Writing a blog or news article for your website in 5 simple steps

Not only can publishing regular blogs or news articles help you to develop and strengthen your relationships with customers, it can also help you to establish yourself as an industry leader; blogs create opportunities for sharing, which in turn helps to increase your brand awareness. Adding frequent content to your website can also provide your website with a boost in terms of Search Engine Optimisation. 

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Producing your first post may feel daunting but we’re here to help you write a blog post or news article for your website in five simple steps.

Step 1: Decide what you want to write about

If you have a lot of topics in mind, fantastic - make sure you write them down, there’s nothing worse than forgetting a really good blog idea! 

If you can’t think of what to write, that’s also fine. We all find ourselves staring at an empty Word document from time-to-time, struggling to find a starting point when you aren’t feeling inspired, but there’s a number of ways to get your creativity flowing again.

A great starting point is to consider your community and clients. Ask your customers what they need help with; it seems simple but this may open the floodgates on what to write. 

The next place to look is your industry. Has there been any industry news or updates that have been recently published? Is there something new you’ve learnt that was difficult to solve? 

Look internally: what are your team working on? Any big company milestones upcoming or something happening in the local community? Perhaps take a more analytical approach to your story and turn it into a case study. Look at a recent success or a client win you have had.

These are just a few starting points. We guarantee that once you get going, you’ll have more than a few ideas.

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Step 2: Start with a headline

Now you’ve got a collection of ideas, craft a great headline for each one that readers won’t be able to resist. The title of your blog post is more than just an opportunity to grab the attention of your audience, it’s also a critical part of getting your content seen by search engines. 

Also, by writing a headline before you get stuck in, you will have a map to follow and stick to through your writing.

If you write your post before the headline, you may find yourself meandering off-topic and ending up at a completely different destination to the one you originally intended. Your headline is essentially a virtual guide map that will help to set your readers’ expectations for what they’ll read.

When thinking of an effective headline to use it may be tempting to use clickbait tactics, but it may completely put your audience off reading. Instead, focus on benefit-driven phrasing, powerful verbs and numbers that speak impact.

If you’re not 100% sure about your headline, use it as a working title and adjust it as your post gains more clarity.

Step 3: Get writing

Once you’ve established the point of your blog, it should be plain sailing from here.

Write freely and ignore the impulse to self-edit as you write, You can do this later but for now, just focus on getting the words out; you never know when something you half wrote out before you deleted, may prove to be useful later on.

There’s no set format to writing a blog, but it’s always a good idea to follow an outline. This will allow you to segment your information so you can better visualise what the blog will look like and ultimately, will make this step a lot easier.

Your outline could look something like this:

Introduction

Section #1

• Main point
• Additional information

Section #2

• Main point
• Additional information

Conclusion

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Step 4: Add images to enhance your post

This is a biggie. Good visuals can make or break your post.

Nobody likes to read a long blog post without any images; images are often what attract readers to your post in the first place and provide them with an idea of what’s to come.

Ideally, you will need to use high-quality images. If you aren’t able to use your own photos, there are plenty of websites that offer stock images either for a charge or for free. Always make sure you understand any attached copyright laws.

Also include links within your posts; this will demonstrate that your content is credible as it is backed with research from other sources. Links also provide readers with a more in-depth experience as they lead to complementary or related information that doesn’t duplicate the content in your blog post.

Step 5: Look at your post with a fresh pair of eyes

Read through your post again after you’ve had a break from looking at your screen. The longer you look at something for, the fewer mistakes you’re likely to spot. Even better - get a coworker to double-check your writing for you, it’s great to get a second opinion.

Even the most experienced writers make mistakes, so this is a vital step for all writers to keep an eye out for any typos and grammatical errors. 

You’re good to go!

Congratulations, you’re now the proud owner of a blog that is ready to hit the world wide web.

Whether you want to publish your post straight away or schedule it to be published at a later date, it’s a good idea to create a blog calendar. This will give you, and the wider business, visibility of what is in the pipeline and will also generate momentum for creating consistent blogs or news articles.