Recipe For Successful Blogging: The Beginners Guide

Blogging has been dubbed the gamechanger of content marketing, and it’s no wonder when you look at statistics like this: Websites that have a blog, get 434% more indexed pages. 61% of consumers have made a purchase based on a blog. 70% of consumers learn about a company through blogs rather than paid ads. Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links.

I recently had the pleasure of presenting a ‘Blogging for Beginners’ workshop at the PowerHouse Collective, in Noosa to a room full of businesswomen wanting to know the recipe for successful blogging. For those that couldn’t make it to the workshop, here is the basic rundown of what we covered: The recipe of a successful blog = meaningful content + readability successful blog = meaningful content The first key ingredient to successful business blogging is that you need to produce meaningful content that will add value to the newsfeed of both your current customers and your potential clients. Some ideas could include: Common questions that people often ask about your business/service Problems that clients experience regularly Follow up care or procedures Product hacks or tips Seasons/Special Occasions/Holidays and how these tie into your business Unique and specialised information that only you have to offer readability.

The second key ingredient to successful business blogging is readability. Readability is defined as how easy or enjoyable something is to read. Even if you have created and written the most meaningful content on the planet, it will mean nothing unless your blog is easy to read!

Tips for readability: Word Count (300-500 words but consider your target market – how much do they like to read?) Structure (catchy headline, witty introduction, body broken into small paragraphs and written in a warm conversational way, short conclusion with a call to action) Paragraphs / Spacing / Headings (break up the blog for easy reading) Font / Colours (ensure colour and font is easy to read) Pictures/Videos (use visuals to break up the text and gain attention) Is it mobile device friendly? (everyone reads blogs on their phone, so ensure your blog is mobile device friendly)

Editing tips

• Once you have created your meaningful content and nailed your readability factor, it’s time to edit your work! Unfortunately, not everyone has access to an editor to edit their blogs, so here are some useful editing tips before publication: Have someone else read your blog (preferably spelling and grammar police)
• Listen to someone else read your blog aloud – in particular, listen to areas that they stumble upon words, or when it doesn’t sound quite right.
• Read out loud from the screen and from paper
• Use text to speech technology if you don’t have someone to read your work aloud Spell Check and/or Grammarly App
• Think about word removal, paragraph removal and idea removal if your blog is too lengthy. Blogs should just cover one central idea/topic.
• Check for overused words
• Use online thesaurus
• Consider and check the tone of your blog. Is it positive and pleasing to read?
• Use the highlighter tool to highlight the areas you want to improve/change
• Check the uniqueness of your content through Edubirdie
• Just remember that good writing takes time! Those who put the greatest investment into their blogging content, will see the greatest returns. We currently live in a society where good blogs are rivalling mainstream media – so what are you waiting for? Get blogging today!