How to Structure Your Blog Post – A Beginner’s Guide

When it comes to writing blogs, people are often worried about how it should look, and how long it needs to be. It can seem daunting to sit down and write a post, especially if you compare your blog to others.

It’s best to keep it short and sweet – get your message across clearly and succinctly. Your readers are busy people, and may not have time to go through an essay-length post. The majority of those who are blogging for their business will produce shorter posts, and it’s only writers like me, who’ve been doing this for years, who don’t. Don’t forget, for SEO purposes, Google is quite happy with 500 words!

Before you Start Writing

I find it helpful to make notes before you start, and keep them handy for when you begin to write the blog. By all means, jot down ideas and put them to one side for a couple of days, so you come to the writing process fresh and ready to go. Come up with a general topic, but decide on the title after you’ve written the post – something more appropriate often comes to you when you’ve finished writing.

Think about what you want to convey to your readers; what’s the important information they need to know? Don’t waffle, get straight to the useful bit. And don’t overwhelm people with too much detail, particularly if they’re not familiar with your subject. If you find you’ve got a lot to share (which is the other problem new bloggers have!) that’s great, because you’ve got material for several posts ready to go.

Structuring Your Blog

If you work on the principle of needing to write only 300 words, here’s a guide that I use with clients who want to write some of their blogs themselves. Allocate a proportion of the total word count to each section and write to that.

You’ll probably find you can come up with more words after all, and feel a lot more comfortable with the process. Headings and your title aren’t part of the word count!

View your blog as a way to communicate two or three key ideas, with an introduction to outline what you’re going to share, and a conclusion to sum up at the end.

Create your own version of the following table, fill it in and keep it handy when you write. Make the notes column the largest and use bullet points for the key information to include. Reallocate the word count to suit your needs.

Use this as a basis for creating your first few blogs, and you’ll find after a while that you don’t need it, as the writing process becomes more natural. And if you need some help coming up with ideas, read this post. Good luck!