Blog Checklist for Content Marketing
People often write blogs that don’t follow a set of standards of guidelines. It seems as if many content creators write for the sake of writing, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it’s recreational, but if they’re publishing for an organisation, it can be very messy. In order to have an effective blog, you must follow a set of rules.
Here’s a few pointers on how to write a great blog:
- Research your blog topics! How can you write a blog on something you have very little knowledge about? Research typically takes 2-3 hours, especially if you have limited knowledge.
- You must have a blog post title that is catchy and appealing to your readers. However, don’t overdo it with clickbait.
- Your title needs to be between 40 to 69 characters long (The length of the Google results title that is visible to a searcher).
- You must add Meta Description to your posts, which needs to be between 135 and 160 characters long. This tells your readers what your blog post is about. Usually this is also visible on the Google results page.
For example:
“A comprehensive blog checklist to help writers and content marketers write better personal and business blogs.” - Your main keywords must be included in your blog post title.
The main keywords of this blog are:Blog Checklist
Blog Checklist for Writers
Blog Checklist for Content Marketing
Blog Checklist for Content Creation - Your main keywords should be mentioned in the Description Tag/Meta Tag. You may notice in my Meta Description in point 4, I have included almost all of the keywords:
“A comprehensive blog checklist to help Writers, Content Marketers and Content Designers to write and post better quality blogs for businesses and personal blogs” - The main keywords must be mentioned in the body of your articles/blogs.This rule applies to all topics.
- Blog posts should include phrases associated with your main keyword. Having associated keywords is a great way to cover the theme or overall topics of what your blog is about. This blog also relates to Online Marketing, and Social Media Marketing, so I can also talk about that.
- Your blog’s language must sound natural. It’s important to write for people. Search engines are smart enough to detect when a post is written for machines. The idea is to keep it simple, use the correct tone and language for the topic, and more importantly write for your audience.
- Weave in keywords and synonyms only where it’s relevant throughout the article/blog post.
- The body content of your post should link a couple of reputable industry sources such as educational institutions, market research websites or Government sites, to add value for the reader.
- The blog should include 2-3 links to relevant pages on your website. In our case, we have done a series of blogs that will help you put a content plan or strategy together:
Part 1: What is Content Strategy?
Part 2: How To Do A Content Audit
Part 3: How Do You Define Content Marketing? - Don’t copy images from other people’s websites. If it’s imperative for you to use the image, give the photographer or the website the credit. Check out Shutterstock, Pexels or Splitshire for stock images.
- Images need to fit the overall design, look and feel of your website. Consistency is key when it comes to blog images – it should add to your website’s theme.
- Add descriptive tags for images with the keyword in it, such as Alt tags and description tags.
- Back up any data or facts with links to reputable sources and websites.
- Your blogs need to be optimized to your buyer persona profiles.
- Include clear call-to-actions in the end of all your posts.
- Make sure the first paragraph of your post is catchy and emotionally-appealing.
- Your blogs must include include H1, H2 and H3 tags where relevant, to simplify and structure the content on the page.
- Your blog post should contain a list of bullet points to break up the text.
- Make sure all your links open in new tabs.
