Blogging is not merely putting your thoughts on the page, it is much more than that! Blogs are amongst the most important ways for a company to share its opinions, knowledge, and valuable resources with its audiences. Here, you are trying to craft an informative piece for your audience so that they engage with your brand.
It is seen that WordPress alone constitutes approximately 70 million blog posts that are published every month. This insane reputation of blogs mentions how vital this business is and how every blogger should undoubtedly put in all of its efforts in writing a crisp and informative copy.
Writing a blog post outline is always an ideal way to start a blog irrespective of whether you’re a newbie or a proficient writer. It can prove to be a deciding factor on how your blog post is eventually going to turn out.
Do you remember the old days when you used to organize your thoughts while writing an essay in high school?
Well, the blog post outline is a bit similar. A well-thought outline gives you a central idea about the content and helps you put the right foot forward.
Why should we create a blog outline?
Well, if you are a blogger who has been doing just fine without working on a blog post outline, you might be scratching your head as to why it’s so important now.
So, let’s dive deep into the benefits of creating a blog post outline.
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Structure your blog & maintain the flow.
Writing aimlessly without any structure may lead your blog to a dead spot. On the other hand, a terrific blog post consists of many elements like being comprehensive, strong writing style, good grammar, etc. But if you ask us what else can make your blog hit the bull’s eye, we’re going to say – “It’s the outline of the blog post”.
Let us tell you exactly what we want to convey!
You might have seen many unpolished blogs where a writer jumps off from one point to another without establishing a connection between the information. This happens when you don’t create an outline of your blog post and write without a plan! Writing sometimes seems like a mundane job when you run out of ideas and words. So, believe us creating an outline helps you sail through the article and bring the readers back to your blog.
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Catering to clients needs
Predominantly, you provide blog posts to the clients or businesses or do it for personal branding. Majorly, the client cannot convey what it wants to gain from a specific blog post. So what is his aim behind the blog post?
And sometimes, you fail to cater to the needs of the client. Ultimately, you end up delivering an atrocious piece of content with an ungratified client & a lot of rewriting. This is where a proper blog outline can prove to be your savior!
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Aids in creating the best content piece
One of the advantages of creating an outline for a blog post is that it helps create the best content. To achieve a good ranking on Google, your blog post should be easily understandable and answer all the readers’ queries.
Creating an outline for your article gives you an edge over your competitors. Just keep in mind that the blog should provide the utmost value to your readers as they’ve trusted you over others.
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Make your blog logical & revamps research time
Pouring thoughts in a blog is one thing but overstuffing the blog with words makes it illogical. Make sure that you not only provide value to readers, but the flow of the blog should be so smooth that readers can connect with it.
Outlining gives a basic framework of the process that reduces research time.
Steps to writing a blog post outline
Step – 1: Lay a solid framework of things
Writing a blog post constitutes the most important step, i.e. choosing the topic of the blog and what exactly you want to impart to the audience. This step involves the basic ideation of the topic, keyword research, and analyzing the reader persona. Opting for a topic without proper research is useless if you don’t find out whether it’s worth writing about. It should grab the attention of the audience & should be a solution to their problems.
It should cover all these points such as –
- Audience – Defining the audience of the blog post.
- The value you want to impart to readers – What are readers going to receive from this blog post?
- Keywords – Optimizing the blog by placing correct keywords for better SEO ranking.
- Title – A title that grabs the attention of readers as well as improves SEO search ranking.
Step – 2: Jot down what’s your goal
This step defines your ultimate goal for writing a blog post. It must answer your questions like –
- What is your main goal?
- What is your aim by writing this specific blog post?
- What do you want to accomplish through the blog post?
After considering all these things, there might be varied answers to the questions according to the topic and keywords you’ve selected.
Step – 3: Organize the points into a logical hierarchy
Now that you’ve poured in all of your thoughts, do you think it will make sense if it lacks logic? Initiate organizing all the pieces of information and points in chronological order so that it doesn’t stop making sense to the audience.
Do not end up writing all the points by giving all of them and again cutting them as you don’t find them relevant and out of whack. Now to ensure the logic in a blog post, putting yourself in the audience’s shoes is no biggie, and what readers might think while going through the blog post? Does that make sense or not? This way, you can streamline your blog post & make it readable.
Step – 4: Connect the audience with storytelling.
The audience always goes gaga over the blogs with which they can connect well. And storytelling is one such art that surely turns the head. After putting all thoughts on paper, it’s time to narrate it like a story, so it better reaches the heart of the audience and not just to their head!
No one gives a damn to read a long block of information with just facts & figures. Giving it a twist of personal touch will never disappoint your audience ever.
Step- 5: Include links & data to support your information
This can prove to be a time-saver hack for the writers! After fleshing out and trimming the blog post outline, it’s a convenient strategy to figure out data and instances to support your blog.
Inserting factual data and links can substantiate and act as self-explanatory for your claims.
Step – 6: Revise, & reorganize the details
Now here comes the fun part – reorganizing and editing your outline! After being the most crucial part of putting the thinking cap on and writing ideas and solutions, now it’s time to trim down the relevant information and discard the irrelevant ones.
Revising the headings and sub-headings doesn’t go in vain as it helps in making the blog crisp and germane.
Step – 7: Start writing.
As you’ve gone through the whole course of action, it’s time to get your blog written! And if you are reluctant, you can get it done from any other writer, as you’ve created an outline that is pellucid.
Blog creation may take time, depending upon the goals and rigidity of your blog topic. But a streamlined blog with perfect outlining can surely make it a show-stopper!
The bottom line
A blog post without an outline is just like a ship without an anchor, “directionless” An efficiently designed blog post outline is a professional technique that helps the blog stand out from others.
Creating an outline of your blog post can help you achieve high results by cutting down lead time, keeping a check on the quality of content, overcoming writer’s block, understanding your client requirements, and making your blog post top-notch.
I hope you get our drift and apply it the next time you’re creating a blog post!
Happy Blogging!
