How to Write the First Blog Post with Success
Once reserved for creative souls and writing enthusiasts, blogging has come a long way to become a powerful marketing and business tool. Today, it’s hard to imagine a successful content marketing strategy without a professional blog. No matter what niche you cover, a blog can help you rank better on Google and position your site as a reliable source of information. But having a blog won’t bring you desired results if you don’t know how to keep it relevant. By offering educational, fun, and fresh blog posts, you position yourself as an expert in a certain field.
When your blog posts answer readers’ questions and help them solve problems, you may be sure your reading audience will always return for more. With the right title, interesting tone of voice, and educational content, you can meet the readers’ needs and keep them wanting to continue reading your post. Although this sounds easy, in reality, it takes a lot of knowledge to successfully run a blog. If you are a complete beginner who wants to create a WordPress blog post, you can really benefit from simple, yet powerful tips on how to write the first blog post.
Once you’ve chosen your blog name, registered your domain name, found the perfect blog theme, you’re ready to start publishing. But before you start working on your first article, upload it, and hit the Publish button, you may need practical tips to guide you on how to write your first blog post.
- Start by Introducing Yourself
- Establish Your Editorial Plan
- Define Your Voice
- Determine Your Ideal Reader
- Define the Purpose of Your Blog
- Specify Your Niche
- Link to Your Social Pages
- Add Images, Video, and Interactive Content
- Encourage Comments and Feedback
- Select Your First Blog Topic
- Identify Keywords
- Plan the Length of Your First Post
- Take Your Time to Craft the Perfect Headline
- Break Up the Text
- Proofread – Again and Again
The first things first – start by introducing yourself and give your readers a chance to learn more about you. Share your short bio, skills, and fun facts about your career journey. Use your first blog post to tell your readers who you are, what your interests are or explain your motivation behind your blog. You can, as well, share your publishing plan, the list of topics you’re planning to cover in upcoming posts or announce your future collaborations.
We recommend the usage of relevant keywords such as “First post” “Welcome post” so your readers learn right away what to expect from your first post. Of course, add your photo and a short bio – most of the blog themes offer lovely About me sections where people can find the essential information about you. When people know a thing or two about you, they tend to trust you more and see your blog as a relevant source of information.
When you decide to write your first blog post, you need to plan your upcoming posts in advance. To rank well on Google and build a loyal reading community, you need frequent blog publishing. At first, this sounds easy, but in reality, it takes careful planning. Map out the first few weeks of relevant blog post topics you want to cover.
Of course, you can come up with new ideas and change your calendar if something interesting occurs. If you lack inspiration, have a look at other blogs that cover your niche. Go through topics that catch your attention and that can benefit your readers. Every relevant topic that can be analyzed from a different angle, can make your blog worth reading.
Since WordPress does not have a visual calendar, managing a publishing schedule may be a bit challenging. Luckily, an easy solution comes in the form of the Strive Content Calendar plugin that adds a visual calendar functionality directly into your WordPress dashboard. Simply by dragging and dropping the items, you can arrange and manage your published and scheduled posts, and track your activities as the post actions in the calendar are color-coded by status.
Your tone of voice sets your blog apart from competitors. Everything from your writing style, vocabulary, and text organization matters. That’s why defining your blog voice is one of the most important things to consider when you’re starting your blog. Depending on your niche, your tone of voice may vary. If you cover entertainment topics you can find your voice in humor, or make your articles sound newsy. On the other hand, if you write about business, marketing, or education, your tone should be more formal.
Of course, when you cover lifestyle, you can be casual and unpretentious. Your tone of voice should reflect the profile of your target audience. Thus, understanding your audience is crucial for creating your unique tone of voice. Analyze your target audience, their habits, professional status, age, and everything else that can help you get to know them better.
When you know who will read your posts, you know what’s the best way of covering a certain topic. Take your time and define your ideal customer, based on market search and insights about your niche’s audience. Make a list that covers customer’s demographics, values, motivations, aspirations, etc. When you know the average age of your readers you can pay attention to every detail following their needs.
The benefits readers will get from your blog are the core of your blog’s purpose. For instance, if you’re offering content marketing services, you may want to offer practical advice on content marketing strategy in your blog. Other times you may want your users to take some sort of action, build a stronger bond with your brand, make a purchase or learn more about your niche. By providing something valuable to your customers, you can fulfill your blog purpose every time you publish a new post.
If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to nail down your niche. Only when you stick to your niche in all of your posts, you have a chance to build a reputation and strengthen the bond with readers. So, define your niche at the start – be specific and always have in mind your unique value proposition.
If you’re still wondering how to write the first blog post with success, this is another tip you should have in mind. Always include social share buttons in your posts. This will allow your readers to support you by sharing your posts across their social media platforms. As a result, the engagement and interactions will grow and your blog’s traffic will rise. Note: Before you publish your first blog story, make sure that your social links are working to prevent potential issues in the future.
Interactive content works better in today’s digital world. Break up your text into shorter paragraphs and always include images, videos, or podcasts to illustrate your content. If the topic allows, you can use infographics, quizzes, audiobooks, etc. People like to check out different content formats – we are different and our preferences may vary. To make sure your text will meet the needs of your audience, always include interactive content forms that create higher engagement and lead to more shares.
On top of this, always include relevant resources in your texts. By linking your blog post to well-established sites, you’re showing your readers that you put quality and their needs first. Avoid generic platforms such as Wikipedia and focus on niche-specific sites.
When your readers can share their feedback with you, they feel more connected and heard. Before you publish your first blog, make sure to include a comment section. Also, when people leave a comment, take a few moments and respond to their feedback whether it’s positive or not. This will show your readers you care for their opinion and that you appreciate their time.
Now is the time to choose your first blog topic. Start with a brainstorm that will help you identify things that are most important to your readers. Always have in mind a problem you want to solve in your article. Once you come up with the idea, analyze the topic to see if it can be broken down into smaller categories that can be covered through separate posts.
Next, check out your competitors to see how they have covered similar topics. It’s always worth knowing what’s already out there. Next, write an outline you can rearrange later – this will help you prevent writer’s block and create a basic structure for your first blog post.
Keywords allow your post to stand out on Google. This means you should pay special attention to keyword research, even when you’re writing your first blog post. Relevant keywords will help you rank better and get noticed by readers interested in the topic. There are many useful tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs you can use to locate and explore keywords with ease. Of course, don’t forget to optimize your title, subtitle, and images for search engines. If you need additional tips, you can always check out the best SEO tricks recommended by experts.
When it comes to text length, nothing is written in stone. Especially when it comes to your first blog post. However, don’t go too short. This is a frequent mistake among blog newbies. Our advice is to always go with at least 1000 words. As you may know, search engines prefer longer articles. The longer the text, the more chance it gets to rank better. Most of the posts published on your blog should be at least 1000 words. However, when you’re writing a niche text or how-to article make it at least 1500-2000.
Of course, include relevant backlinks, images, or videos to illustrate your content and make the reading process more fun. Have in mind that your intro should give your readers a glimpse of what they will find in your post. On the other hand, the conclusion should give a brief summary of what you covered in your article.
One headline can change it all. Take your time and write a headline that is inviting, intriguing and fun. If you catch the attention right from the start, your readers are more likely to continue reading. Although it may seem simple, writing a good headline requires experience and marketing knowledge. But the good news is anyone can craft the perfect headline with simple tricks that bring the results.
For instance, you can make your titles more engaging by using parentheses in your headline. Use brackets or parentheses to separate clauses in a headline and make it more appealing. Also, hyphens and colons increase click-through rates since they add visual variety. Apart from this you can use questions to spark curiosity and provoke people to keep reading. As your blog grows, you can as well consider reusing headline formulas that worked well in the past.
Lastly, avoid superlatives such as “best” in your headlines since they are overused. Instead, experiment with negative words such as “never” or “stop” – some studies suggest that these sorts of headlines performed better than those with positive superlatives.
Make reading fun and enjoyable, especially if your articles are over 1500 words. Highlight some words to help readers stay focused and go through your text with ease. Use colors, bold or italic font style to emphasize important conclusions. Also, wherever you can use bullets. Bullets will break your text into short, readable segments. This will help you readers find the information in the shortest amount of time.
Typos happen. But, when your text is filled with tons of grammar errors, your credibility and reputation can be questioned. To prevent this from happening, always double-check your text. Edit and proofread with care, more than once to make sure everything is at its place.
For this matter, you can even hire freelance editors that specialize in this field if you want to take everything to the next level. However, if you want to do this by yourself, take a break for a few hours from your text to rest your eyes. This will prevent potential mistakes and help you focus on even the tiniest detail.
Let’s Wrap It Up
Knowing how to write the first blog post with success will save your time and energy. Also, you will avoid potential mistakes that can cause you a headache in the future. Whether you want to start a lifestyle blog or any other blog type, these tips bring results. Pay attention to everything from your headline to your conclusion if you want your blog article to perform well. Optimize it for search engines, break up the text for a user-friendly reading experience, define your niche and ideal reader and plan your scheduling calendar in advance.
This will help your blog stay relevant and ready to attract new readers. When you know why a website is important for your business, you will be motivated to write each blog post with attention to details. Good luck!
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
