This post won’t just tell you what goes into a valuable blog post for your audience—I’m going to unravel this very post step by step so you can see how a post is built from zero words to a thousand-plus.
Blogging Isn’t Easy
You’re a blogger, or you want to be. You might even have some regular readers (nice work!). But maybe your views and interactions aren’t where you hope for them to be.
It’s not enough to write something good enough, click Publish, and wait for the traffic to come flowing in. You have to add value that no one else can, and you have to make sure that your readers know exactly what that value is.
So how does a simple idea become a beautifully-crafted blog post that brings value to your community? I’ll walk you through the steps. At the end of this post, you’ll know how to craft a blog post that brings value to your audience. You’ll also see all the pre-work I did to get to the final version that you’re about to read. Let’s go!
1. It Starts with an Idea
Ideas are cheap. It’s what you do with them that counts.
You’ve likely heard that advice before, but it has one glaring problem: it makes you feel totally intimidated, right? I know that I read it and shrink in silent shame over my (many) lists of crappy ideas.
But, wading through a river of crappy ideas is the only way to get to the other side with good ones.
Capture every idea that crosses your mind, no matter how flat, grandiose, or off-topic it might seem. You never know when a series of bad ideas will spark your next great idea.
2. Define Who the Post is For
Many bloggers chase a brilliant idea only to come out on the other side with a meandering, disorganized mess of a blog post. I’ve done that more times than I’d like to admit.
It turns out, the first iteration of an idea is often too broad to make for a good blog post. And sometimes we get caught up in the excitement and don’t do our due diligence to refine the idea before we run with it.
The way to start narrowing down is to first think about who the post is for. You can’t write a post “for everyone.” There’s an audience out there who needs what you have to share, but they won’t find you unless you get super clear on who they are and how you can help them.
Pick apart your idea until you can clearly define who you want to serve. Then serve them well.
3. State the Promise Behind the Post
Where are you taking your reader with your next post?
Good posts explain some concepts and send you on your way. Amazing posts deliver on a promise: a skill the reader will learn, a result the reader will achieve, or a transformation the reader will undergo.
Real results don’t happen by accident. You have to decide early on—before you’ve written a word—what your reader will walk away with. Something like, “you’ll learn about blogging” isn’t tangible. Who’s going to get excited about that?
Aim for something specific and measurable. Like: “you’ll know the three steps it takes to create your next content plan,” or “you’ll learn how to write engaging video titles that will increase your views by 300%.” If you’re looking for advice about content planning or video content, you’re not just excited to read that post, you must read it.
Look at this post you’re reading, for example. Would this post be valuable without this promise at the top?
At the end of this post, you’ll know how to craft a blog post that brings value to your audience. You’ll also see all the pre-work I did to get to the final version that you’re about to read.
Sure… The content beneath that promise wouldn’t change. But I bet it helped you decide to keep reading because you’re diving in with some idea of how cold the water is. (It’s nice and warm in here, by the way.)
Clearly stating a promise sets expectations and lets potential readers know your post’s value upfront, so they don’t waste their time on something that isn’t right for them. The right reader is hooked from the start and wants to know more.
4. Break it into Sections
If you go through just those 3 steps for your next post, you’ll have a pretty good blog post on your hands. But this step is much more vital than it might seem on the surface.
As you’re probably aware, no one wants to read a wall of text. It’s important to break up your paragraphs so they’re nice and digestible. But if you don’t actually add structure, with headings and maybe even subheadings, you’re missing out on a key way to make your post easier to read.
Sections with headings and subheadings let your reader get an at-a-glance preview of what they’ll read before they start. It shows a clear map of how you’ll take them from who they are right now to who they’ll be when they’ve reached the end and you’ve delivered on that awesome promise you told them about.
You need to draw that map and make it part of your post’s structure. What’s the journey you’re taking the reader on? What order are you presenting your information, and why? How do you lead them from section to section?
Structure is also an awesome way to signal, “Hey, this post will be super easy to read, because you’ll get a lot of breaks in between the important stuff.” If our brains see chunks of text, we’re much more likely to engage. If it’s just a bunch of paragraphs with no end in sight, we panic and close the tab.
Give your post structure, every time. Your structure shows your thinking, and it seriously helps your readers absorb all those interesting lessons you’re sharing with them.
5. Write Quickly, Edit Slowly
After you have your sections planned out, it’s time to actually write the post.
But first, a shameless plug: You can actually skip right to this point if you use blog post templates for your blog. I’ve developed a system that cut my writing time from 2 hours to about 30 minutes (!!!), and I have an online course that will walk you through it. You’ll learn how to create templates for your blog that make writing your posts as easy as filling in a form. Check it out: Your Blogging Blueprint Course
OK, now back to your regular programming…
The more quickly you can hammer out that first draft, the better. I’ve struggled with writer’s block my whole life due to some deep perfectionism issues, but I’ve learned that things only move forward when I force that terrible first draft out of my brain.
It might help to write out your sections in steps. You can start with a quick pass-through with your ideas: under each heading, write some thoughts or a summary of what you want that section to cover. Then, you can expand your thoughts into real sentences and paragraphs until all the gaps are filled.
By getting your ideas out quickly, you’re giving yourself a chance to validate your idea early. You can see if your post actually provides value and delivers on your promise. If not, you can take the post back to the drawing board or count your losses and move onto something else.
When you’ve validated your post, then you can sink in a bunch of time polishing up the terrible first draft you wrote. And you can do so confidently knowing that your post achieves what you aimed to achieve.
Plan, Write, Edit, Deliver
Amazing blog posts bring value to their readers.
You write useful content when you:
- Patiently sift through some not-great ideas to find the great ones
- Know exactly who you’re writing to
- Have a clear idea of what the reader will get out of it (i.e. your promise)
- Break down your post, and
- Write it out quickly to test your idea, then spend some time editing it until it’s awesome.
BONUS: How This Post Came Together
Now that you’ve read the final product, I’m going to take you through the steps I took behind-the-screen to get here. I literally haven’t touched what I’ve written here since I sketched out the post a few months ago, so you will see exactly how these ideas came into my head.
1. Idea
Idea – writing a great blog post, what goes into a great blog post, how to write a post with value
2-3. Who, the Promise, and Section Ideas
Who: Beginner bloggers who have tons of ideas but don’t know where to start. Also for bloggers who are doing OK but don’t have the hits and community or readership that they want.
Transformation: At the end of this post, you’ll know how to craft a blog post that brings value to your audience.
Sections: Introduction and context for pain points of blogging, starts with an idea, define who the post is for, describe the reader’s transformation, break it into sections, write quickly and edit slowly, conclusion to sum up how these steps help solve the pain points
4. Break it into Sections and Write Some Thoughts
Introduction and pain points of blogging: You’re a blogger, or you want to be. You might even have some readers (nice work!), but your views and interactions aren’t where you hope for them to be. Overflowing with ideas, but don’t know where to start. In this post, I’ll show you how to shape an idea into a beautifully-crafted blog post that brings value to your community. I’ll use this post as an example.
Starts with an idea: Ideas are cheap. It’s what you do with them that counts. Capture every idea that crosses your mind, no matter how flat, grandiose, or off-topic it might seem. You never know when one bad idea sparks a series of great ones.
Define who it’s for: Ideas are often too broad to make for a great blog post. Many bloggers chase a brilliant idea only to come out the other side with a meandering, disorganized mess of a blog post. I’ve done that more times than I’d like to admit. Narrow down, use this post as an example—it’s a different post when it’s for advanced bloggers versus beginners.
Describe the transformation: Where are you taking your reader. State in clear terms what’s they’ll get out of this post after they’ve read it. It doesn’t have to actually make it into your post, but sometimes it does. Because my blog is more educational, I tend to include mine. Example of this post – would this post still be helpful without that summary? Sure. But including it sets expectations and lets you know its value upfront, so you’re either hooked and want to read more, or you know right away that it’s not for you, and you head somewhere else.
Break it into sections: Map out how your post will take the reader on the transformation you’ve promised. Digestible. These become the headings in your post, but don’t agonize over making the headlines perfect right now; focusing more on the content than the high-level titles. This post’s example. Write real titles or some ideas for them to choose later.
Write quickly, edit slowly: Fill out your sections with a sentence or two, and any thoughts that pop into your head. Quick pass through with your ideas. Then, go back and fill in the gaps, expanding your thoughts into real sentences and paragraphs. The important part here is to get the ideas out fast so you can see if your post really works, then spend a lot of time polishing up the crap you wrote when you know that the idea and post achieve what you aimed to achieve.
Conclusion: Amazing blog posts bring value to their readers. You write useful content when you know exactly who you’re writing to and have a clear idea of what the reader will get out of it. Break down your post and write it out quickly to test your idea. Editing is where you finalize your title, headings, and specific wording throughout.
5. Write and Edit
Here’s what I did to take that whole mess and turn it into this post.
Tasks: Write and place headings in the doc, paste the above descriptions underneath them, then expand upon the ideas I’ve written. After a final edit and polish, the post was ready to go!