How to write a good blog in 2023?

You’ve been typing all dayt. Your new blog is almost ready to be posted. But how can you be sure that your blog will create results? Stick to the step-by-step plan below and you’ll write a successful blog in 2023 in no time!

Newsflash: blogging in 2023 is not always useful

A good blog does not begin with writing. That may sound crazy. But if you want to blog, you must first ask yourself why exactly you are doing it. Does it really make sense to blog?

Does it really make sense to blog?

You will find an answer to that question if you consider why you want to write a good blog. Do you want to be more easily found on Google, for example? Or do you want to generate more leads? Perhaps your goal is to increase your brand awareness.

Understand the blog goal

This goal does not come out of the blue. Nor is it a standalone goal that only applies to your blogs; the goal stems from your marketing plan or organisational goals.

How do you formulate your goals for a good blog?

You formulate goals in a measurable way. We call this a SMART objective. That means objectives that are: specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and time-bound.

An example. If your business goal is to increase brand awareness, your blog goal might be: ‘In 12 months we'll have 12,000 organic website visitors per month.’ So you write a blog to be easily found on Google.

Who are you talking to?

Blogging is talking. To get your message across properly, first determine who you are talking to. It may help to write this down. Who is your ideal customer? Describe in words your ideal customer. Although not every customer you reach will be this ‘ideal’, by describing this customer you’ll solidify your target audience in the mind of you and your team.

Solidify your target audience in the mind of you and your team.

Your target audience can be distilled into a 'persona'. Their descriptors include:

• Name
• Profession
• Age
• Salary
• Pain points
• Needs
• Inspiration
• Communication channels

You can find out this information by diving into your own customer base and taking a look at their lifestyles.

Good news: this step will also help you with the next step. It's time to write down topics!

Reading tip: 19 tips to generate content ideas.

Pain points as the basis of subjects

Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash

Grab your persona and look at their pain points. How can you help your target audience? Next, talk to someone from your target audience about this topic.

We're going to make it a little clearer for you. Imagine this: you own a dog grooming salon. Your goal is to educate people about dog grooming in order to display your expertise and acquire new customers.

A possible pain point for the target audience could be: the customer wants a healthy coat for his or her favourite pet, but does not know how to differentiate a good dog groomer from a bad one. Check: here’s a pain point to use in your blog! You can explain this difference and use the explanation as a launchpad for your business.

Find keywords for a successful blog in 2023

Whether SEO (search engine optimisation) is a goal for your blog or not, being found on Google is always important. Of course, you won't achieve your goals if no one finds and reads your blog. Therefore, you need to determine search terms for your blog. You could do this by formulating questions.

You can find these questions on Google. The answers to these will give you an idea of useful keywords. Back to our dog grooming example. Relevant questions might be: “which grooming comb is good?”, “how often should I groom my dog?” or “how much does dog grooming cost?”.

A great tool to find out keywords is this free keyword research tool. With this tool you can see how your customers use search to research, compare and buy products or services online. You can also see which keywords are already highly popular and what the 'gap in the market' may be.

Reading tip: What does the Google helpful content update mean for your SEO texts?

Do research

Do you want to write a blog entirely based on your thoughts and memories? Not many people can do that. Research is pretty much always the basis of a good blog in 2023. By doing proper research, you’ll get plenty of inspiration for the content of your blog. Besides, you’ll collect facts that you can use to reinforce your texts.

Always use multiple sources during your research and never ‘copy and paste’.

Always use multiple sources during your research and never ‘copy and paste’. As well as potentially stealing other people’s work, there is the chance that you might be communicating incorrect information. And you'd rather not be responsible for that, would you?

In terms of research, think about: a survey, a deep search on Google, books and more. Or get inspired via podcasts and YouTube.

Reading tip: How to master content planning.

Lay the foundations

If you’ve gone through the above mentioned steps, you hopefully already have something written down. Every query can be a new paragraph. For example, in the case of the grooming salon, you could write a paragraph about grooming costs, a paragraph about grooming combs, and a paragraph about grooming frequency.

By doing so, you already have a good outline – the foundation of your blog. You have the structure, now you can write down headings and fill in the text.

Everything starts with the title

The title is often the first thing that attracts a reader. So you have to deliver a lot with your title! Make sure you distinguish yourself from your competition and don't forget your SEO. This is how you do it:

Put your keyword or search phrase at the beginning of the title. This is the most important place for Google.

Make a promise. For example: “After reading this blog you will know what the best grooming comb is.”

Make the reader curious by raising a question. “Writing a press release? These are the 5 most common mistakes.”

Create an attractive intro

A good intro shows your reader that you understand their problem. Address the reader directly and describe a recognisable situation. A cliffhanger is helpful too. Social media channel UNILAD is very good at that. Going back to our dog grooming example, you might read:

“We were shocked while seeing this dog...” 

Then, you write an article about the most common grooming mistakes. Make sure your cliffhanger is related to your text and don't make a cliffhanger as clickbait. The rest of your text should give the reader what they expect.

Write, write, write

Finally! You're really ready to write now. Remember that your first draft doesn't have to be perfect. Write whatever comes up into your mind and don't judge until the piece is finished. Write multiple versions if necessary and choose your favourite. 

Here are a few tips for writing:

• Vary the length of the sentences
• Don’tnot write sentences longer than 30 words
• Use short paragraphs of up to 100 words

Always use the language of your target audience. Do they have no substantive knowledge yet? Then avoid technical jargon. Are they well-informed about the subject? Then you’ll come across as an authority when using technical language.

Break up your text with headers, white space, bullet points, images, videos and quotes – it makes text more readable. 

Writing = deleting

Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash

You've probably heard this before: writing is deleting. Kill your darlings. Even in 2023, you need to be prepared to heavily edit your blog. Always double-check your text yourself, and have someone else have a look at it too.

It sometimes happens that you don’t see the problems in your own text. A different perspective helps. Check for passive sentences, a consistent tone of voice and intelligibility. Also, don't forget to check if you're using your keywords correctly.

Time for action

You want something. You determined this when you wrote down your goals. Now it is time to make that happen. Use buttons in your text that link to other pages within your website. Guide your readers to your goal. How do you write a good CTA? You can read all about that here.

Your blog is live. What now?

A good blog is just the beginning. Of course, if you follow our SEO tips, your blog will also do its job on Google. But don't forget to promote your blog – for example in your newsletter, on social media or in a press release. You can read more about how to successfully promote blog posts here.

Reading tip: Blogging: do it yourself or have the texts written?

Have your blogs written for you

So. Breathe. Drop your shoulders for a moment. Clearly, writing a good blog is hard work. At CopyRobin we know that – it’s what we do. If you’re struggling to write a good blog, we’re happy to help. Learn more about what copywriting as a service can do for you here.

Have your blog written for you?