19, 2022 at 3:54 pm

Thanks for the undiluted information on blogging.

My question is, is it possible to have a blog with two niches?

Apr 20, 2022 at 9:28 am

It is possible to have multiple niches but it will be more difficult to rank well in search engines for multiple niches.

Apr 10, 2022 at 12:20 pm

How do I go from Coming Soon stage to have my site accessible on the Internet?

Apr 11, 2022 at 11:14 am

You would normally only have a coming soon page if you have a plugin or tool that is adding that to your site. If you do then you would want to check the settings for the specific plugin you are using on your site.

Lorin Lopez says

Feb 6, 2022 at 1:28 pm

Hi, the video showed how to create a blog “post” as well as a separate “page” for my blogs titled “blog” but it didn’t show how to add my posts to that page? Like if I want all my posts to be available on display under the “blog” page on my menu option. is there a way to do that? thank you!

Feb 7, 2022 at 10:57 am

For that, you would set the blog page under Settings>Reading, for more on how to set this up, you would want to take a look at our article below:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-a-separate-page-for-blog-posts-in-wordpress/

Feb 2, 2022 at 12:53 pm

Hi, can I have combination of blog and news aggregator website? I would like to have own posts on the top but some news from other websites below?

Feb 3, 2022 at 9:12 am

Gadson says

Jan 21, 2022 at 7:47 am

Thank you, this was so informative I am planning to start my own blog and I will use this same knowledge from this platform. But is it possible to create a blog that I can only see myself before paying for the host space. Please advise

Jan 21, 2022 at 11:31 am

To have a local installation of WordPress before you invest in hosting, you would use a program like WAMP or MAMP on your computer. We have a guide on how to install WordPress on your computer below that can guide you: https://www.wpbeginner.com/how-to-install-wordpress/#installlocal

Paul Morrison says

Jan 20, 2022 at 12:25 pm

On a blog site, is there not a way for users to subscribe to be automatically notified of new posts?

Jan 21, 2022 at 10:51 am

To do that, you would normally want to look into using a newsletter. We have a guide on how to set that up below that should help:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-create-an-email-newsletter/

evisionatlanta says

Jan 20, 2022 at 3:16 am

I just found you on the right time. This is all I needed to start a blog. The very best informative tutorial I have found. Thank you

Jan 20, 2022 at 10:56 am

Aug 5, 2021 at 10:33 am

Then why is wpbeginner a .com and not a .org . please let me know . And does the SEO make difference when using an .org or .com

Jan 21, 2022 at 9:52 am

Our domain is .com as that is the most popular type of domain and is one of our recommendations in our guide on choosing a domain below: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/tips-and-tools-to-pick-the-best-domain-for-your-blog/

Gamaliel says

Aug 3, 2021 at 7:00 am

Helo WPBeginnner

Is your blog special still running? The one where I pay for hosting with one of your partners and you build a blog for me

Ameerah says

Jun 28, 2021 at 5:20 am

This was really very much helpful. being new to wordpress i felt a little too anxious but after this i am known to everything. thanks!

Jun 28, 2021 at 1:43 pm

Lisa Keene says

Jun 23, 2021 at 4:01 am

Thank for this information. I really enjoyed the blog and made plenty of notes. I hope for them to become useful. Please continue to provide for your readers.

Jun 24, 2021 at 9:42 am

Sathish S says

May 27, 2021 at 9:03 am

This is a get to go guide. One of the detailed post that helped me gain more insights and I’m recommending this post to my circle as well.

Keep up the good work.

Jun 1, 2021 at 11:40 am

Muhammad Fahad Zahid says

May 27, 2021 at 7:22 am

Wow! Thanks for an amazing guide! I have just started my new blog after following the instructions on this post! Hope everything goes right

Jun 1, 2021 at 11:35 am

Apr 9, 2021 at 3:05 pm

Thanks for the article @Wpbeginner. Isn’t it better to build a whole website and only have a section of ‘blog’ as a page for writing your blogs from what I read it felt like it would almost cost the same to buy a domain name and host a website to having just a blog?

Apr 12, 2021 at 11:01 am

It sounds like you may have some confusion on blogs vs websites, you can see our guide on this in our article below:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-is-a-blog-and-how-is-it-different-from-a-website-explained

James Kendall says

Apr 1, 2021 at 6:15 am

Hello WPBEGINNER SUPPORT..!!

Very nice blog you are created. Highly Appreciate for this.

Apr 1, 2021 at 10:06 am

Michael says

Mar 10, 2021 at 8:19 am

I started out my blog 2 weeks after reading this post. It has been so, so, helpful. Bless you!

Mar 10, 2021 at 9:05 am

Mike Crutcher says

Mar 7, 2021 at 1:46 pm

How can post a “Table Of Contents” or listing of all of my Blog Posts? Can I make them searchable for the reader? I currently can only see recent posts. Should I add another page to my site with a list of the past Blog Posts?

Mar 8, 2021 at 1:27 pm

It sounds like you mean a blog page, by default you would have your posts appear on the home page but you can follow our guide below to create a blog page:

Rachel says

Jan 3, 2021 at 12:24 pm

Hello, if I change my blog domain name after 2 years ,does it affect my ranking though I have very few page visits on my wordpress site

Jan 4, 2021 at 11:21 am

You would want to take a look at a different article of ours linked below:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-properly-move-wordpress-to-a-new-domain-without-losing-seo/

Michael Adebayo says

Dec 29, 2020 at 10:23 am

Can I create a blog without using any page builder such as elementor?

Dec 29, 2020 at 10:36 am

Florian Schalk says

Dec 28, 2020 at 9:10 am

Hi, Is there a way to write a blog without logging into the wp-admin?

Dec 29, 2020 at 10:43 am

We do not have a simple method for that at the moment, the closest recommendation would be our guide below:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-allow-users-to-submit-posts-to-your-wordpress-site/

Richard Dellorfano says

Dec 17, 2020 at 7:13 pm

I’m a beginner working on the construction of post. I got to the featured image insert, and loaded a media file, but it didn’t show up at the top of my post.

Dec 18, 2020 at 10:11 am

You would likely want to check with the support for your specific theme in case they have a different location for the featured image.

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10 Best AI Blog Writers (& Content Generators) in 2024

by Sarah Cha

on Jan 4, 2024

Searching for the best AI blog writer to beef up your content strategy? 

With an overwhelming number of options, finding the perfect fit can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. 

But in this guide, we’ve curated a list of the top 10 AI blog writers to streamline your content creation. 

From decoding the complex algorithms to highlighting unique features, this article is your one-stop shop for finding the perfect AI blog writer for you.

Let’s begin.

The Nuts & Bolts of AI Blog Writing Software

If you’ve ever been perplexed by how your GPS predicts the fastest route or how Netflix always knows the perfect show to recommend next, you’re already somewhat familiar with the magic of AI. 

Now, imagine this technology lending a hand in content creation. That’s where AI blog writing software steps in. 

But how exactly does it work?

Understanding AI & Machine Learning

AI, short for Artificial Intelligence , is an umbrella term referring to any system that can interpret external data, learn from it, and then use that learning to accomplish specific goals. 

Underneath AI, we have Machine Learning (ML) , which is a type of AI that enables computers to learn without being explicitly programmed.

For example, consider a child learning to differentiate between cats and dogs.

They don’t need to see every cat or dog in the world to understand the difference. Similarly, Machine Learning algorithms, with enough data, can make complex decisions, predict outcomes, and even create human-like text.

AI in Blog Writing

AI blog writing software operates on Natural Language Processing (NLP) , a branch of AI that deals with the interaction between computers and human language. 

It analyzes sentence structures, semantics, and context to generate human-like text.

But it’s important to note that while AI technology is impressive, it’s not foolproof. 

AI software doesn’t “understand” text the way humans do. It’s excellent for drafting initial content, brainstorming ideas, or tackling writer’s block, but the human touch is vital to polish the text, making it engaging and authentic.

In short, AI blog writing software is a tool in your toolkit, not the entire workshop. It’s here to aid, not replace, human creativity. 

Harnessing its power effectively can significantly enhance your content creation process, saving you time and energy.

But like any tool, its success ultimately depends on the skill of the craftsman. 

The Pros & Cons of Using AI Blog Writers for Content Creation

The power of AI content generation might have you imagining a world where writers lounge about sipping coffee while a computer does their job. 

But it’s less about replacement and more about assistance. 

Here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks of using AI blog writers, beginning with…

The pros of using AI blog writers are obvious: 

• Speed : AI can write a blog post in minutes, freeing up your time to focus on other aspects of your business. Got a tight deadline? No worries. Your AI companion is up to the task.
• Availability : Unlike humans, AI doesn’t need sleep or coffee breaks. It can churn out content 24/7, ready to work whenever you need it.
• Consistency : Ever had those days when the creative juices just aren’t flowing? AI doesn’t have those. It can deliver consistent content quality regardless of time, day, or the number of tasks it’s been assigned.
• Scalability : Need one blog post or a hundred? With AI, you can scale up your content production without hiring more staff or burning out your existing team.
• Data Processing : AI can process and analyze data at a scale humans can’t match. It can use these insights to create content that’s both relevant and timely.

Yet, like any technology, AI blog writers aren’t perfect. Here are a few things to bear in mind:

• Lack of Creativity : While AI can mimic human language, it can’t replace human creativity. It doesn’t understand humor , sarcasm, or cultural nuances. It’s excellent for generating facts and figures but falls short when you need an emotional or personal touch.
• Contextual Misunderstanding : AI sometimes gets context wrong. Ever used auto-correct and ended up with a sentence that made zero sense? That’s what can happen when AI misunderstands context.
• Ethical Concerns : Plagiarism is a hot topic in the world of AI-generated content. While AI doesn’t “copy” in the traditional sense, it is trained on existing content. The lines between inspiration and imitation can sometimes blur.
• Maintenance and Costs : Good AI writing tools aren’t free, and the costs can add up. Plus, like any software, they require maintenance and updates.

Now you have a firm understanding of AI blog writing, let’s dive into the main event — the list…

The Top 10 AI Blog Writers & Article Generators for 2024

With an array of AI blog writers available, choosing the right one can be overwhelming. 

To make your life easier, here are the top 10 players this year…

Jasper is a prime example of AI-powered writing tools. It’s a comprehensive AI blog writer that stands out due to its easy-to-use interface and a robust set of tools, including text and image generation, integration with Chrome extensions like Grammarly , revisions, auto-save, document sharing, and more. 

With pricing plans starting at $39/month, you can generate unlimited content. Jasper specializes in long-form content and supports over 30 languages.

• High-quality, long-form content creation
• Supports many languages
• Can be on the pricier side for small businesses

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is an AI model that’s trained to engage users in human-like text conversations. 

It’s not only an AI blog writer, but also a chatbot, a virtual assistant, and much more.  ChatGPT has many applications and can be adapted to various tasks.

It has a free tier based on GPT 3.5, but also offers premium plans using GPT 4, starting at $20/month for more robust usage.

• Wide range of applications
• Great conversational model
• Not specifically designed for long-form content generation

Copy.ai is an AI-powered tool that shines at creating marketing content. 

From social media captions to ad copies, Copy.ai can do it all. The real stand-out feature is the platform’s creativity, producing compelling copies that resonate with the audience.

There is a free version for 2,000 words per month, and pro pricing (unlimited words) begins at $36/month.

• Great for marketing content
• High creativity
• Some users find the user interface a bit tricky

4. AI Writer

AI Writer focuses on research and drafting, making it a superb tool for creating informative, long-form blog posts . The software stands out with its research feature, providing users with references to source material. 

AI Writer offers a free trial, with subscription pricing starting at $29/month.

• Excellent research capability
• Informative, long-form content generation
• Can take time to edit and polish the generated content

Rytr is an AI writing tool known for its affordability and flexibility. From product descriptions to catchy email subject lines , blogs to emails, Rytr can handle it all. All you need to do is pick a use case, enter your context, and Rytr will create the copy for you. And pricing starts at just $9/month.

• Highly flexible
• Limited capabilities compared to some competitors

6. Ink For All

Ink for All is an AI-powered writing tool built with SEO in mind. It provides SEO recommendations as you write, making it stand out for writers aiming to improve search engine rankings. Ink is free to use, with premium features available for purchase, starting from $39 per month.

• Excellent for SEO-focused writing
• Free with premium features
• User interface could be more intuitive

7. Scalenut

Scalenut , an AI Content Writer, offers a full suite of content marketing tools, including blog writing, social media content , and more. It shines in offering a range of content types. Scalenut offers keyword planning, AI writing, content optimization, NLP-powered topic research, and publishing.

Scalenut pricing ranges from $39 to 149 per month. 

• Comprehensive suite of content marketing tools
• Variety of content types
• Pricing is not transparent

8. Article Forge

Article Forge is designed for those who need quick, SEO-optimized content. Using advanced AI and deep learning, it generates entire articles in less than a minute, which is where it truly stands out. 

After five years and millions of articles, Article Forge can write intelligently on almost any topic. Prices start at $13/month.

• Fast content generation
• SEO optimized content
• Quality may vary

9. Contentbot

Contentbot is a versatile AI writer that can write blogs, product descriptions, and more. Its standout feature is its wide range of content types. 

Contentbot offers a free tier with different paid tier options starting at $19/month.

• Wide range of content types
• Offers a free version
• Quality may not match human-written content

10. Writesonic

Writesonic is an AI writing and image generation platform. It stands out with a variety of writing tools including a blog idea generator, an AI article writer, and even a landing page copy tool. 

With pricing starting at $12.69/month (for 19000 premium words), it offers a good blend of affordability and functionality.

• Variety of writing tools
• Generated content may require editing

The AI Blog Writer Controversy: Google’s Stance on AI-Generated Content

As a content writer , blogger, or SEO specialist, Google is your gatekeeper to visibility online. And what Google says goes when it comes to SEO, and understanding its stance on AI-generated content is crucial.

Now, if you’ve heard rumors about Google considering AI-generated content as spam, you might be worried. But let’s clear the air. 

Google does discourage auto-generated content, but that’s referring to low-quality, duplicated, or irrelevant content that offers no value to users. The key, then, is to use AI responsibly and creatively.

Google’s main objective is to deliver high-quality, relevant content to its users.

So, if your AI blog writer is churning out content that fits the bill, Google doesn’t have a problem with it. 

But there’s a catch.

Google places great value on unique, insightful content. This means your content needs to offer a fresh take or valuable insights that aren’t easily found elsewhere.

This is where AI content generators can become a double-edged sword. 

These tools learn from existing content on the internet, which means they aren’t great at coming up with novel ideas that make your content stand out from the crowd.

The secret is to use AI blog writers as a tool, not a substitute for human creativity. They’re handy for generating drafts, collecting data, or cranking out straightforward blog posts that don’t require deep insight.

But when it comes to content that needs a human touch or unique viewpoint? That’s your chance to shine.

In sum, AI blog writers can be an invaluable part of your content strategy arsenal if used correctly. As with any tool, the key is knowing when and how to use it. 

Stick to Google’s golden rule: prioritize delivering unique, high-quality content to your audience, whether you’re writing it yourself or enlisting the help of AI. 

After all, at the end of the day, the experience you provide your reader is what really counts, right?

Unlocking the Power of AI Blog Writers

The AI blog writer evolution continues to reshape the landscape of content creation. 

But remember, with great power comes great opportunity! 

AI blog writers are powerful tools for content creation, but they’re not standalone solutions. They work best when paired with human insight and creativity. 

Consider them a trusty sidekick in your content creation journey, rather than the superhero taking center stage.

It’s all about finding the right balance.

So, ready to give AI writing a shot? Go ahead and pick a tool, try it out, and see how it revolutionizes your writing practice!

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Generative AI is here: How tools like ChatGPT could change your business

In the spirit of this article’s topic, we asked ChatGPT—a generative AI language model that can create original content in response to a user prompt—how it would set the context. Our prompt to the system:

Write the opening paragraph for an article about how transformative generative AI will be for business, in the style of McKinsey & Company.

ChatGPT’s response:

The rise of generative AI has the potential to be a major game-changer for businesses. This technology, which allows for the creation of original content by learning from existing data, has the power to revolutionize industries and transform the way companies operate. By enabling the automation of many tasks that were previously done by humans, generative AI has the potential to increase efficiency and productivity, reduce costs, and open up new opportunities for growth. As such, businesses that are able to effectively leverage the technology are likely to gain a significant competitive advantage.

Not perfect but overwhelmingly impressive.

For us and many executives we’ve spoken to recently, entering one prompt into ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, was all it took to see the power of generative AI. In the first five days of its release, more than a million users logged into the platform to experience it for themselves. OpenAI’s servers can barely keep up with demand, regularly flashing a message that users need to return later when server capacity frees up.

Products like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, as well as the underlying AI models that power such systems (Stable Diffusion, DALL·E 2, GPT-3, to name a few), are taking technology into realms once thought to be reserved for humans. With generative AI, computers can now arguably exhibit creativity. They can produce original content in response to queries, drawing from data they’ve ingested and interactions with users. They can develop blogs, sketch package designs, write computer code , or even theorize on the reason for a production error.

This latest class of generative AI systems has emerged from foundation models—large-scale, deep learning models trained on massive, broad, unstructured data sets (such as text and images) that cover many topics. Developers can adapt the models for a wide range of use cases, with little fine-tuning required for each task. For example, GPT-3.5, the foundation model underlying ChatGPT, has also been used to translate text, and scientists used an earlier version of GPT to create novel protein sequences. In this way, the power of these capabilities is accessible to all, including developers who lack specialized machine learning skills and, in some cases, people with no technical background. Using foundation models can also reduce the time for developing new AI applications to a level rarely possible before.

Generative AI promises to make 2023 one of the most exciting years yet for AI. But as with every new technology, business leaders must proceed with eyes wide open, because the technology today presents many ethical and practical challenges.

What CEOs need to know about generative AI

Pushing further into human realms.

More than a decade ago, we wrote an article in which we sorted economic activity into three buckets—production, transactions, and interactions—and examined the extent to which technology had made inroads into each. Machines and factory technologies transformed production by augmenting and automating human labor during the Industrial Revolution more than 100 years ago, and AI has further amped up efficiencies on the manufacturing floor. Transactions have undergone many technological iterations over approximately the same time frame, including most recently digitization and, frequently, automation.

Until recently, interaction labor, such as customer service, has experienced the least mature technological interventions. Generative AI is set to change that by undertaking interaction labor in a way that approximates human behavior closely and, in some cases, imperceptibly. That’s not to say these tools are intended to work without human input and intervention. In many cases, they are most powerful in combination with humans, augmenting their capabilities and enabling them to get work done faster and better.

Generative AI is also pushing technology into a realm thought to be unique to the human mind: creativity. The technology leverages its inputs (the data it has ingested and a user prompt) and experiences (interactions with users that help it “learn” new information and what’s correct/incorrect) to generate entirely new content. While dinner table debates will rage for the foreseeable future on whether this truly equates to creativity, most would likely agree that these tools stand to unleash more creativity into the world by prompting humans with starter ideas.

Business uses abound

These models are in the early days of scaling, but we’ve started seeing the first batch of applications across functions, including the following (exhibit):

• Marketing and sales —crafting personalized marketing, social media, and technical sales content (including text, images, and video); creating assistants aligned to specific businesses, such as retail
• Operations —generating task lists for efficient execution of a given activity
• IT/engineering —writing, documenting, and reviewing code
• Risk and legal —answering complex questions, pulling from vast amounts of legal documentation, and drafting and reviewing annual reports
• R&D —accelerating drug discovery through better understanding of diseases and discovery of chemical structures

Excitement is warranted, but caution is required

The awe-inspiring results of generative AI might make it seem like a ready-set-go technology, but that’s not the case. Its nascency requires executives to proceed with an abundance of caution. Technologists are still working out the kinks, and plenty of practical and ethical issues remain open. Here are just a few:

• Like humans, generative AI can be wrong. ChatGPT, for example, sometimes “hallucinates,” meaning it confidently generates entirely inaccurate information in response to a user question and has no built-in mechanism to signal this to the user or challenge the result. For example, we have observed instances when the tool was asked to create a short bio and it generated several incorrect facts for the person, such as listing the wrong educational institution.
• Filters are not yet effective enough to catch inappropriate content. Users of an image-generating application that can create avatars from a person’s photo received avatar options from the system that portrayed them nude, even though they had input appropriate photos of themselves.
• Systemic biases still need to be addressed. These systems draw from massive amounts of data that might include unwanted biases .
• Individual company norms and values aren’t reflected. Companies will need to adapt the technology to incorporate their culture and values, an exercise that requires technical expertise and computing power beyond what some companies may have ready access to.
• Intellectual-property questions are up for debate. When a generative AI model brings forward a new product design or idea based on a user prompt, who can lay claim to it? What happens when it plagiarizes a source based on its training data?

Would you like to learn more about QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey ?

Initial steps for executives.

In companies considering generative AI, executives will want to quickly identify the parts of their business where the technology could have the most immediate impact and implement a mechanism to monitor it, given that it is expected to evolve quickly. A no-regrets move is to assemble a cross-functional team, including data science practitioners, legal experts, and functional business leaders, to think through basic questions, such as these:

• Where might the technology aid or disrupt our industry and/or our business’s value chain?
• What are our policies and posture? For example, are we watchfully waiting to see how the technology evolves, investing in pilots, or looking to build a new business? Should the posture vary across areas of the business?
• Given the limitations of the models, what are our criteria for selecting use cases to target?
• How do we pursue building an effective ecosystem of partners, communities, and platforms?
• What legal and community standards should these models adhere to so we can maintain trust with our stakeholders?

Meanwhile, it’s essential to encourage thoughtful innovation across the organization, standing up guardrails along with sandboxed environments for experimentation, many of which are readily available via the cloud, with more likely on the horizon.

The innovations that generative AI could ignite for businesses of all sizes and levels of technological proficiency are truly exciting. However, executives will want to remain acutely aware of the risks that exist at this early stage of the technology’s development.

Michael Chui is a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute and a partner in McKinsey’s Bay Area office, where Roger Roberts is a partner and Lareina Yee is a senior partner.

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Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot – your copilot for work

Mar 16, 2023 | Jared Spataro - CVP, AI at Work

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Humans are hard-wired to dream, to create, to innovate. Each of us seeks to do work that gives us purpose — to write a great novel, to make a discovery, to build strong communities, to care for the sick. The urge to connect to the core of our work lives in all of us. But today, we spend too much time consumed by the drudgery of work on tasks that zap our time, creativity and energy. To reconnect to the soul of our work, we don’t just need a better way of doing the same things. We need a whole new way to work.

Today, we are bringing the power of next-generation AI to work. Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot — your copilot for work . It combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet.

“Today marks the next major step in the evolution of how we interact with computing, which will fundamentally change the way we work and unlock a new wave of productivity growth,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “With our new copilot for work, we’re giving people more agency and making technology more accessible through the most universal interface — natural language.”

Copilot is integrated into Microsoft 365 in two ways. It works alongside you, embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more — to unleash creativity, unlock productivity and uplevel skills. Today we’re also announcing an entirely new experience: Business Chat . Business Chat works across the LLM, the Microsoft 365 apps, and your data — your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings and contacts — to do things you’ve never been able to do before. You can give it natural language prompts like “Tell my team how we updated the product strategy,” and it will generate a status update based on the morning’s meetings, emails and chat threads.

With Copilot, you’re always in control. You decide what to keep, modify or discard. Now, you can be more creative in Word, more analytical in Excel, more expressive in PowerPoint, more productive in Outlook and more collaborative in Teams.

Microsoft 365 Copilot transforms work in three ways:

Unleash creativity. With Copilot in Word, you can jump-start the creative process so you never start with a blank slate again. Copilot gives you a first draft to edit and iterate on — saving hours in writing, sourcing, and editing time. Sometimes Copilot will be right, other times usefully wrong — but it will always put you further ahead. You’re always in control as the author, driving your unique ideas forward, prompting Copilot to shorten, rewrite or give feedback. Copilot in PowerPoint helps you create beautiful presentations with a simple prompt, adding relevant content from a document you made last week or last year. And with Copilot in Excel, you can analyze trends and create professional-looking data visualizations in seconds.

Unlock productivity. We all want to focus on the 20% of our work that really matters, but 80% of our time is consumed with busywork that bogs us down. Copilot lightens the load. From summarizing long email threads to quickly drafting suggested replies, Copilot in Outlook helps you clear your inbox in minutes, not hours. And every meeting is a productive meeting with Copilot in Teams. It can summarize key discussion points — including who said what and where people are aligned and where they disagree — and suggest action items, all in real time during a meeting. And with Copilot in Power Platform, anyone can automate repetitive tasks, create chatbots and go from idea to working app in minutes.

GitHub data shows that Copilot promises to unlock productivity for everyone. Among developers who use GitHub Copilot, 88% say they are more productive, 74% say that they can focus on more satisfying work, and 77% say it helps them spend less time searching for information or examples.

But Copilot doesn’t just supercharge individual productivity. It creates a new knowledge model for every organization — harnessing the massive reservoir of data and insights that lies largely inaccessible and untapped today. Business Chat works across all your business data and apps to surface the information and insights you need from a sea of data — so knowledge flows freely across the organization, saving you valuable time searching for answers. You will be able to access Business Chat from Microsoft 365.com, from Bing when you’re signed in with your work account, or from Teams.

Uplevel skills. Copilot makes you better at what you’re good at and lets you quickly master what you’ve yet to learn. The average person uses only a handful of commands — such as “animate a slide” or “insert a table” — from the thousands available across Microsoft 365. Now, all that rich functionality is unlocked using just natural language. And this is only the beginning.

Copilot will fundamentally change how people work with AI and how AI works with people. As with any new pattern of work, there’s a learning curve — but those who embrace this new way of working will quickly gain an edge.

The Copilot System: Enterprise-ready AI

Microsoft is uniquely positioned to deliver enterprise-ready AI with the Copilot System . Copilot is more than OpenAI’s ChatGPT embedded into Microsoft 365. It’s a sophisticated processing and orchestration engine working behind the scenes to combine the power of LLMs, including GPT-4, with the Microsoft 365 apps and your business data in the Microsoft Graph — now accessible to everyone through natural language.

Grounded in your business data. AI-powered LLMs are trained on a large but limited corpus of data. The key to unlocking productivity in business lies in connecting LLMs to your business data — in a secure, compliant, privacy-preserving way. Microsoft 365 Copilot has real-time access to both your content and context in the Microsoft Graph. This means it generates answers anchored in your business content — your documents, emails, calendar, chats, meetings, contacts and other business data — and combines them with your working context — the meeting you’re in now, the email exchanges you’ve had on a topic, the chat conversations you had last week — to deliver accurate, relevant, contextual responses.

Built on Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to security, compliance and privacy. Copilot is integrated into Microsoft 365 and automatically inherits all your company’s valuable security, compliance, and privacy policies and processes. Two-factor authentication, compliance boundaries, privacy protections, and more make Copilot the AI solution you can trust.

Architected to protect tenant, group and individual data. We know data leakage is a concern for customers. Copilot LLMs are not trained on your tenant data or your prompts. Within your tenant, our time-tested permissioning model ensures that data won’t leak across user groups. And on an individual level, Copilot presents only data you can access using the same technology that we’ve been using for years to secure customer data.

Integrated into the apps millions use every day. Microsoft 365 Copilot is integrated in the productivity apps millions of people use and rely on every day for work and life — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more. An intuitive and consistent user experience ensures it looks, feels and behaves the same way in Teams as it does in Outlook, with a shared design language for prompts, refinements and commands.

Designed to learn new skills.  Microsoft 365 Copilot’s foundational skills are a game changer for productivity: It can already create, summarize, analyze, collaborate and automate using your specific business content and context. But it doesn’t stop there. Copilot knows how to command apps (e.g., “animate this slide”) and work across apps, translating a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation. And Copilot is designed to learn new skills. For example, with Viva Sales, Copilot can learn how to connect to CRM systems of record to pull customer data — like interaction and order histories — into communications. As Copilot learns about new domains and processes, it will be able to perform even more sophisticated tasks and queries.

Committed to building responsibly

At Microsoft, we are guided by our AI principles and Responsible AI Standard and decades of research on AI, grounding and privacy-preserving machine learning. A multidisciplinary team of researchers, engineers and policy experts reviews our AI systems for potential harms and mitigations — refining training data, filtering to limit harmful content, query- and result-blocking sensitive topics, and applying Microsoft technologies like InterpretML and Fairlearn to help detect and correct data bias. We make it clear how the system makes decisions by noting limitations, linking to sources, and prompting users to review, fact-check and adjust content based on subject-matter expertise.

Moving boldly as we learn  

In the months ahead, we’re bringing Copilot to all our productivity apps—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Viva, Power Platform, and more. We’ll share more on pricing and licensing soon. Earlier this month we announced Dynamics 365 Copilot as the world’s first AI Copilot in both CRM and ERP to bring the next-generation AI to every line of business.

Everyone deserves to find purpose and meaning in their work — and Microsoft 365 Copilot can help. To serve the unmet needs of our customers, we must move quickly and responsibly, learning as we go. We’re testing Copilot with a small group of customers to get feedback and improve our models as we scale, and we will expand to more soon.

Learn more on the Microsoft 365 blog and visit WorkLab to get expert insights on how AI will create a brighter future of work for everyone.

And for all the blogs, videos and assets related to today’s announcements, please visit our microsite .

Tags: AI , Microsoft 365 , Microsoft 365 Copilot

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Update on the Recall preview feature for Copilot+ PCs

• Pavan Davuluri – Corporate Vice President, Windows + Devices

Today, we are sharing an update on the Recall (preview) feature for Copilot+ PCs, including more information on the set-up experience, privacy controls and additional details on our approach to security.

On May 20, we introduced Copilot+ PCs , our fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever. Copilot+ PCs have been reimagined from the inside out to deliver better performance and all new AI experiences to help you be more productive, creative and communicate more effectively. One of the new experiences exclusive to Copilot+ PCs is Recall, a new way to instantly find something you’ve previously seen on your PC. To create an explorable visual timeline, Recall periodically takes a snapshot of what appears on your screen. These images are encrypted, stored and analyzed locally, using on-device AI capabilities to understand their context. When logged into your Copilot+ PC, you can easily retrace your steps visually using Recall to find things from apps, websites, images and documents that you’ve seen, operating like your own virtual and completely private “photographic memory.” You are always in control of what’s saved. You can disable saving snapshots, pause temporarily, filter applications and delete your snapshots at any time.

As AI becomes more prevalent, we are rearchitecting Windows to give customers and developers more choice to leverage both the cloud and the power of local processing on the device made possible by the neural processing unit (NPU). This distributed computing model offers choice for both privacy and security. All of this work will continue to be guided by our Secure Future Initiative (SFI) .

Our team is driven by a relentless desire to empower people through the transformative potential of AI and we see great utility in Recall and the problem it can solve. We also know for people to get the full value out of experiences like Recall, they have to trust it. That’s why we are launching Recall in preview on Copilot+ PCs – to give customers a choice to engage with the feature early, or not, and to give us an opportunity to learn from the types of real world scenario s customers and the Windows community finds most useful.

Listening to and acting on customer feedback

Even before making Recall available to customers, we have heard a clear signal that we can make it easier for people to choose to enable Recall on their Copilot+ PC and improve privacy and security safeguards. With that in mind we are announcing updates that will go into effect before Recall (preview) ships to customers on June 18.

• Third, we are adding additional layers of data protection including “just in time” decryption protected by Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) so Recall snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates. In addition, we encrypted the search index database.

Secure by design and secure by default

In line with Microsoft’s SFI principles, before the preview release of Recall to customers, we are taking steps to increase data protection. Copilot+ PCs will launch with “just in time” decryption protected by Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS), so Recall snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates. This gives an additional layer of protection to Recall data in addition to other default enabled Window Security features like SmartScreen and Defender which use advanced AI techniques to help prevent malware from accessing data like Recall.

We also know the best way to secure information on a PC is to secure the whole PC itself. We want to reinforce what has previously been shared from David Weston, vice president of Enterprise and OS Security, about how Copilot+ PCs have been designed to be secure by default and share additional details about our security approach. Some notable examples of security enhancements include:

• All Copilot+ PCs will be Secured-core PCs, bringing advanced security to both commercial and consumer devices. In addition to the layers of protection in Windows 11, Secured-core PCs provide advanced firmware safeguards and dynamic root-of-trust measurement to help protect from chip to cloud.
• Microsoft Pluton security processor will be enabled by default on all Copilot+ PCs. Pluton is a chip-to-cloud security technology – designed by Microsoft and built by silicon partners – with  Zero Trust  principles at the core. This helps protect credentials, identities, personal data and encryption keys, making them significantly harder to remove from the device, even if a user is tricked into installing malware or an attacker has physical possession of the PC.
• All Copilot+ PCs will ship with  Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) . This provides more secure biometric sign ins and eliminates the need for a password.

Protecting your privacy on Copilot+ PCs

In our early internal testing, we have seen different people use Recall in the way that works best for them. Some love the way it makes remembering what they’ve seen across the web so much easier to find than reviewing their browser history. Others like the way it allows them to better review an online course or find a PowerPoint. And people are taking advantage of the controls to exclude apps they don’t want captured in snapshots, from communication apps or Teams calls, or to delete some or all their snapshots. This is why we built Recall with fine-grained controls to allow each person to customize the experience to their comfort level, ensuring your information is protected and that you are in control of when, what and how it is captured.

• Snapshots are stored locally. Copilot+ PCs have powerful AI that works on your device itself. No internet or cloud connections are used to store and process snapshots. Recall’s AI processing happens exclusively on your device, and your snapshots are kept safely on your local device only. Your snapshots are yours and they are not used to train the AI on Copilot+ PCs.
• Snapshots are not shared. Recall does not send your snapshots to Microsoft. Snapshots are not shared with any other companies or applications. Recall doesn’t share snapshots with other users who are signed into the same device, and per-user encryption ensures even administrators cannot view other users’ snapshots.
• You will know when Recall is saving snapshots. You’ll see Recall pinned to the taskbar when you reach your desktop. You’ll have a Recall snapshot icon on the system tray letting you know when Windows is saving snapshots.
• Digital rights managed or InPrivate browsing snapshots are not saved. Recall does not save snapshots of digital rights managed content or InPrivate browsing in supported web browsers .
• You can pause, filter and delete what’s saved at any time. You’re always in control of what’s saved as a snapshot. You can disable saving snapshots, pause them temporarily, filter applications and websites from being in snapshots, and delete your snapshots at any time.
• Enterprise and customer choice. For customers using managed work devices, your IT administrator is provided the control to disable the ability to save snapshots. However, your IT administrator cannot enable saving snapshots on your behalf. The choice to enable saving snapshots is solely yours.

Empowering people with experiences they can trust

We are on a journey to build products and experiences that live up to our company mission to empower people and organizations to achieve more, and are driven by the critical importance of maintaining our customers’ privacy, security and trust. As we always do, we will continue to listen to and learn from our customers, including consumers, developers and enterprises, to evolve our experiences in ways that are meaningful to them.

We are excited for the upcoming launch of Copilot+ PCs on June 18 and for the innovative new features and benefits this entirely new category of PCs will bring. We will continue to build these new capabilities and experiences for our customers by prioritizing privacy, safety and security first. We remain grateful for the vibrant community of customers who continue to share their feedback with us.