Back to the Basics: 7 Practical Ways to Improve Your Blog

No matter what your blog is about—manufacturing, marketing, construction—a few simple tips can improve it. Bringing our focus back to the basics of writing and design helps refresh our perspectives. These 7 practical ways to improve your blog apply to all topics, industries, and writing styles.

7 Practical Ways to Improve Your Blog

1. Research your work.

Before you begin putting any words down on your screen, make sure you research your topic. Even if you already know about the subject, see what other experts are saying. Their information can support your points, broaden your perspective, or challenge what you think. Let other people’s ideas expand your knowledge. In addition, comprehensive research will add to your blog’s credibility. We all want to convey correct and reliable information. Statistics, facts, and data that deal with your blog’s topic helps add trustworthiness to your writing.

To improve your blog, first work on the writing of your copy. At times, blogs can get a little tedious to write. Even people who love to write anything and everything can get into a writing rut. Going back to the basics of writing helps any writer to improve their blogs.

2. Outline your writing.

During your writing process, don’t underestimate the power of an outline. While blog posts are (generally) shorter pieces of writing, an outline still helps with the organization and flow of the piece. On top of that, an outline helps keep us as writers on task while writing. If we know where the blog starts, what it’s going to cover, and how it’ll end it’s easier to type out the content.

3. Focus on your introductions.

To engage your reader from the start, craft your introduction carefully. The first sentence is the first thing that readers read. While that is obvious, I sometimes don’t remember that when writing. To improve introductions, make sure the first sentence is clear and understandable. The introduction paragraph should preview what the blog post is about. Your first paragraph should also include your focus keyword for the post.

When writing, tell your readers what you’re going to talk about, talk about it, and then summarize what you talked about. Mirroring this introduction, body, and conclusion in each paragraph can make your piece easy to follow. A “topic sentence” at the beginning of each paragraph allows readers to track what you’re talking about throughout the piece.

4. Edit your work.

This is a step that’s easy to miss sometimes. It can be faster to just type out a blog and then post it without even reading it over. However, while writing and typing, we all can make easy grammar, spelling, and sentence structure mistakes. While rereading your work look for:

• Unnecessary words
• Passive voice
• Commonly confused words (e.g., “further” and “farther” or “then” and “than”)
• Typos
• Excessive adverb use
• Confusing or long sentences
• Misplaced punctuation

If grammar and spelling aren’t your strong suit, you could ask someone who enjoys editing to look over your work. A set of fresh eyes can catch things, we, as the writers, can sometimes miss.

Once you’ve researched, written, and edited your content, you can begin the posting process. There are three additional ways to improve your blog post before you hit the “Publish” button.

5. Add cohesive metadata.

Metadata helps search engines to crawl and order your site. For SEO purposes, spend some time including the different aspects of metadata before you post your blog post. Write a title that is shorter than 70 characters and includes your focus keyword, if possible. The URL also should be short and topic-centric. In addition, your meta description should preview what your blog post is about (and also should include your keyword). Pulling a sentence or two from your introduction can be an easy way to write your meta description.

6. Include visuals.

Adding images to your blog post can increase the visual impact. This can be done through including relevant pictures in the text. For example, on a home-building blog, placing pictures of kitchens in a post about kitchen designs makes a lot of sense. This also allows your readers to see examples of your work in real life. For blogs that have a picture as the header, choose a featured image that relates to the topic of your post and the brand of your company.

7. Leave the readers with a call-to-action.

When crafting a call-to-action (CTA), keep the reader in mind. As a reader, we want a clear, specific, and inviting CTA. To create this, use a CTA that is simple and concise. Make sure it is in a visible place on the page. Write a CTA that the deals with the content you’ve just written about. In addition, craft a CTA that is welcoming and personable. An easy-to-click link to a simple form generally works well!

Please contact RedMoxy Communications to further discuss improving your website and content. We’d love to talk!