A lot of effort goes into strategizing, researching, creating, editing, and optimizing blog content. You want to make sure that everything published on your blog not only reflects your brand but also adds value. To do this, keep your eye on these core content goals. 

A good piece of blog content should be: 

1. Well-researched and comprehensive 
2. Relevant to your specific target audience 
3. Packed with value 
4. Well-organized (always think of the reader’s user experience) 
5. Optimized for search results (SEO) 
6. Better than your competition 

How do we add value?

By creating content that is entertaining and educating for readers, and ensuring it is highly relevant to your target audience.

We also need to ensure that the content is super easy to navigate (UX), which in turn helps with SEO. 

If your content leaves too many unanswered questions – questions that your competitors answer – readers will click away from your page, which in turn affects your bounce rate and ranking. It also sends them straight to competing blog posts to find the answers they still need. 

In this guide, I will take you through the must-dos for every piece of content you create for your blog to help ensure you meet your content goals and build brand authority. 

Step #1: Research

Before creating any content, you need to research what’s currently performing well for your topic, and what kind of content it is. Work out what content these posts include and – more crucially – what they don’t. 

Why? 

Because your content should not only include relevant information covered by competitors, but also cover the gaps—the questions competing posts on this topic aren’t answering. This is where you can add value. 

Here’s a quick overview of how I normally go about this. I’m using “table decor ideas for a barbie” as an example

1. Type the topic into Google.
2. Next, I scroll through the SERPs (search engine result pages) to find the top posts and click them open. The idea is not to copy competing content – that’s a huge no no. You want to see what other sites are including in their posts and what they are missing. This will help you create a content outline that offers far more value to readers than what’s currently available.

Side Note: In this case, the top posts aren’t articles at all. This is helpful as it means Google hasn’t found posts that offer enough value for these search terms – see the tip below.

In short: always ask yourself, how can I improve on what’s already out there?

Step #2: Building a Winning Content Outline

Once you have an idea of what is out there and how you can improve on it, you can decide on the type of content you want to create and flesh out your outline. This means reviewing content elements to assess: 

1. Which direction competitors took
2. What subheaders and headers they used (this will give you a clear idea of what questions they are answering) 
3. What’s missing from their posts

A super useful hack when ensuring your content will answer popular questions is using AnswerThePublic. Here’s an example I created using the search term “Table Decor”: 

Pro Tip: This is also an awesome way to find blog topics for your content strategy! 

Next, you should create the structure of your outline. The focus here is on user experience. Here are the key elements to include and some tips for fleshing them out. 

Content Outline #1: Introduction

Each post needs to include an introduction. 

Why?

Because this is how you draw in your readers. 

The goal of your content is to immediately draw in visitors and keep them engaged so they’ll read more instead of pushing the ‘back’ button. 

A good introduction should: 

1. Get straight to the point 
2. Outline exactly what your reader can expect to learn from the post 
3. Use questions or stats, or directly speak to your target audience’s needs 
4. End with a clickable table of contents that lets readers easily navigate through the post 

Content Outline #2: Main Body & Tone

Yes, your blog content needs to be accurate and comprehensive. But the body of your content also needs to be optimized for UX (well-organized) and speak to your target audience. The latter is very important when it comes to knowing what to include in and what to leave out of your content outline. 

The best place to start to ensure your body content ticks all these boxes is to consider who your brand’s target audience is. You also want to think about the searcher audience – the people using Google to search for this topic – and what content they are looking for to answer their questions. 

This is important as it will set the tone of your article and help you determine what information to include. If you have two very different core audiences – such as selling B2C and B2B, writing content for each audience requires a different approach in both how you frame things, and what information you should include. 

• B2C posts: should be informative, but simple and friendly. There’s no need for jargon or to go into big details on complicated topics. 
• B2B posts: should be thorough, informative, and professional. Here, you are talking to wholesale buyers, and the information and value they need from your content are very different from what your store customers are looking for. 

Content Outline #3: Conclusion

Lastly, always end your posts with a conclusion. You want this to be named and formatted consistently throughout your blog. 

A good conclusion should summarize what the reader learned and elicit action. What should they do now to take action? Also, where possible, avoid the heading ‘conclusion’. It doesn’t offer any engagement value for your readers – to keep them interested, opt for more enticing copy. 

1. This can either be changed to a steady section header that doesn’t change, like ‘Wrap Up,’ ‘Your Turn,’ or ‘Final Thoughts’ – we can work on this moving forward. 
2. Alternatively, this can serve as a CTA while enforcing the call to action. 

We may even switch between them depending on the topic. 

Step #3: Optimize Content for UX

Getting traffic to your blog posts (whether by search, emailer, social media posts, or ads) is only half the battle. 

While the intro will draw them in, the body of your content will not only keep them reading (keep them on the page which is good for ranking) but keep them engaged (which is good for brand equity). 

To do this, you need to understand how people consume content and make sure your content is optimized for a better user experience.

It’s vital that you think about this when creating your content outline. 

Why? 

Because you want the body of your content to be scannable. Your information should flow perfectly and be easy to navigate for readers who skim the article from the title, though the intro and body subheaders, and to the conclusion. 

Here are some tips to do just that: 

1. Have a short, engaging introduction 
2. Include a clickable table of contents at the beginning (as a bonus, if this content were to rank first, your TOC can help you secure the snippet section on SERPs) 
3. Use easy-to-find, on-top subheaders 
4. Highlight your most important points 
5. Break up large paragraphs of text with graphics, tips, images, bonus content, videos, call-out boxes, etc 
6. Use bulleted lists 
7. End with a high-quality conclusion 
8. Organically push products in your article by including a compelling CTA that fits nicely into the content so it doesn’t look like hard-sell spam 

Final Thoughts: What You Put in, You Will Get Out

Above all else, to create great blog content, you should focus on quality over quantity. It’s better to write and publish one good post a month – one that drives good traffic, increases brand authority, and pushes shoppers into the next buying stage (conversion) – than pushing tens of posts per month that aren’t written specifically for your audience and don’t reflect the quality of your brand. 

It may seem like hard work, but it’s work that will pay off! 

Want to take your business blog to the next level or outsource your blog management? Contact me for a tailor-made blog consultation package.