How to write the perfect blog post
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Hints and tips for writing a blog post that engages with your audience and gets great search engine rankings.
In a hurry? Here's what makes a great blog post and what we need from our guest bloggers:
- Write at least 1,000 words, but preferably over 2,000
- Include keywords and phrases throughout the text
- Split the blog post into 4 to 6 sections, each with a section header
- Scatter images throughout the blog to brigthen it up and break up the text
- Make sure your blog is unique, and has not been posted elsewhere on the Internet. Google can penalise duplicate content.
- If you mention businesses in your blog, find their social media accounts so that they can be mentioned when posting the blog to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Hopefully the businesses will share your post and your blog will reach even more people.
If you have a few minutes, read the full blog below. It's full of little gems of information and useful hacks!
What is a blog post?
If you're reading this, you probably know what a blog post is! But just in case you don't, here's a brief explanation of what a blog post is.
Put simply, a blog post is an entry (or an article) written for a website blog. It can contain a mix of text, photographs, infographics and videos about a chosen subject.
In common with many websites, the Cotswolds Website has a blog section in which you can find articles about the Cotswolds written by ourselves and guest bloggers.
We welcome guest blog posts about the Cotswolds, and this blog post helps you to write perfect blog post. It's a blog post about writing blog posts!
What makes a good blog post?
A good blog post answers the question posed or addresses the subject matter in a well-written, well-researched, knowledgeable manner.
If the blog post engages the reader so that they read the whole blog post then that's a good indication that the blog is well-crafted and hits the spot.
But how do you get people to read the blog post in the first place? If you have a popular website then the traffic generated to the site with provide a targeted audience for your blog. But our research shows that the majotiry of people reading a blog post arrived as a result of a Google search. So gaining top search engine rankings is a must.
So there are some rules you should follow when writing a good blog post.
How to write a good blog post
We can summarise what makes a good blog post in the table below:
| 1 | Don't make the blog post too short - Try to write a minimum of 1,000 wordsSearch engines consider pages with less than a few hundred words to have low content and this may harm your search engine rankings. We would go further and say that a good blog posts needs to be at least 1,000 words in length and preferably 2,000 words or more. Longer blog posts, with relevant content, helps Google to work out what the blog post is about and where it ranks compared with other blog posts written about a similar topic. Longer blog posts also give more scope for including relevant keywords and phrases without it looking like you've just stuffed as many keywords into the post as possible. |
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| 2 | Don't make the blog post too long - You don't want to send the reader to sleep!If the blog is too long it may look daunting when someone lands on the blog page. Split the blog post into 4 to 6 headings (see point 3 below), and scatter photos and graphics throught the text (see pont 4 below). |
| 3 | Split the blog post into between 4 and 6 sectionsThis makes the blog look less daunting that a huge block of text, and also allows the reader to quickly see an overview of the blog content. The headings should contain keywords and phrases relevant to the subject matter of the blog post. |
| 4 | Include photos, infographics and videosAs with point 3 above, adding photos, infographics and videos to your blog helps make the blog look more appealing as well as effectively illustrating the content of the blog. Make sure your images have descriptive captions for both the reader and also the search engines. |
| 5 | Include links to relevant websites and other blogsWhen writing your blog post, if it benefits the reader, link out to other websites which the reader will find useful and interesting. Hopefully other blogs will link to your blog posts whcih will help improve your Google rankings. |
Know your audience
Who is your blog post aimed at? What question are they trying to answer or what subject are they wanting to know more about?
Put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Does your blog post satisfy their needs, whether that be answering a specific question, improving their knowledge about a given subject or simply providing a thought-provoking or interesting read.
Honour the blog post title
No-one likes clickbait ("the intentional act of over-promising or otherwise misrepresenting in a headline"), so make sure that the heading or title of your blog post accurately indicates the content of the post. After all, someone clicked on a link to the blog post because of the title - MAKE SURE YOU MAKE THEM HAPPY THEY CLICKED ON THE LINK!
Clickbait annoys people and is shatters the trust put in your website and blog.
By providing useful blog posts you will foster a relationship of trust with your readers and help increase the chances of them engaging with your post, sharing the blog on social media, purchasing from your business and revisiting the website/blog.
Writing for the Cotswolds Website Blog
If you'd like to write for the Cotswolds Website Blog then we'd be delighted to hear from you. You can write about anything to do with the Cotswolds. Things to do, places to go, places you've stayed, a particularly enjoyable walk, or even a business you run in the Cotswolds.
We just ask that your blog post adheres to the following standards:
| 1 | The blog should be a minimum of 1,000 words, but ideally over 2,000 words. |
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| 2 | Split the blog post into 4 to 6 sections with headings for each section where the headings contain any relevant phrases and keywords important to the text. |
| 3 | Supply at least one, but ideally 3 to 6 photos to go with the blog post. Please also supply a caption for each photograph which accurately describes the photo. |
| 4 | And most importantly, the blog should be accurate, factual, unique, your own work, and not posted elsewhere on the Internet. Duplicate content across websites can harm the sites as Google does not like content duplicated on more than one website. You must also ensure that your blog post does not breach copyright. |
We really look forward to reading your blogs!
Last updated: 23 August 2023 - Please note: This blog was first written over a year old and things may have changed since the blog was written.
