Content planning can be stressful for business owners, not to mention creating the content. Whether you're hiring a freelance writer or writing your own blog, it really helps to have an idea of what each post is supposed to be about.
You can easily lift some of the burdens of creating good content by having an outline before writing. This saves a lot of time and works for yourself, as opposed to just writing freely, with no structure in mind.
Keep reading to learn how to outline your blog posts to instantly improve your blog writing.
Why Blog Outlines Work:
Outlines are great for promoting better productivity when writing a blog post. By creating them, you can be more organized, focused, and maybe even quicker at writing blog posts. Let’s dig deeper into just how outlines can help you.
Knowing How And What To Write
The first and most important benefit to having an outline for your blog posts is knowing what you’re going to write about. This also sets the tone of the blog and gives you a step up in everything else like research and actually writing a blog post.
Helps In Research Efforts
When you outline what you want to talk about in a blog, you’re doing a big favour in organizing your research and finding the right information. When you search for more specific things, you’ll get more targeted answers, and you may even learn something new.
Faster Writing
Having a blog outline ready to go makes a huge difference in the time it takes to write a blog. You won’t have to sit there and think about what to write about, you’re less likely to get sidetracked, and it’s all-around easier. This makes writing a blog faster than if you were winging it.
More Organized Thoughts
As mentioned, you can keep your notes organized. But even better than that, you can keep your mind organized. Whether you're researching or writing, having a narrowed-down blog outline can keep your mind focused on one topic at a time so you can be more productive.
How To Make Outlines For Your Blog Posts
Not every blog is going to be the same. Some will require more subheadings than the last, and some may not even require subheads. It really depends on the complexity of your writing topic and the word count.
Readers don’t want to be hit will a great wall of words. It’s actually better to keep your paragraphs short and your writing nicely organized with headings and subheads. For example, a 500-word blog post may not need subheads, but a 1500-word blog post will definitely need some.
Create a Titillating Title
Start your purpose with a click-worthy title by adding some power words and creating a wicked title for your blog post. This should be around 50 to 75 characters long.
For example, the title of this post: How To Instantly Improve Your Blog Writing With Outlines. It states the topic plain and simple, but it entices the reader to choose this blog over the others.
Intro
Your intro is just 3 paragraphs (around 100-150 words) that explain what your blog is about. Make sure that it’s not a dead giveaway but tantalizes the reader by giving them a snippet of what they can expect from reading.
Make sure to structure your intro paragraphs like this:
A punchy first line that either asks the question that your topic covers or says something about it that will get the reader’s attention right away.
The next paragraph should briefly describe what the blog is about. Don’t give everything away, but make sure the reader knows what they’re reading.
The final paragraph should detail what the reader can expect from this blog. “Add in a keep reading to learn…” or something like that.
List Your Headings
Next, list some of your main talking points. These will be your headings. For example: in this blog, the headings are: Why Outlines Work, How To Make Outlines For Your Blog Posts, and Other Productivity Tips For Blog Writing.
Your headings should have at least one introductory paragraph that explains the heading. This can be 75-100 words, depending on the word count that you’re striving for. Then, you’ll divide each heading into subheads.
Adding Subheadings
Below every one of your talking points or headings, you’ll want to add subheads that allow to you expand on or cover different things in your heading. You’ll see that there are different subheadings in this blog under every heading, such as this paragraph.
Concocting a Conclusion
You may add more headings and subheadings, depending on your topic. For a complex topic, you may need to write an introductory paragraph that explains why your topic is important or introduces it in another way. For example, this blog has an introductory paragraph explaining why outlines are good.
Writing Not A Strength For You? Hire A Content Writer!
If you’re struggling with creating content for your business, hiring a writer is an investment that you simply cannot ignore. Creating high-quality content is a full-time job.
Having a content creator allows you to free up time and focus on your business. To do that, fill in the form at the bottom of the page, and let’s have a chat about where you are with content creation and what we can do to improve it.