How to Write Your First Blog Post
When creating your first blog post the first step is starting. It is also the hardest step, but once you have committed to writing your first blog post you will be well on your way. You might get caught up in the content that you are writing and that’s a good thing because you are passionate about your topic.
If you are like any new business owner or running your own personal brand you may want to start a blog that tells people about you. Your blog is a great way to tell your followers about you. Using this blog as a guide you will be ready to write your first blog post and get on your blogging journey.
Your First Blog Post Keywords
Review the topic of your blog and take some time to review similar words that people may search for while looking for your content. I like to brainstorm a series of words and then do some searches on what those words are to help myself create the most effective direction for my blog post I am creating.
I take my list and look at Google Ads keyword planner to see what the search volume and click cost is for the search. Instead of setting this up as a pay per click, I use this to see competition and volume of search to know what the most effective keyword to use is. Once I have 3 or 4 finalists that I want to use I also look at google trends to see if one keyword is trending more than others. If you see that the keywords you are considering are a breakout term or an increase in the percentage of searches you know that it is a good keyword topic to use.
Use the keyword that has the best results for both searches and this will help increases the chances that your blog will be found through Google searches.
Your First Blog Post Title
Now that you have a keyword or keywords that make sense for your blog make sure it is in your title. This means that you use your keywords as part of your title.
For example, in this post, I used the title “How to Write Your First Blog Post” This was both my longtail keyword and my title because it makes sense when reading and also had good search volume with little competition to what else was being searched.
Quick Summary About Your First Blog Post
This tells the reader what your blog is on. Sometimes your titles don’t always fully explain what your blog is about and need a summary to help your reader decide if it is worth the read. Have you watched a video on Youtube or read an article that was different than your thought it was? If so, you probably clicked off of the video or went back to browsing to find a different article to read.
This is why your summary is so important to tell your readers what your article is about. Imagine this as your hook. It contains your keywords in this section to help your reader understand what they are in store for. I like to use the summary paragraph to outline all the topics that are in the blog.
Tags/ Associated sub-categories
If you are using WordPress as your blogging platform you might have a couple of different plugin options for blogging. With these, you will find a section about tags and categories. You want to use these areas to help categorize your content for your readers to find you. Once your followers are on your blog, they will have options of things to read and you want to make their life simple. By tagging your blog posts about topics relevant to your content you will be creating a database that can help your readers learn more about the topic.
Photo Related To Your First Blog Post
Similar to your title and your quick summary you want your blog post photo to be relevant to the content you have written. You want this to be a photo that adds value to your content and not take away from it.
Things to think about when picking a photo for your blog posts.
Make sure your photo is of good quality. This means it is clear, not blurry, not too bright, and not too dark
Interesting (It draws your attention to the photo and convinces you to read more)
About the topic, you are writing your first blog about
Alternate Tag
Your photo will ask you for an alternate tag and you want to put your keyword or keyword phrase in that dialogue box. If it is your photo and not a stock photo you can also change your photo title to the same keyword or keyword phrase. An alternate tag is used to help describe what your photo is a picture of.
Internal Linked Content
Do you have any relevant content on your website that can help your reader understand what your blog is about? Or do you have a product that you might want readers to know about? You can link the page about your product in your blog so hopefully, your readers will click on it and then learn about your product.
Other Internal Links Can Include:
Other Blogs You’ve Written
Your Webpages that are about your content
Work Samples
Anything else on your website
With this potentially being your first blog this can be difficult to find something to link. Another thing to think about is could you potentially write a future blog that you can link to this blog. This is something I like to do because when I write a blog I get so many spin-off ideas. I will write that idea down and add it to my list of future blogs I plan on writing.
External Linked Content
Did you have to look up some information while writing your blog or want to help your reader understand a topic you talked about? Sometimes when you write a blog you will refer to an idea or topic, but it takes too much to explain it so you provide a link that describes it so you don’t have to. When you do this it then creates a link from your blog to someone else’s content.
Make sure that when you link someone else’s content they are reputable, so you are connecting your readers with someone you want to be associated with.
Other external links can include:
Affiliate Links
Definitions
Other posts
Where to Drive Readers Next
About me as the author: This is a little section talking about who you are and will explain why you have written this content. You can then use this as a call to action to your about page.
Call to action, If the blog was about a particular product you might want to give your readers a call to action to buy the product so they can have a similar experience as what you have written about.
As you develop more blogs you can tag blogs that have a similar topic. Your blog might not have answered all their questions about the topic so why not give them more information they can read about.