How to Structure a Blog Post

Have you ever found yourself struggling to keep up a regular schedule of blogging or maybe you wondered if blogging was even necessary at all?

I decided to write this post because I saw that many of my clients weren't blogging and some didn't even understand WHY they should blog. As a result, they had trouble establishing themselves as an authority in their field.

I also saw clients writing blog posts that didn't either help them meet their business goals or help their readers meet their own goals. So, even when they blogged, they didn't really know HOW to write a post.

Do you blog? Why or why not?

If you do, do you struggle to publish posts regularly? If so, why is that?

Do you feel like you're banging your head against a wall?

I've been there! After all, I've been blogging since 1999 and been through it all.

Good news! I can make it easier for you!

How do you write a blog post? How do you structure it so that it meets your needs and the needs of your readers? What components should you include?

So, before I can answer these questions, you need to understand WHY you are blogging.

Thinking about my clients, it hit me. They didn't even know why they should blog!

There are many reasons to blog, both in the short and long term. Here are some of the reasons you should be blogging:

You can even turn a series of posts into a free offer, book, product, or course!

Blogging is one part of what's called "content marketing," "information marketing," or "education marketing." You're educating your readers so they can make an informed decision about what to do next, including making purchases from you.

So, what goes in a blog post, anyway? Let's dive in.

Once you know why you're blogging, you can start thinking about how to structure a post.

Every blog should have four components.

Let's go into each of these components in more detail...

First of all, you start at the beginning! The beginning is the hook to capture the attention of your reader. It explains why the article is important, why they should read further. If you can do this in a story format, that will be most engaging.

Perhaps the idea came out of a conversation with a client or your own experience. Your story puts the blog post into context for your readers.

Add an image at the top of the blog post because this will also engage your reader more than plain text.

The main content of your blog post should be valuable to your readers. It should answer a question or solve a problem they have. Remember that they might come to your post by searching online. In that case, they won't know who you are; they just want the answer to their query.

If you provide it, they'll be interested in more information from you, maybe even in buying your products and services.

It's true that some blog posts are just rants of the opinion of the blogger and these can get a lot of attention. These are OK for occasional posts when you want to attract controversy, show that you're a thought leader, and perhaps expand your reach.

But in most cases, you want to provide actionable content that helps people. Answer their questions. Make issues clear. Help them make decisions.

What lesson should people take away? Sometimes that gets lost in the forest of information and data. So end your blog post with a conclusion or summary. It's like the moral of a story, which makes sure the lesson is clear.

Don't assume they'll get the point on their own. And even if they do, a summary at the end helps the learning process. Your readers will remember your blog post better and for a longer time.

You might have heard the concept: "Tell them what you'll tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them" That applies to a blog post, too!

The summary may also motivate them to take action, which is important and which brings me to the last component...

Let's go back to the WHY of your blog post. Different blog posts might have different calls to action. Sometimes you want subscribers and other times you want to sell a product or get registrations for an event. You may just want people to comment and share the post.

You can have multiple calls to action, such as links to other blog posts and outside resources.

When you are intentional about your strategy, your call to action will fall into place. In fact, you can start from the end — know your call to action and write your blog post to naturally lead to it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's more to making your post a success. For example:

So, think about it. Here's the big idea!

Every time you are ready to write a blog post, follow these steps:

1.Decide why you are blogging
2.Research keywords and keyword phrases (see the link in the previous section) and use them in your blog title, headings, and text
3.Decide on your call to action
4.Choose a blog post type (this one is a list post and more specifically, a picture list post; see the link for post types in the previous section)
5.Write a quick outline of your intro, main content, summary, and call to action. (You can do this in the WordPress editor and save it as a draft.)
6.Write the full post by filling in the outline
7.Add images
8.Publish
9.Promote (see the link in the previous section under "Promotion")

Now, go make it happen!

Before I go any further, I wanted to tell you that if you have trouble writing blog posts, I recommend starting with done-for-you content, also called Private Label Rights content. Here are some resources (these are affiliate links):

Then follow these steps:

1. Brainstorm 10 topics that will appeal to your ideal audience and enter them in WordPress.
2. For each one, create a headline for each of the 4 components.
3. Save them as drafts.
4. When you're ready to complete a post, follow the steps in the previous section (the upshot...)
5. Publish it.

The good news is that you can — and perhaps should — review existing blog posts to make sure they have the 4 components.

Leave a comment about your experience with this process.

And please share this blog post with other bloggers that you know — just use the social media share buttons below.