Mar 8, 20208 min read

How to Write a Blog Post: A Comprehensive Guide (With Examples)

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald.

When you decide to create a blog, it doesn’t mean that you have to be one of the greatest writers of all time, like Fitzgerald, or even a professional writer. Instead, you are a person who is highly knowledgeable on the particular subject you choose to articulate your views.

Each blog post offers an opportunity to check one or many tasks off your to do list. These can range from establishing yourself as an expert in your field to promoting your brand, and from boosting your website’s SEO to understanding your audience better.

Before you begin writing a blog post, you’ll need to build a home for your content. You can get started by reading through this complete guide on how to start a blog from scratch or integrate it on your existing website.

Then, the writing can begin. Below we’ll show you how to write a blog post and provide some of our favorite blog post examples for some visual inspiration.

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How to write a blog post

Captivate your readers by following these steps on writing an excellent blog post:

Define your audience

Choose a topic to write about

Refine your topic with keyword research

Dive deeper into the topic

Craft a killer headline

Create an organized outline

Write engaging content

Handpick relevant images

Implement call-to-actions

Optimize for SEO

Go over your content

Promote your final article

01. Define your audience

You aren’t just writing into thin air, you’re trying to tell someone something that you know is important or helpful for them to know. So, who is this someone? What are they interested in? Before you put down your first word on paper, you’ll need to find the answer to these questions.

If you own a cookie and cake baking business, for example, you can target anyone interested in festivity ideas and recipe inspiration. How would you figure that out though? You should start by looking up some successful blogs in your industry to get an idea of the content that they are sharing.

With research and insight, you’ll be able to formulate a consensus on whom you’ll be speaking to, and the type of content you should be sharing with them.

02. Choose a topic to write about

There are many factors involved in the article selection process. Continuing with the baking business example, let’s say you choose to write about chocolate chip cookies. That’s a great start, but there’s more to it. Next, you’ll need to choose a format, such as one of the following:

The how-to blog post: How to Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies from Scratch

A handpicked list: The Top Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes

Tips and advice: How to Make Your Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies Extra Gooey

A definition-based post: What Are No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies

Top trends: The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes From 2019

Company update: Our New Collection of Chocolate Chip Cookies Revealed

If you scroll down to the bottom of the article, you’ll see that we’ve provided real blog post examples for each of these types of formats. Use them for your inspiration, as they will give you a general idea of how to structure your own.

03. Refine your topic with keyword research

Once you’ve chosen a direction for your blog post, the next factor to take into account is figuring out its chances of success on particular search engine result pages - A.K.A. getting more eyes on your content. This involves keyword research.

Keyword research is the most crucial component of SEO (search engine optimization) for your blog post. It’s used as a marker to see which terms you can potentially rank high for in certain Google searches.

Keywords are short phrases such as “chocolate chip cookie recipes” or “chocolate chip cookie ingredients.” The words you write in your article should be entirely based on which keywords you choose to compete for. If you’re not sure which ones to target, use these free SEO tools to get started.

04. Dive deeper into the topic

Get an idea of what kind of content is already written with regards to those keywords you’ve chosen and their search engine results. Do so by going through the first few results pages to understand what subtopics and key points are covered within.

Combining outside research with your own knowledge on the subject will help you write the most complete article on the Web. Google will reward you, customers will thank you, and you’ll become more intelligent. Name a better trio, we’ll wait...

05. Craft a killer headline

We’ve all heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Unfortunately, most of us still do it anyways. This is especially true when it comes to headlines. So, you’ll want to hook your readers from the start with an exciting title in order to improve the chances that they will open your article and continue reading it.

Immediately entice readers with a headline that stands out amongst the crowd. This can be thought-provoking, emotional, shocking or simply straightforward. Here are some examples of headlines that we are quite proud of, to give you a general idea for your own content:

How To Do A Social Media Detox and Be Happier

The Headache-Free Guide to Planning Your Wedding

20 Time Management Tips to Boost Your Productivity at Work

10 Non-Cliché Quotes for the Creative Mind

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

06. Create an organized outline

Now it’s time to create the mold for your content. This will allow you to understand your structure, before you can fill in the batter and let it bake.

Start with your subheaders. They are the components of your blog posts that help to break up your content into bite-sized sections. Keep this in mind when writing them. They should be concise and informative. If it’s a step-by-step guide, for example, list out all of the stages clearly: #1: Gather your ingredients, #2: Mix and knead the dough, etc.

Although this is just the draft form, your subheaders are key to your success and should already start to look the way that they will in the final piece. This is because in terms of the order that your readers view your content, subheaders typically come in second place to your headline.

Also in the outline process, you can start adding bulleted notes under each of your subheaders and within your intro section. This will help you to formulate ideas of what you’ll be writing about in your blog post.

07. Write engaging content

Now it’s time to start typing away. You’ll need an intro and body text.

Let’s start with the intro paragraph. In the first few sentences of your article, you should already manage to grab your readers’ attention. You can begin with a relevant quote or stat, tell a short story, or share an interesting fact. Then, set the tone by sharing a brief summary of what you’re going to talk about in the body text. It gives your readers a reason to keep going.

Afterwards, start filling in the body text. This is the information under each subheader. It’s where you share your knowledge and what you’ve learned from your research. Keep it straightforward and interesting, avoiding the fluff and making sure to not repeat concepts.

It’s not always necessary, but a concluding section can be useful in the case of storytelling or when writing a very extensive article. You can do so in the form of wrapping up your ideas in a short bulleted list, or by sharing some closing thoughts in a few sentences. No matter the case, make sure to end on an engaging note.

08. Handpick relevant images

In addition to your skilfully written blog post, flaunt your style with a few gorgeous images to illustrate your text. Also choose one image as your featured image - this will be the first visual that readers see when they open your article or browse it from your blog’s homepage. It’s important that your pictures add value to the subject rather than using them as just placeholders. In doing so, it’s best to avoid overstaged stock images.

With Wix, you can add a professional photo gallery to individual posts to showcase a set of photos. You can also explore an array of media from 20+ categories of Wix, Shutterstock, and Unsplash images directly from within your site’s dashboard andy add them directly to your blog post.

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09. Implement call-to-actions

Include at least one clear intention about how you want to convert your reader in your blog posts. This is referred to as a CTA, or call-to-action. It’s a link embedded in your blog post that states your objective, i.e., “Subscribe to our mailing list,” “Shop our store,” or ‘’Build the website of your dreams:”

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10. Optimize for SEO

A strong search engine optimization plan (A.K.A. SEO) goes beyond the keyword research component mentioned in step number three. In order to get your blog post - and your website - ranking higher in specific search engine results pages, you’re going to need to do a bit more work.

This begins with sprinkling that powerful keyword across your blog post. Let’s say you’ve chosen the keyword “chocolate chip cookie recipes.” Use this exact phrase in your post title, SEO title, URL (like so: chocolate-chip-cookie-recipes/), and post description. You’ll also want to include it in the alt text of your images.

You can browse some other techniques and features that’ll give your post an overall performance boost by exploring these SEO tools.

11. Go over your content

You worked so hard up to this point to create an exciting blog post. The last thing you want is to be associated with grammatical mistakes and unprofessional content. Avoid them by checking over your final piece again.

Ask a friend or colleague to also give it a once over. Direct them to look for repeated content and added fluff. It’s important to emphasize quality over quantity in order to keep your readers interested. Then, once you’re happy with your work, it’s okay to press the big, intimidating publish button.

12. Promote your final article

You’ve published your blog post, but that doesn’t mean that potential readers have automatically seen it. The next step is to think about the best ways to reach them: email marketing and social media.

Email marketing is the most standard and probably the most underrated way to reach your target market. When it comes to these promotions, you can easily create and send out customized emails with this Email Marketing Solution. Using this tool, you can choose from a ready-made template or create your design from scratch, integrate contacts quickly, and track your stats, among many other features.

Beyond emails, a strong social media presence is truly everything. There simply isn’t a great marketing strategy without it. Social Posts by Wix is just as customizable and simple as the email marketing solution mentioned above. Plus, when you’re all done with your creation, you’ll be able to automatically share it across your channels.

Here's a list of 25 more ways to promote your blog.