Writing a blog - Why?

There are multiple reasons to post blogs on your website. When you keep creating new content, search engines will rank you higher. That by itself already is a good reason. However, there is more. By writing about what you do and what you know, you showcase your skills to (potential) customers. Moreover, when you write about succesful work for customers, it serves a referential purpose. So, high ranking, showcasing and references, those are some good reasons why you should also start writing blogs, right?

How to start writing a blog?

First of all, make sure you know enough about the subject you want to write about. Ten short sentences are not going to work. Your blogs needs to have a substantial size when you publish them. Besides that, you have to make sure that you use or create visuals that explain your contents correctly. Afterall, we all know the saying “A picture says more than a thousand words”.

When you know what you are going to write about, determine the goal of your blog; entertainment, information, teaching, sharing. It needs to be clear to you audience why they should read your blog. In addition, structurize your blog: Opening – body – conclusion, in other words a clear start, a good explanation and a convincing end. Guide your readers through your blog. If you pose a question in the beginning of your blog, make sure that you answered it throughout your blog or at the end. You end your blog with a little summary, which can be a short as one sentence. It helps your reader to remember what he or she read. 

Make sure your blogs have a clear start, a good explanation and a convincing end (*)

What else helps with writing blogs

Make it practical, in order for people to immediately apply what they read. Your visuals can definitely help here. Another way is to use lists. Lists make it easier for your readers to follow different steps in stories or processes.

Use the correct references, otherwise you will be in trouble. Maybe obvious, but if you quote somebody, make sure you refer to the blog, article, video or book that you are quoting. It helps you in your SEO-analysis as well to have outbound links, so it works double that way.

Check you blog by using your SEO tool. Those tools were not created for nothing, so use them to your advantage. The provide you with so many valuable tips to improve your blogs. I personally recommend Yoast for WordPress. If you use other website making software, check which SEO-tools are available for you. 

Hulp bij het proces van het blogs schrijven?

After you wrote a couple of blogs, you will notice that you follow a certain process. If you write blogs more often, it is good to keep an overview of your blogs and their position in the work flow. It occasionally happens that you are writing them from start to finish and post them immediately. Sometimes, however, you need to wait for details, information or inspiration before you can move forward. Or you do not have time to keep working on it. To keep track of your blogs, you can use a Kanban board.

First of all, you can collect your ideas about future blogs on the board. If you need a new subject, you can check your board for a subject and start working on that. If you use Trello, for instance, you can add your thoughts, links and all other sorts of information for future reference.

Subsequently, you can create lists or columns to cover the steps you know you cover when you are creating your blog. Examples are: writing your blog, make visuals, insert internal and external links, SEO check, publishing your blog and promoting it.

Once you have created your lists, you can move your cards that each represent a blog through your Kanban board columns. This way you can easily keep track of where you are in your blogging process. And, added bonus, you cannot forget any of them. It would be a waste of your valuable time if this happens.

Lastly, when you have your Kanban board in an online tool like Trello, you can always add new ideas and reminders to your board.

Use a kanban board for your blog overview.

So, to conclude this blog

Blogs publiceren is een goede manier om bezoekers naar je site te trekken. Ze zijn ook een marketinginstrument waarmee je kunt laten zien wat je allemaal kunt. Deze tips en trucs zouden je moeten helpen met het schrijven en publiceren van je blogs. Laat je inspireren om gave blogs te schrijven en daarmee natuurlijk bezoekers naar je website te trekken. Succes!! 

Virtual Assistants and blogs

Does all of this sound good, but would you rather have somebody doing this for you? Good thing that Virtual Assistants like us exist. Writing blogs takes a substantial amount of time, that you can use for other important actions as well. Handing it over to a virtual assistant frees up time, while still having the benefits of posting blogs. Contact us today and wel will determine how we can help you: either with setting up your process or with the writing itself, or everything from start to finish.