Did you know that 77% of Internet users frequently read blogs? Further more, there are 6.7 million people who blog on blogging websites and another whopping 12 million of them blog through social networks. While social media may be a big factor your business, blogging is a really huge factor that affects your social media success. In other words, if you want to succeed in social media, blogging can definitely help. The problem is that some people understand how important social media and blogging are, but where’s the help for the beginners? Most people are still beginners in the world of blogging and social media. That’s why today we’ll cover…

Basic steps for beginners in blogging

Understand your audience

Before you go off on a long journey to write captivating information for your audience, get to know who they actually are. Who’s your demographic and what will really resonate with them? Take into consideration that different things matter to different people so you can’t always please everybody. Pick something that will really please your specific audience. If your audience are Millennials for example, then you probably don’t need to give them too much detail on tech stuff since most are pretty savvy in that department. However you can give them information on how to approach their social media and blogging tactics in a more professional way that’s focused on business. An older generation might require the inverse, so adjust your own strategy accordingly. Lastly, ask your audience questions and see what they want to know more about. It’s the easiest trick in the book.

Stay Organized

Nobody likes a rambler, and it’s difficult maintaining an attention span when you’re all over the place. Write yourself a small outline on topics and ideas you plan to talk about so that your audience doesn’t feel overwhelmed. Too much information is never helpful. Organize your thoughts in a list, tips, sections, or categories format depending on what is most appropriate for your topic. Break it down in the most simplest terms. If you have a lot to say about one thing, break it down into sub sections so you get your point across in a clean format.

Write a compelling intro

If you don’t write something that sparks immediate interest, you’re going to lose your readers in the first few paragraphs. Your introduction will determine whether they stick around, or see what you have to say. Address your reader’s problem as soon as you can, and explain how you aim to help them fix it. This gives them a reason to continue reading because they need to solve that issue and you seem to have the solution.

Dive in and get writing

By now you know who you’re writing for, and you’ve created an outline. You’ve even started to write a captivating first paragraph! Still feel like a beginner? Well then start writing. You have the hardest part done, now you need to fill the blanks in and write the missing pieces of the puzzle to get your point across. Don’t stress too much, simply write what you feel about it and get comfortable. (you’re hiding behind a keyboard, how bad can it be?) If you need supplemented information, do a quick Google search and collect some more data.

Check your self, so you don’t wreck yourself

Writing great content is just as important as making it visually attractive. People read blogs for help and entertainment, so if your blog looks like it was created by cavemen then chances are those are the only people you might attract. Newsflash, that demographic is pretty much inexistant.  Therefore, fix your titles, subtitles, format, font size, alignment, and add an image for goodness sake. It makes your blog look good and the image will be included when that awesome blog of yours is shared across social media platforms. Make sure you include a meta description too as this gives a short summary of your blog before actually clicking on it. Give them a snapshot of your blog by including what they will be doing with it i.e. learn, discover, leverage, etc.

CTA as the cherry on top

When concluding your blog, it’s always a good idea to include a call to action. This basically requests your reader to either participate in your post, or add their own opinion in order to contribute value to the existing content. It also encourages your readers to read through other related material or simply share the great news they’ve just discovered. Regardless of what your call to action is, encourage your reader to do something at the end.

Wrap it up

You’ve created your content, and fixed your format. Now you just need a catchy title (one relevant to something someone might search for) and optimization on your page for SEO. If you don’t know how to do this, we’ll cover some of those steps next week but a quick tip on that is to post your blogs on Google Plus. Include your tags and anchor text so that search engines know how to rank and classify your pages, and now you have your first great blog.

Blogging isn’t as difficult as some may think, it simply requires a little bit of planning, a few elements of detail here and there and boom, you’re no longer a beginner in blogging. Take it from me, I only started blogging in October of 2013, and I’m still no guru but I’m no longer a beginner. As you learn these steps on writing a blog, can you see how I just used them here?

What are some other tips or tricks that I missed here on this blog? Is there anything else that you might be interested in doing that we didn’t mention? Whether it is input or a question that you may have, leave us a comment or tweet us @BoxlessMedia