There is no secret recipe for writing good blog posts.  Blogging is the same as any other writing, and so the normal advice still applies.  Here is a blogging workflow you can follow or adjust to your own needs for writing blog posts.

Ideas

The first step with any blog post is to come up with an idea.  Check out my post on how to monitor your blog’s niche so that you always have a fresh supply of ideas for blog posts.

Research

Once you have an idea you might need to do some research to gather all the facts you need for writing the blog post.  This might include looking on Wikipedia for a summary of information and links to other sources, or using a product that you are going to write a review of.

Outline

Blog posts of any length will benefit from a rough outline.  For short posts just a few bullet points for the main points you want to cover.  For longer posts you can map out sections and sub-headings to work out the flow of the article.

Over time you should develop consistent outlines and formulas for different types of blog posts that will save you time.

First Draft

The first draft is the time to just write, write, write!  Don’t stop to edit or fix mistakes, just pour out as much inspiration and ideas as you possibly can.  It might look like rubbish at first but amongst the trash you’ll fine some good ideas and sentences that form the foundation of your blog post.

Don’t try to edit the post while you are writing the first draft, just get all of your ideas down on the page while they are fresh in your mind.

Editing

As the old saying goes, “Write drunk, edit sober”.  Make sure you are ready to focus on editing your blog post, making it flow properly, and correcting any mistakes.

A great tip when editing is to read the document to yourself out loud.  Sometimes as the author you are too close to the words to spot your mistakes – after all, *you* know what you meant when you wrote it.

By reading it out loud you are forced to focus on the actual words on the page and will discover any spelling and grammatical errors.  You will also pick up on other writing mistakes such as sentences that run too long.  If it is awkward to read out loud it won’t read well on the page when people visit the blog post online.

Formatting

Now that you have edited the post for flow and accuracy it is time to do the formatting.  This includes adding in any hyperlinks, bold/italicizing text, highlighting external quotes, and adding sub-headings.

Sub-headings are a great way to break up longer posts into smaller sections.  Well places sub-headings help your visitors get a quick grasp of what the blog post is about, and help those people that like to scan blog posts move through your content quickly and work out which sections or ideas they want to stop and read in detail.

Remember, nobody likes reading a big wall of text.  Use paragraph breaks to improve the readability of your blog posts.

Images

For blog post such as product reviews it makes sense to include photos of the product itself.  Take a look at the online reviews for laptops and other computer hardware and you will see multiple product shots included with them.

Sometimes an image is just for visual appeal, to draw the reader’s eye and make them want to a read more of the blog post.  The image doesn’t always need to directly relate to the blog post, it just needs to be attractive and grab a visitors attention.

A great source of free images is the Flickr Creative Commons search.

Submission

Once you have your blog post written and formatted it is time to submit it.  Create a list of each of the important steps to complete at submission stage, such as:

• Check headline and re-write if it is not accurate or effective enough
• Add images or thumbnails
• Choose a category and tags
• Add the “Read more…” break for longer posts
• Add custom titles, excerpts, descriptions or SEO fields
• Choose a time and date if you are scheduling blog posts in advance

If it helps stick this list on the wall next to your computer so that you can run down the checklist each time you submit.

Do you have a workflow for your own blog posts that you would like to share?  Write a comment below.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yaffamedia/

Tagged as: Blogging, Workflow, Writing