So, you want to get into the writing business, and you are ready to get your hands into blogging, but you are confused or do not have a clear idea of how to write a blog. Don't worry, If Nisha is here, No need to fear.
The COVID-19 pandemic made me lose my job. While searching for online jobs; I came to know about freelancing and content writing. I applied to various companies but due to less job experience and less familiarity with SEO, I was rejected all the time. Then one of my friends shared with me about Yeklo, a blogging platform. I started writing some articles. My mentor, Shiv Kandel, guided me to write blogs professionally. At present, I can write blogs on any topic however I have made travel, events, and politics my niche. I am currently working as a Head of Bloggers at Yeklo.com. I am here to help you all who have some problems or need some guidelines to have your writing skills directed to the blogging sector.
Being a blogger is fun when you enjoy writing (Of course typing, it's 2020 C'mon). Having the desire to portray a vision or report or elucidate any concept with some spice (it's the creativity) is the basic foundation for a great blogger. Before knowing the crucial steps to nail our blog, let us know what exactly a blog is.
According to BlogHubspot.com," Blog is a regularly updated website or web page, and can either be used for personal use or to fulfill a business need." A blog aids you to engage more with the audience since you will have access to check the number of shares or the readers' comments. We can actually say that a blog allows a two-way conversation.
Now let's dive into the basic steps to write a blog
- Choose a field/ fields or category/categories
- Search for various topics under the selected category
- Get a catchy title and awesome feature picture
- Layout and experiment with the format of writing
- Gather enough facts and information
- Include pictures, tables, or even figures
- Provide a short and clear summary
- Get your Blog posted on a platform
- Listen to feedback and improve further blogs
Choose a field/ fields or category/categories
You may have confidence in your writing to do justice to any category you would write; there's no harm in it. However, if you want to get more specific and fast results, you have to excel in one particular field or, say, niche. A niche is basically a field of excellence. There are abundant numbers of categories. You can choose to write a blog on science and technology, travel and events, politics and nations, food and lifestyle, automobiles, skincare, academics (content for schools), and many more. You can also choose to write any literature works (stories, poems), but it will take a while and more significant efforts to grab the spotlight.
Search for various topics under the selected category
After being confident with your niche, find a topic with which you want to start writing. Within a category, there are many topics to write about. For example, a blog dedicated to food can give you topics like Homemade food v/s Restaurant foods, Which is better Veganism or Vegetarianism, Which is healthier: Smoothies or Juices? and many more. On top of that, if you have any yummy recipes, you can even put it up. The audience can give fame if the recipe is kickass like the Dalgona coffee, which went viral in 2020 Summer. This reminds me of telling you that always try to get the topics related to trending topics as it increases the probability of more shares and more views.
Get a catchy title and awesome feature picture
After finalizing your topics, work on your title, which will be displayed at the top. The title should be such an arrangement of words, which compels the reader to open the link and check what's inside. Along with that, you have to make the featured picture (one that displays as a thumbnail, differs in different websites) attractive, which serves the audience's eyes first. Do not overcrowd details; make it simple, specific, yet attractive. You can use Canva for this. Usually, people incorporate SEO-friendly titles to have a better ranking. For instance, being familiar with SEO techniques and using them will make a great difference to your blog.
Example: If you are writing a blog related to skincare (acne), you can write the title as
5 effective ways to get rid of acne and acne scars
Want acne-free skin? Use these 5 Korean products
P.S.Bold letters are the SEO-focused keywords here.
Layout and experiment with the format of writing
Now there is no specific pattern in writing a blog unless you are specifically asked to do so by your employer. After having titles in hand, start working on a format in which you want your content to be delivered. You can be whatever in your blog; you can be a story-teller or a reporter or a critic. However, in the initial days, you can just follow an informative writing pattern so that you develop a habit of getting your blogs various sub-headings and sections. When you develop confidence in allocating the sections, then you can experiment with the format.
Example: If you want to write a blog dedicated to Women in Nepali Politics, you can opt for a storytelling format, as it becomes less of a History class and more of a narrative.
Gather enough facts and information
Now, as your mind is clear with the format and title, switch on your research mode. It's the time for gathering the facts and information about your topic. The research must be extensive such that nothing important about the topic gets missed. Including the definitions, history, steps or process, advantages, and disadvantages will definitely make your blog a sufficient resource for a reader. Including quotes by a famous person in a particular field can be another bonus point. Also, ensure not to miss Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs). Use bulletin or numbers to keep the facts.
Include images, tables, or even figures
A plain piece of writing can be pretty dull to a new generation audience; thus, you need to add some colors and pictures to your blog. It would be best if you work on including the related pictures in between the blog. It has been found that a blog with authentic pictures with proper caption and descriptions have aided in SEO ranking and more pleasing. Thus, investing time in finding or creating related pictures can bring better results. As you will be experimenting with the formats, place your pictures accordingly. Not only that, you can insert tables and graphs or pie-charts or other figures, which will provide quick information for those who are actually not interested in reading the full blog. Another bonus point, as you did not lose a hasty audience.
Provide a short and clear summary
After completing the blog in the desired format on a specific topic, it's time to summarize the whole blog. You can even recheck the blog and, if necessary, add some sub-headings. The summary must be short and informative. It should never ever fail to mention the zeal of the article. Moreover, your summary must be SEO-focused. Told you already, SEO becomes our guiding tool. The summary should not resemble the introduction, be very careful on this, or else your impression to the audience can get ruined.
Get your Blog posted on a platform
For a beginner, getting a website can be expensive and even troublesome, as you would not have clear ideas about using them professionally. Thus, it would be best to get into some blogging platform in your initial days to get more practice and needed feedback. Among various platforms available on the internet, you can choose Yeklo. Yeklo provides an easy blogging format, which requires no coding, just writing on the website or pasting the Word Document on it.
Listen to feedback and improve further blogs
After having your article turned into a blog on a particular platform, you have to work on getting views so that feedback can be provided to you. You can share your blogs with your friends and family on social media and ask them to read and provide feedback. Moreover, your creativity may inspire others in blogging; who knows! You can contact the experts in the blogging platform and request them to provide their valuable feedback and some constructive criticisms so that you can grow as a blogger in the coming days. When you are in a trial state, mistakes can happen but always remember not to repeat them. Always remember there is room for improvement even though you are good with words. Your wordplay might not impress the audience if you don't use the proper strategy in blogging.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, blogging is neither that easy nor too hard; it just needs to be attractive from the audience's Point of View. Apart from the content, the title, images, figures, tables can be included in the blog. The blog should always give justice to the content it had aimed to deliver. Getting into a blogging platform can help beginners in blogging. Thus, investing time on a blogging platform will make more of the time than watching others on social media.
