Most blog posts out there suck!

That’s because most people don’t understand how much effort it takes to write a good blog post, let alone a great one!

Writing a captivating blog post that people can’t help but read is a form of art.

But it’s also science!

You see, the internet is saturated with blogs. Think of a topic, and for sure, someone somewhere has blogged about it. And yet, here we are, adding our own voices to the already over-crowded field.

The question you may be asking yourself then is:

How oh HOW does a blogger, especially a new blogger, get any attention?

Well, I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is that most of the content out there is not very useful, or written poorly (like I said, most posts suck!) So, if you can write something mega helpful, and write in a way that grabs your readers’ attention, you’ll have hit a blogging gold-mine!

The bad news is that there’s a reason why most of the content out there is bad. Because you see, writing a super helpful blog post that is also well-written is A LOT OF WORK. And most new bloggers start a blog with impossible expectations. They want a make-money-easy-and-fast solution. Which, by the way, doesn’t exist.

Every time I get an email asking me for an “easy” way to drive traffic or monetize a blog fast, I cringe. First of all, it’s disheartening, because I’m working my butt off here. Second, the ones asking have obviously not read any of my blog posts before hitting the “send” button on that email because hey, see this 2K, 3K, even 4K-word posts here? They didn’t write themselves! And finally, it tells me something vital about the questioner–that they’re not taking this thing seriously at all. And that’s probably the saddest part of it all.

And so, if you’re willing to put in the work, I have good news. This ultimate guide is here to help you become a better blogger who is loved by her/his/their readers.

If, however, you’re looking for an easy way to churn out some content and see mega traffic to your blog, then I have bad news for you bud; blogging ain’t for you.

---

Now here’s the thing.

There’s no shortage of articles teaching you how to write a blog post.

However, if you want something that will teach you to cut through the noise and stand out among the crowded field, then you need something more. Something extra.

You need an ultimate, no-bullshit guide that will walk you through the intricacies of writing a blog post that will work like a magnet to your ideal audience.

And that’s exactly what this is–an ultimate guide to walk you through the process of crafting a blog post, from start to end, that won’t miss the mark.

Let us start!

Make Sure You’re Starting Your Blog Right

Before you start writing blog posts, I wanted to touch base on setting up your blog first. After all, if you do not have a strong base, your journey forward won’t be easy.

If you’ve been around, I may sound like a broken record, but I still want to say this for those who’re new here. So, if you’re a seasoned reader, bare with me here.

If you’re a serious blogger who treats blogging as a legit business and not just a hobby, if you’re wanting to someday make a sizable income from your blog, then you should have a self-hosted WordPress blog. Trust me, you can do it in under 100 bucks!

Get a custom domain and hosting from a reputable company — SiteGround hosting [affiliate], if you want my recommendation — and set up your WordPress blog first. If you need help, I have a detailed, step-by-step tutorial here for setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog with SiteGround hosting company.

Now, get ready to write your blog posts!

Be Smart About Choosing the Right Topic for Your Blog Post

Your blogging success starts with writing about the right things.

Want people to click on your links, spend time on your blog, subscribe to your email list, pay you money and buy from you?

Well, then you’ve got to give them what they want, and better than anyone else.

That’s not to say that you cannot write about the things that you want to write about. You sure can! But you also need to make sure that you’re taking care of your audience’s needs and not just focusing on yourself too much. Your blog is about you AND your readers after all. If you cannot answer the questions they’re asking, then they won’t bother sticking around, now would they?

And that’s why figuring out what your audience wants is so crucial.

Easier said than done, I know.

How the hell does one figure out what their audience wants?

Well, there are ways!

Spy on Your Competitors’ Blogs

This is my favorite way to get insight on what my audience wants from me.

You see, you’re likely not alone in your niche. Somebody is probably already doing what you are trying to do. And so, you have competitors who are more established and more famous and just bigger than you.

Don’t think of competitors as thorns in your path to your blogging success. Instead, think of them as guides or mentors. They may not know who you are, but with every step of the way, they are teaching you the blogging game. All you have to do is pay attention!

So, here’s how you use your competitors to come up with topics that your audience will LOVE! You spy on them and see which of their posts are getting the most traffic and shares. And chill, it’s not as hard as you may think. There are tools out there to help you along the way.

It’s called Ubersuggest, a powerful tool built by one of the smartest digital marketers you’ll ever come across.

Type in your competitor’s URL in the search field, and hit “Search”. It will give you a TON of information on your competitor. Things like which posts are doing the best, which posts are getting most backlinks, which keywords they’re ranking for, to name a few.

Let’s say that you want to write about podcasts. One of my favorite podcasters is Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income. He also writes a lot about podcasting (also passive income). If you don’t know him yet, do check him out, his stuff is always super informative and full of TONS of value.

Anyhow, when we search for Pat’s site on Ubersuggest, we get a bunch of information. If we scroll down to “Top SEO Pages”, we’ll see a list of his best-performing pages. That’s the information we need. You can click the button below this list to see more top-performing pages.

As you can see, Pat has a post on podcasting right around the top. It’s about how to start a podcast. Now click the button below to see more of his pages and get an idea of what else he has got going.

Repeat this process a few more times with different competitor websites to get a wide range of ideas.

And then, when you have a good grasp of what people are most interested in, pick a topic that you feel comfortable writing about.

Use Quora to Find More Relevant Topics

I love Quora. It’s a great place to find inspiration as well as ideas for what could be popular with readers. Some times people ask dumb questions just to jerk you around, but if you spend a little bit of time going through some of the questions in a particular topic, soon you’ll start to see a pattern.

For example, if you search for “Podcasting” on Quora, right away you can see some pretty interesting questions that you can easily turn into blog posts. For example, here are some questions I’m seeing right off the bat:

And here’s another example when you search for vegan lifestyle.

The thing about Quora is that these are real people asking the questions. So you know that there is a high demand for these topics. You just can’t go wrong with Quora!

Research Your Topic

The next step after you’ve decided on a topic to write about is to research the topic.

Maybe you already know a lot about the topic and you feel confident, but I still want you to take this step seriously.

ALWAYS see what others are writing about. Even if you know a lot, you may find a pointer here and there that you could add to your post.

Also, the goal is to stand out from the crowd. So, to ensure that you do, you have to know what others are saying. A crucial part of writing a killer blog post is that you have to do a better job than anyone else out there. So, after you’ve decided on a topic, open up a browser, search for the topic, do your due diligence and research!

For example, if you’ve decided to write on “How to monetize a podcast”, search that on Google.

The search result page, also often referred to as SERP, short for Search Engine Result Page, will show you all the top-performing pages. I want you to check out the first ten or so posts on the SERP.

Now, easy there. I’m not asking you to read through each and every word. Just go over the main points. I can guarantee that most of these posts are either some kind of how-to guide or list-type articles. So, you’ll have a decent idea of what the authors are talking about if you read through the headers and sub-headers for each of these ten posts/pages.

Make note of the following things:

• The post/page title
• How many points the author is hitting and what they are
• Content formatting (headers, sub-headers, images used, paragraph lengths, etc.)
• Post length (word count. You can use the Word Counter Chrome extension to see how many words there are in a post.)

Ideally, you’ll want to outdo your competitors on all or at least most of the aforementioned fields.

Craft a Brilliant Post Title

A brilliant post title isn’t sneaky, it’s not a clickbait (without substance), it’s not a paragraph, and it’s definitely not cryptic.

A good blog post title clearly communicates what the reader will get out of the post. It’s clear, concise, to the point. Remember, in most cases, potential readers only see the title, and sometimes the meta description (more about these later). Think of the title as the first impression. Whether a potential reader clicks on your title and then reads the entire post or not depends on this title. I’d argue that your post title is by far one of the most important pieces of your entire blog post.

Essentially, a post title needs to promise your audience the answer to their problem. A blog post, in turn, is a solution to a certain problem.

When crafting a title, think about the question you’re answering. For example, this blog post is my answer to the question, “How do you write a blog post?” I took that question, jazzed it up a little with a couple of fancy words, and… voilà!

Here are some popular post-titles if you’re the kinda person who likes having a “formula” for stuff:

1. The How-to Title

This is by far one of the two most popular types of title structures.

Think about it. When people search for things online, especially when they’re trying to solve a problem, or trying to learn something new, inevitably, the most common type of search term begins with “how to [fill in problem to be solved or skill to be learned]“.

2. The List Title

The other one of the most popular title structure is the list type titles.

Bonus Tips for Uber-Awesome Post Titles

There are some other ways you can jazz up a post title.

Use an adjective

Example: 15 Ridiculously Easy Tips for Whooping Up Healthy Dinner Every Night

Say something controversial

Example: 10 Reasons You Should Stop Doing Everything And Just Be Lazy

Well, sometimes these controversial titles seem a bit click-bait-ish. They pick people’s curiosity, and so they click!

That’s fine as long as you have something worth saying. For example, consider the example title above. Instead of just saying jibberish say something meaningful. Don’t just jerk our readers around, tell them why it’s not only OK but even desirable to take a break every now and then, and how stopping all work sometimes can be beneficial for us. Maybe it’s because our minds and bodies need times of rest. Maybe the period of productivity following these rest periods are even more rewarding somehow.

Always, always, always give value in your posts, that’s the one blogging rule you can never break!

Create an Ultimate Guide

To be honest, I feel like all the posts on TSB could be an ultimate guide. I mean, look at the length of these posts!

That aside, typically an ultimate guide is an in-depth post about a topic. The goal of an ultimate guide is to give your readers something so complete that they don’t even need to consult anything else.

These posts will, for obvious reasons, be longer, more in-depth, and cover a topic thoroughly.

Readers like an ultimate guide because then they don’t have to go digging related information and scrap together pieces of information from here and from there.

So, on your title, feel free to use the words “The Ultimate Guide”.

Example: The Ultimate Guide to Hosting a Creative Workshop

or

Example: How to Host a Creative Workshop: The Ultimate Guide

Write a Post That The Reader Can’t Pass Up On

All blog posts have three main sections:

• the introduction
• the body
• the conclusion

Remember what I mentioned earlier about exceeding your competitor’s post in every way?

Let’s revise what the areas are where you will need to excel:

• The title (we covered that)
• How many points the author is hitting
• Content formatting
• Post length

Except the first, all the rest of the three have to do with your post body.

You see, blog posts by nature aren’t literature.

Meaning, they’re not easy to read. A lot like textbooks, really. To make things worse, often bloggers even write in a way that you can expect from a textbook.

This happens for a variety of reasons.

Maybe they don’t read enough. So, all they’re familiar with are textbooks, and that’s the style they adopt when writing posts.

Don’t be like them!

Like seriously, I’m begging you! If you want to be a successful blogger, please, please, PLEASE take your writing seriously.

You don’t need to be like Maya Angelou or Joan Didion. Heck, you don’t even need to be like my favorite blogger Jon Morrow. But at least you should write in a way that’s not painful to read.

Try to infuse your personality in your posts. That’s one way to avoid sounding like a robot. Also, people want to get a feel for you as a person. So, letting your personality shine in your posts will make things more interesting for your readers.

Another tip in general: do not try to sound like a smart-ass. Do not use difficult words in every sentence. You may feel good about yourself when you write like a walking-talking-freakin’ dictionary, but your readers will flee. If you want them to stay, make your posts easy to read.

I’m not saying that you have to give up on your style, or that you cannot use beautiful words; you don’t need to dumb down your writing. Just don’t be intentionally difficult.

The best advice I can give you about writing blog posts is this: write like you talk. That’s really all you need to know. 

Write an Introduction that Hooks the Readers

Good writing, of course, starts with the intro.

Most online readers have a short attention span. Bore them and you’ve lost them.

So, pay special attention to the intro. Keep your beginning paragraphs short but interesting. Tease them, tantalize them, seduce them even!

Trust me, I know it’s hard. I have been blogging since May 2018, and I still haven’t quite got it.

Blogging is a work in progress. It will take time to be like Jon Morrow (owner and CEO of Smart Blogger), and Caroline Donofrio (I believe she’s an editor and/or staff blogger at A Cup of Jo), and you still may never be like them (not all of us are talented writers, unfortunately), but if you keep trying, you’ll improve for sure. That much I can guarantee!

So, practice your introductions. Write a few before you’re satisfied with one.

Some tips:

• Keep the beginning paragraphs short. No more than one or two short sentences.
• Try to connect with your readers. What’s their biggest dilemma in regards to the topic at hand? Hit the pain points early on in your blog post.
• Read other blog posts; posts that are written by great writers, and take note!
• Practice!

There are a lot of approaches to writing an introduction. Depending on who you’re speaking to, they may tell you about different ways to write an introduction.

For example, some may say that you should tell a powerful story. Short, but powerful, to drive a point home. Some others will say you need an emotional approach. Hit them where it’ll hurt! That certainly sounds like a way to grab someone’s attention. And then there are others who like to make their readers laugh from the beginning.

Here’s what I can tell you. You need to connect with your readers. Throughout your blog post, but definitely during your intro. Now whether you connect by telling a story that you know your readers will relate to, or whether you make them laugh by saying something funny or silly, is up to you. You do you. But do it in a way that connects you to your readers. Don’t just focus on yourself. Find a way to create a bridge between what you’re thinking and what your readers are expecting.

Write a Body That’s Full of Actionable Value

Actionable value–sounds kinda vague.

What I mean is, your post body should have a lot of value, and they need to be things that your readers will be able to act upon.

And this process starts with understanding your readers.

For example, if you’re writing about the vegan lifestyle, are you targeting those who’ve just turned vegan? Or are your readers seasoned vegans looking for more information?

Depending on how you answer that, you may have to position your content very differently.

Some things are OK to share with those who have experience in a certain thing but will be pointless when shared with the novices. They won’t be able to follow.

So, understand your readers, try to be in their shoes, and ask yourself, what do your readers need?

Aside from the content, here are some other useful tips:

• Break up your content into sections and sub-sections.
• Try and hit more pointers than your competitors. But only if they’re applicable. Do not just add filler content to make it seem like you have more to say. Readers aren’t stupid. They’ll see right through you and will abandon you faster than you can blink!
• Make sure your content is digestible. Again, that depends on having a good understanding of your audience. Do not give so much that overwhelms your audience. Also, do not share so little that your readers learn nothing new. Challenge them with your content, push them, move the bar higher, but not so high that they fall and lose all motivation.
• Use plenty of visuals where applicable. Humans tend to be visual beings, most of us at least. Images not only help us understand things better, but they also provide us a much-needed break from strings of texts.
• Use references and links. If you have another blog post that will help with the current blog post, link it. Even if you do not have supporting material, but someone else does, still link it. Often we don’t like to add external links because we’re afraid of losing our readers to other bloggers. STOP! You cannot force people to stay with you. Instead, give people as much value as you possibly can, and they will come back to you because of that.

Close Your Post With Positivity

End with a good note. Give your readers some feel-good vibes. Tell them how far they’ve come. Tell them how far they can still go with a little bit of effort.

Ask yourself, what would you have liked to hear when you were like your readers? For example, I blog about blogging as a beginner, so I always try to imagine how I was like when all of this was new to me.

No matter what niche you’re in, you’re likely solving a problem for your readers, or helping them overcome something. Give them the pep talk they need to keep going forward.

Also, the conclusion is a good place to insert a CTA or Call to Action. It doesn’t have to be anything ingenious. Something simple like asking them to sign up for your email list, or asking them to leave a comment with their thoughts on the post is sufficient.

Optional: Offer a Content Upgrade

Some blog posts can benefit from content upgrades — these are “extra” content that you offer your readers in exchange for signing up to your email list. It’s a great strategy to grow your email list too! Content upgrades do not have to be lavish. Simple checklists or workbooks will suffice, You can use Canva or Google Docs to create them.

Some other popular content upgrades are videos, workshops, templates, eBooks (or chapters from an eBook), etc.

I sell Canva templates for workbooks, worksheets, checklists, eBooks, etc. on my blog shop in case you’re not design-savvy yourself. You can use my templates to customize and create beautiful lead magnets and content upgrades.

A Note on Blog Post Length:

I often get asked how long a blog post should be. I don’t really like this question because it tells me that you’re more worried about appearances than actual substance. But in case you’re still wondering, here goes:

A blog post should provide value. Lots and lots of value. Remember when I said that you should aim to surpass your competitor’s posts? Well, you should do that with added value. Afterward, after you’ve written a stellar blog post with tons of useful resources, you can call it a wrap.

The result of all that effort is how long your blog post should be. Not shorter, not longer, just about however long it takes to make your point. If you can do that with 5-hundred words, great! If that takes you 5-thousand words instead? Then that’s that.

Edit The Hell Out of Your Posts

This is something I struggle with a lot. Editing.

First of all, it’s boring.

Second, it takes literally FOREVER to edit 3/4K word posts.

But still, it needs to be done.

Allow me to give you some editing tips:

1. Limit adverbs. They are the enemy of all writers, especially bloggers. As a blogger who is solving problems for their readers, you want to sound confident. Nothing kills confidence faster than adverbs. Take a pair of scissors and snip snip snip. Get rid of those nasty little things.
2. Get rid of grammar expletives whenever possible. Grammar expletives are sentences that start with here, there, or it, and are followed by a verb to be. Such sentences end up using unnecessary words and make your word count higher while doing nothing to add value. To add on top of it all, these sentences make your prose weaker. For example, instead of writing, “There are many bloggers who also offer coaching services“, you can write “Many bloggers offer coaching services.” See? Short, simple, and much better! Look out for these grammar expletives during your editing process.
3. Limit passive sentences. They’re just as bad as adverbs.
4. See if you can switch out verb-to-be’s or use stronger verbs. For example, instead of writing “I have been blogging“, you can say “I blog“. Also, instead of writing “I went to Tokyo last year“, you can write “I traveled to Tokyo last year.” In the first example, you got rid of a verb-to-be. In the second example, you used a stronger verb. Much better!
5. Separate longer paragraphs into shorter ones. Try not to have more than 4/5 sentences or 4/5 lines in one paragraph.
6. Add variation to paragraph lengths. Try not to have the same length for all paragraphs. Remember, one of your goals is to make sure your readers aren’t bored. Adding variations on paragraph lengths will help with that.
7. Make sure to break up your content into headers and subheaders.
8. Add a table of content for longer posts for ease of access to different sections. You can use a plugin called Lucky WP Table of Contents.
9. Finally, give it a once over by reading it out loud if you can. This usually helps me catch errors I didn’t catch when I was silent-editing.

Use Editing Tools

My favorite editing tools are Grammarly and Hemingway Editor.

Grammarly Pro [affiliate] is phenomenal. (They often have huge discounts on their pro plans too!) They not only check your spelling and punctuation, often they give pretty smart advice too, for switching out weak words with better words and such. Even if you don’t sign up for the pro version, at least make sure to check your writing with the free version. That is still better than nothing.

If you use Chrome or Firefox, install the browser extension/addon for the respective browsers. That way, even if you’re typing directly on your blog editor, Grammarly will still check everything in real-time.

The other tool I absolutely love is totally FREE! It’s called the Hemingway Editor. It checks for things like adverbs and passive sentences. It also gives you some pretty neat information such as grade level, words that you can replace with better words, etc. The grade level is cool, and you should aim to be under grade level 8. I prefer my writing to be around grade level 3-6.

Create Stunning Images

How many images you create depends on the kind of blog you have. However, you should have at least 1 image that you can use as a featured image for your blog posts.

And since I get most of my blog traffic via Pinterest, I create anywhere from 3-10 Pin graphics for each of my posts.

If you utilize Pinterest, you should have at least one Pin graphic. More if you’re trying to increase your traffic. You can learn more about getting blog traffic with Pinterest here.

Also, wherever applicable, try to use images/screenshots for demonstrations. If you’re writing guides or tutorials of any kind, your readers would benefit from visuals to guide them through the process.

Images also work great to add breaks to your posts. Breaks from the continuous text, which helps to keep your readers focused on your post.

I love using Canva Pro for all my blog graphics needs. The free Canva works also, but the pro version comes with over 2-million premium stock photos that are completely free to use with a pro account.

Free stock photos tend to be over-used by internet users, so they never stand out, and don’t get enough traction. Premium stock photos, on the other hand, cost a ton. If you create a lot of graphics, like I do, you’ll soon find yourself spending hundreds of dollars on images alone.

So, with a Canva Pro [affiliate] account, you can get access to all these premium, high-quality stock photos for completely free!

Also, make sure to add an alt (alternative) text to all of your images. An alt text should be a short but clear description of what the image is. You should always use alt text for all of your images because: 1) They’re good for SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, and 2) If someone is using a screen-reader, the alt texts will let them know what the image is about; it’s a good practice for a more accessible experience for your readers.

To add an alt-tag or alt-description to your images on WordPress, simply fill out the “Alternative text” or “Alt Text” field when you’re uploading an image.

Add Email Opt-in Form to All Posts

If you’re offering a content upgrade, you’ll definitely need to add an opt-in form. My preferred email marketing platform is ConvertKit. The reason I love ConvertKit is that it’s made for bloggers!

You can create multiple forms with ConvertKit [affiliate] for multiple opt-in freebies in a jiffy.

Other platforms make this process super complicated, but not ConvertKit!

Typically, on posts that have content upgrades, I like to add an opt-in form in three different places. One towards the top of the post, one at the end of the post, and another popup form. I usually set it (on ConvertKit) to show it ether after a few seconds, or after a reader has scrolled a certain percentage of a post/page.

If a post does not have a content upgrade, I still use a universal opt-in form at the end of all of my blog posts.

You can read my ConvertKit tutorial here if you need help.

Utilize On-Page SEO before You Publish

The SEO game is always evolving. I try not to get bogged down by it, and instead, I focus on creating content that I know will be valuable to my readers. I also focus on improving my writing quality. There’s no point in writing a sub-par post and then drive massive traffic to it because if your content isn’t good enough, people won’t stick around. All that traffic will mean nothing if you’re not giving value.

That said, some practices are so easy that not using them is just dumb.

Here’s what you should do:

Add Meta Title and Description

When you search for something on Google, it shows you the title of your post and a small description of what the post is about.

If left along, Google pulls the original title and the initial part of your post for these areas.

The problem is that often it’s not good enough.

Notice a few things on the image above:

• Google shows the title and a short description.
• When the title and/or the description are too long, Google shortens it automatically.
• The meta descriptions you see above do not resemble the actual introduction of the post, which is an indication that these bloggers are using an SEO plugin to add a custom description. You should do the same.

You have limited space so you should be more mindful of how these things are displayed on Google. After all, a lot of your future readers will find you on Google. Do all you can to give them a reason to click on your post and not somebody else’s.

You can use the Yoast SEO plugin to add a custom SEO title and meta description for your blog post.

Keep your custom title (the title often need not be different from your original title, but the description will more than likely be unique. If your post title is too long, use the Yoast title field to add a custom, shorter title) within 55 characters so they don’t get cut short by Google. For the description, try and keep it between 150-160 characters.

Optional: Add FAQ Schema Markup

This is optional, and maybe a slightly advanced step for some of you. but I wanted to share it in case you’re ready to take on a bit more 🙂

According to Neil Patel,

Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you put on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users.

Now, don’t get scared. I won’t make you add codes here. I just wanted to share what schema markups are. basically, they give search engines like Google additional information about your posts, which in turn makes your content richer in Google’s eyes (ie. algorithm…).

They will, in time, help you get in Google’s radar because Google will see that your content is richer than some others’. Because, good news! Most ordinary bloggers are not utilizing these methods. So, if you make a habit of incorporating some of these tactics, in time, you’ll start to rank higher on Google, provided you’re spending enough time crafting valuable, well-written content.

So, in this case, we will not add codes ourselves, but we will use a plugin to add a very specific type of schema markup. The FAQ schema markup, or Frequently Asked Questions.

You can add plain text FAQ on your posts, but that won’t tell Google (not yet, at least) that these are special, rich data. But with the right plugin, you can make these FAQ’s into rich data.

Here’s what a FAQ schema markup added blog post may look like on Google when you start ranking:

When you search for Digital marketing on Google, this is what shows up at the very top. See how Neil has incorporated FAQ markups and they’re showing up on Google. When you click on the down-arrows, they expand and show answers to the questions.

Google loves these rich snippets. So, if you practice adding them from the beginning, over time Google will start to bump up your content and rank them higher.

To add FAQ schema markup, add the plugin Structured Content. This will add a small icon above your post editor (note that I’m using the classic post editor and not Gutenberg; I don’t find Gutenberg very user-friendly for bloggers ).

To summarize, Add the plugin mentioned above. This will add an icon to your post editor. Use it to insert the FAQ’s or Frequently Asked Questions. Add the “multiple” option to add more than one FAQ. You can add this wherever you want on the post-editor. And that’s it.

Publish Post + Post Processing

This should take care of everything. Now you’re ready to publish your post. Once you have published it, give it another read. I somehow always manage to mind more errors as soon as I’ve hit the “publish” button.

It’s annoying, but I hear many others have had the same experience as I.

Once you have published the post, share it with your community. If you’re on Pinterest, which you should be, share the post on all relevant Pinterest boards. Share them on social media — on whichever platform(s) you’re using.

Also, send a newsletter to your email list; let them know that you have a new blog post. If you’re offering a content upgrade, add the content upgrade to your newsletter. Do not make your existing subscribers opt-in again for your content upgrades. It’s redundant, and you want to make sure you’re taking extra care of your existing subscribers.

Finally, I want you to request Google for indexing your new blog post.

For this to work, you should already have submitted your blog’s sitemap to Google Search Console. Yoast automatically generates a sitemap for you. All you have to do is add this sitemap it to Google Search Console.

Assuming you have already done this part, now all you have to do is go to Google Search Console, and then enter your blog post URL in the top search bar where it says “Inspect any URL”. Hit “Enter”. It can take a few seconds to a couple of minutes to inspect the URL. Once the inspection is complete, the screen will show that the URL is not on Google.

Now, make sure to click on the link that says “REQUEST INDEXING”.

This will let Google know that you have new content and it will prioritize indexing.

Note that this is an optional step. You do not have to do this step, because if your sitemap is on Google, it will automatically crawl your site periodically. However, requesting indexing will speed up the process.

---

Well, if you follow through, I’m pretty sure you’ll end up with a killer blog post for sure. feel free to let me know in the comments if this was helpful, and if you have any questions about any of the steps I’ve laid out here.

Also, do you want to get these tips as a checklist? Then sign up for my newsletter below and you’ll be able to download the checklist right away, along with access to my library of freebies!