Brainstorm | Keywords | Research | Hook | Write | Publish | Share | Moderate | Your Input

1. Brainstorm Topics

My first recommendation is to try and determine what you would like to write about. Writing a blog post is much easier if you are excited or interested in the topic you are writing about. I recommend writing about things you’ve always wanted to know, things that have been on your mind lately, things that you have a lot of experience with, things that are in the news, pretty much anything you won’t fall asleep researching or writing about.

2. Identify Keywords

If you are looking for specific ranking then you need to use specific keywords. Identify 3 keywords you would like to get ranking for based on your keywords research. If you need help researching keywords I recommend reading an interview by Nate Moller with Mat Siltala about Keyword Research.

3. Research Topics

I recommend reading at least 3 to 5 articles about the topic you have decided to write about. Often time a good blog post does nothing more than connect the dots. Then when writing your post you will have some references that you can refer back to and potentially create some connections through trackbacks and/or commenting.

1. Reference these articles when you write your own, if the blog supports trackbacks, the blog post will create a link directly back to your article.
2. Reference the authors by name giving them credibility and also creating a potential friendship for the personal credit.
3. Leave comments and reference the site you are writing the blog post on when it ask for your website.
4. Create a link in your comments when it makes sense and doesn’t present itself as spam.

4. Choose your Hook

If you plan on doing any type of link baiting, determine what type of link baiting hook you are going to use. (The Art of Link Baiting)

1. Resource Hook
2. News Hook
3. Contrary Hook
4. Attack Hook
5. Humor Hook

(What is Link Baiting – Fishing For Traffic)

5. Write your Post

This is my recommended way to write the actual post.

1. Write a draft or write it in Word or another word processor.
2. Write it as if you are talking to someone in simple terms that make it easy to understand. (Some blog posts are nothing more than translated blog posts that others have written.)
3. Don’t worry about length, just understand what you are trying to explain and explain it until it makes sense.
4. Correct spelling and grammatical errors.
5. Reference other blogs as discussed in “Research Topics“.
6. Determine if the length of the article is too long.
7. “Chop it Up” into series if it’s too long and makes sense to.
8. “Incorporate” your “Identified” keywords.
9. Create Anchor links in the page to make it easy to skip to specific sections if it’s a long article.

(Effective Business Blogging)

6. Publish your Post

1. Identify when you would like the post to be published.
2. Enter the post into your blog, (WordPress).
3. Format the text to display as you would like it to.
   1. Bold words that make the article easy to scan.
   2. Emphasize the words that make the article easy to scan.
   3. Use heading tags where it makes sense, (h1, h2…)
   4. Link all words and phrases that need to be linked.
4. Find a related image to create more appeal and to also help with the social networks that like to pick up thumbnails when promoting.
5. Publish

7. Share with Friends

Share with all your friends and associates within the different networks that you are a part of. You don’t necessarily need to “digg” them yourselves, but it doesn’t hurt if done in moderation.

8. Comment Moderation

Moderate the blog’s comments and reply to the comments that are left thanking them and answering any questions they might ask. Reply to any feedback that may be left. Modify the blog post or create a new blog post based on information that comes out of the post’s comments. A blog post can be evolved or can be improved upon with a different blog post.

What do you think?

This post is open to scrutiny and feedback. Please play devils advocate and/or leave your comments. What has worked best for you when posting blog articles? What would you do different. This post if based on my personal experience along with others that I have read and referenced above.