My clients tell me that writing is one of the most difficult things they have to do as part of creating the content that makes up their content strategy.

My best advice for this, is to get someone to write it for you. If writing isn’t your strongest skill, then giving your content to a writer to create for you is an investment you won’t regret.

But, if you’re in a place where you still need to DIY when it comes to content creation, having a framework for how to write a blog that delivers awesome value for your audience will help.

And that’s exactly what I’m sharing here – my step-by-step framework for writing a great blog article.

Step 1 - Do your research

This means knowing your audience. Who are you writing for, and what is it that they want to hear from you?

Are you sharing information? Answering a frequently asked question? Telling them something they hadn’t even thought about?

Research means knowing your audience, and doing some keyword testing on your topic. There are plenty of free tools that will help you to research some keywords. You don’t have to be a professional, or get too serious about it.

Just use what’s available to you and research your topic.

If you search for your topic and a list of articles comes up, then you can be sure that you’re writing something that will be of interest.

The next step, is to make your article better than the ones that already exist.

Step 2 - Write a great headline.

A great headline is important for your blog for several reasons.

The first is that if you get it right, Google will rank you well for what you’re writing about and you’ll get a good search engine ranking for your writing efforts.

The second, is that a great headline should make your audience want to read your content.

If your headline isn’t interesting or engaging, then nobody’s going to take the time to click on it.

A great tool I love to use to test headlines is Headline Studio. There’s even a free version to get you started.

Step 3 - Write an awesome opening intro

The point of the introduction is to position the rest of the article, telling readers what to expect and encouraging them to read on.

The structure I use most often for introductions is –

Start with a short true story, anecdote or universal truth.
This is the setup. You want to share an experience you’ve had related to what you’re about to write about, or a practically irrefutable universal truth.

This is the best way to start, because it shows that you understand the challenge your reader is facing (and this is the reason they’ve come to your article in the first place).

It also establishes purpose and positions you as an expert in their problem, question or knowledge gap – which you’re of course going to help solve throughout the article.
Explain the impact
You’ve outlined the challenge, now you want to clarify the impact. If the reader isn’t clear on the impact this problem or information could have on their business, then they have no reason to read past your intro.
Tell them what you’re going to tell them
This is an old speakers trick. And it works really well for SEO too. The last part of your intro should share a brief overview of what you’re going to share in the article. And you want to make sure you’re targeting some keywords here – because you’ve done the research I told you to do – right?

Basically, you’re telling them – in this article, I’m going to take you through x and y and z so you can resolve the challenge I’ve introduced, and have the impact I’ve told you that you can have.

Pro-tip: It’s easier sometimes to write your introduction LAST. Write the rest of your article first, and then pull the elements out to craft your intro.

Step 4 - Follow this simple content structure

After your (amazing) intro, there are several ways you can put together the rest of your article.

If you write your intro first, then you can simply use each point you’ve mentioned in your intro as a subheading that you write to in your article. BOOM!

If that’s not going to work for you (and you want to take advantage of my pro tip above), then here’s another really simple structure that I find works well, and is easy to follow.

Paragraph 1 – Definition

If it’s required, then you should make sure you go into more detail about the problem, explain the boundaries you’re working within for the rest of your article, or clear up any definitions that might be required to help the reader understand clearly everything that’s to come.

Paragraph 2 – Provide an insight

This is the first insight of the article. Bring in your different thinking, talk more specifically about the problem or challenge, share a nugget of information your audience might not have considered.

Paragraph 3 - Give the answer

Now, how much of the answer you give in subsequent paragraphs is up to you. If you’ve done your research and have a content strategy in place, then you’ll know exactly how much you should share for it to be valuable to your reader.

To give you an example of how I’ve used this format in this article – because I know my audience have all had a go at writing an article, I don’t need to give too many definitions. The main purpose here is to give a step-by-step answer to a common problem. So I’ve given an insight in the into and then launched straight into sharing the answer (which you’re reading right now).

Finally – the Conclusion

You conclusion should summarise what you’ve written in your article. Reconfirm your insight and solution. Give a next step if appropriate (what should the reader do next) and have a call to action if appropriate (again, what should the reader do next with YOU – is there a download, should they subscribe, book a meeting?)

Step 5 - Use lots of paragraph spacing, subheadings and dot points.

Reading online is different to reading on paper.

Because of this, you need to structure your content in a different way.

Avoid long blocks of text where you can. Sometimes these are necessary, but mostly you should be able to break up blocks of text into smaller chunks by using subheadings and dot points wherever possible.

The return key, full stop, subheadings and dot points are all your friends to make reading on screen easier.

Step 6 - Aim for around 500 – 800 words

You can definitely write more than this if you’d like to. Long form content is definitely not dead and many content specialists recommend you include at least one of these longer articles in your content calendar each year. We call these power articles, and they often include a download of some sort to further improve their value.

On the flip side, you shouldn’t choose to be too skimpy either – especially if ranking on search engines is important to you.

To be really useful to your audience (and rank well with Google) you need to be hitting the 500 – 800-word count as a minimum.

Step 7 - Finish with a call to action (where appropriate)

This is the step that gets left out a lot.

The call to action.

Now, not every blog post will have a natural call to action. And you shouldn’t always be writing your article with a call to action in mind (as your blog isn’t always the place to sell something).

But if a call to action comes naturally, then definitely include it.

This might be a push to download a particular resource, book a discovery call with you, or even offer a discount to a particular product in your range.

Just make sure it adds value, and doesn’t come across as a sleazy sales pitch.

Blog Articles are a great way to build your brand

Blogs are not dead.

And as much as we all love video, the statistics show that people still love to read.

Writing articles regularly helps you share your insight and opinions, show your audience the breadth of your knowledge, and importantly, show them how you can help them solve their problems.

I hope this structure helps you do it more easily, so you can deliver high value articles to your tribe.