How to Plan a Blog Post in 6 Easy Steps: A Guide for Beginners
Writing a blog post can be daunting, especially if you are new to blogging. You may have a lot of ideas, but you need to learn how to organize them into a coherent and engaging piece of content. You may also need help finding your blog post's keywords, formatting, and style.
That's why planning your blog post is crucial. Planning your blog post can help you save time, avoid writer's block, and create better content that attracts your audience. This guide will show you how to plan a blog post in 6 easy steps using a blog post template, outline, and checklist.
Step 1: Choose a Topic and a Title
The first step in planning your blog post is to choose a topic and a title. Your topic should be relevant to your niche, audience, and goals. Your title should be catchy, clear, and concise. It should also contain your primary keyword phrase, which is the term that people use to search for your topic on search engines.
For example, if you are writing about how to plan a blog post, your primary keyword phrase could be "how to plan a blog post." This keyword phrase has a high search volume of 1,900 and a low keyword difficulty of 9, according to Ahrefs. You can use tools like Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner to find other related keywords with high search volume and low difficulty.
A possible title for your blog post could be "How to Plan a Blog Post in 6 Easy Steps: A Guide for Beginners". This title is catchy, clear, and concise. It also contains the primary keyword phrase and the modifier "a guide for beginners," which can help attract your target audience and differentiate your post from similar ones.
Step 2: Research Your Topic
The second step in planning your blog post is to research your topic. Analyzing your issue can help you gather information, facts, statistics, quotes, examples, and other relevant data supporting your main points and arguments. Researching your case can also help you discover what others have written about your topic and how you can add value or offer a different perspective.
You can use tools like Google Scholar, Bing News, or Bing Web Search to find reliable sources of information on your topic. You can also use tools like BuzzSumo or Quora to discover your audience's questions or problems related to your case. It would help if you took notes of your sources and cited them correctly in your blog post.
Step 3: Create an Outline
The third step in planning your blog post is to create an outline. An outline is a skeleton or blueprint of your blog post that shows your content's main sections and sub-sections. Creating a system can help you organize your ideas, structure your content, and cover all the essential points.
You can use tools like Evernote or Google Docs to create an outline for your blog post. You can also use a blog post template or outline as a reference or a starting point. A typical blog post template or outline consists of the following elements:
- Introduction: This is where you introduce your topic, hook your readers' attention, and state your central thesis or purpose.
- Body: This is where you develop your main points and arguments using information, facts, statistics, quotes, examples, and other relevant data. You should divide your body into sub-sections with headings and sub-headings that contain your secondary keywords.
- Conclusion: This is where you summarize your main points and arguments, restate your thesis or purpose, and provide a call-to-action or a takeaway message for your readers.
Step 4: Write Your First Draft
Writing your first draft is the fourth step in planning your blog post. Writing your first draft is where you turn your outline into a full-fledged blog post using words, sentences, paragraphs, and transitions. Writing your first draft can be challenging, but you should be OK with grammar, spelling, or style at this stage. It would help if you focused on getting your ideas down on paper (or screen) and expressing them clearly and coherently.
You can use tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor to help you write your first draft. These tools can help you check and improve your grammar, spelling, punctuation, readability, tone, and style. It would help if you also used tools like Yoast SEO or Rank Math to help you optimize your blog post for search engines. These tools can help you check and improve your keywords, meta tags, headings, images, links, and other SEO elements.
Step 5: Revise Your Draft
The fifth step in planning your blog post is to revise your draft. Revising your draft is where you review, edit, and improve your blog post to make it more polished, accurate, and engaging. Revising your draft can help you eliminate errors, inconsistencies, redundancies, and gaps in your content. It can also help you enhance your voice, tone, and style to suit your audience and purpose.
You can use tools like ProWritingAid or WordRake to help you revise your draft. These tools can help you check and improve your clarity, conciseness, flow, and word choice. It would help if you also used tools like CoSchedule Headline Analyzer or Sharethrough Headline Analyzer to help you check and improve your title. These tools can help you prevent and improve your headline score, word balance, sentiment, and click-through rate.
Step 6: Proofread Your Final Draft
The sixth and final step in planning your blog post is proofreading your final draft. Proofreading your final draft is where you check and correct any remaining errors or typos in your blog post. Proofreading your final draft can help ensure your blog post is error-free, professional, and ready to publish.
You can use tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor again to help you with proofreading your final draft. You can also use tools like Readable or Readability Score to help you check and improve the readability of your blog post. It would help if you also used tools like Plagiarism Checker or Copyscape to help you prevent and avoid plagiarism in your blog post. You should always credit the sources of information you use in your blog post.
Conclusion
Planning a blog post is essential in creating quality content that attracts your audience and ranks well on search engines. Following these six steps, you can plan a blog post systematically and effectively using a blog post template, outline, and checklist. You can also use various tools to help you with each step of the planning process.
We hope this guide has helped you learn how to plan a blog post in 6 easy steps. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. contact us for more information