Writing blogs is so important nowadays especially if you want your business to be known as an industry leader.
Plus Google absolutely loves new content on your website, which is essential for SEO and your rankings.
The issue, however, is that many people do not know how to write effective blogs for their website and simply put it in the too-hard basket. Many people simply do not yet understand that blogging is a powerful business tool. Those that don’t are left behind. Those that embrace it see the fruits of their efforts very quickly.
Following are some really helpful tips to get your first blog off and running.
Follow these are you will become a master at content marketing which is one of the best things you can be doing in the online digital space for your business.
# 1. Never copy anyone else blogs, articles, press releases or web pages. Sure you can use snippets of information as a reference from other sites, but never ever plagiarise from another source. Google will pick this up instantly and it will simply not rank your blog. Essentially, a complete waste of time and effort on your behalf. The golden rule here is to keep all content: informative, fresh, unique and interesting.
# 2. Do not copy and paste someone else articles and change important key variables within the content such as places, dates, names, prices, products and other core keywords. Google again is far too smart for this and will pick up on this type of ‘grey area’ plagiarism.
# 3. Think about the title of your blog and make sure it’s very relevant to the article. I know this may sound like a no-brainer but a lot of people will not think about the title and how it relates to the blog. For the sake of a good example of a well-written title, see what I have done for this blog. It’s relevant as well as eye-catching. Basically, the perfect title. Check out what Hubspot has to say about writing creative titles here at
# 4. Write anywhere between 500 & 2500 words. I see a lot of blogs that are just a few paragraphs which simply does not cut it. If you intend your article to be informative, there must be some substance to it.
# 5. Never write for the search engines, instead write for your audience. Repetitive use of core ‘money keywords’ in the hope of attaining better Google rankings will not work. This used to work many years ago and was a favourite ploy among many SEO agencies. Times have changed, Google has quickly woken up to this and will penalise blogs that are crammed with keywords. For example, for a 750-word blog, your main keyword should appear only 3-4 times at most. I know this may be hard but you really have to be aware of being repetitive.
# 6. Use synonyms when describing your main service or offering. Rather than saying ‘web design in Sydney’ perhaps writes ‘website agency in Sydney CBD’ or instead of ‘SEO company’ write ‘ Search engine optimisation agency’. Remember to try to not be so repetitive. Not only wilt make your blog more interesting but Google will reward you for this due to the fact that you have made the effort to try to write something ‘meaty’ for your online viewers.
# 7. Don’t write chunks of text all bundled together. Break lengthy blogs up into paragraphs that make the reading more digestible.
# 8. Start each main paragraph with a short descriptive header that highlights what the next couple of hundred words are about. This will make it a lot easier for the reader to quickly scan the page and go directly to areas that interest them. Make sure that the heading has an H1 or H2 tag – this is easily done if you are using a WordPress blog. You might need some help with this but just Google what I’ve said and there should be enough information about this to guide you.
# 9. Be certain to mention your main core keywords in the first paragraph. Never waffle of too much in the begging without noting them. Readers will want to see this and so will the search engines.
# 10. Try to use point form wherever possible. Note this particular blog and how easy it is to read down the list. People love point form when reading. Perhaps even try to indent these main points or even highlight them with some bold text.
# 11. Try to link between blog articles. If there is a relationship between your blog content and another page within your site link them through an active hyperlink. Only do 1-2 links per site. The benefit of linking is strictly for SEO purposes. If this sounds difficult and you feel as though you might need some help with this, you will probably need to call a digital agency like us at Hopping Mad Designs. Yoast elaborates this by explaining that before your content can rank, it needs links. Google finds your posts and pages best when they’re linked to from somewhere on the web. Internal links also connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website.
# 12. Try to break the copy up with a few relevant images. You can buy these from the many online photo libraries if you don’t have any. Use on 1-2 images and keep them low res ( about 72dpi). also, name the images using Alt Tags and make sure they are relevant to the article.
# 13. Don’t be amateurish when it comes to blog writing. Don’t think for 1 moment that you can write a weak article just for the sake of getting it up there. If your going to do this exercise and want to see the benefits it can create for your business you have to be very proactive with your blogging or content marketing. Also, make sure you do 1 per month as this keeps your site fresh with new information. The search engines do like this.
# 14. Lastly, make sure you add a call to action to your blog. For example, in the end, you might want to add: ‘call us now for a free quote’ or ‘ like us on Facebook’ etc. Make sure you do not repeat the same call to action on each blog. Vary it up a bit.
Hope this all makes sense but content writing, if done properly can add an enormous amount of value to your brand, business, product or service. It may seem like a hard task, to begin with, but once you start this you might surprise yourself and find that you actually like it.