Writing a lousy blog post should be the furthest thing from your mind. This is where a blog post outline comes into play.
Various factors go into a blog post, but some of the most common issues I’ve seen are poorly formatted and have no flow.
It’s essential to make sure your blog is easy to read for your future readers and easy for them to follow and comprehend.
You don’t want a blog post that jumps around from topic to topic, which won’t make much sense to your reader—giving them an excellent way to exit your blog.
If you are using your blog to build a business, the last thing you want is thousands of readers exiting your blog.
One of the best ways to write your blog posts is by creating an blog post outline, which makes writing easier and faster.
Utilizing a blog post outline allows you to stay on topic and prevents you from going way off-topic.
Below are the methods I use to create my blog post outlines, whether for this site or a client’s site.
1. Come up with a title
A great title is one of the best ways to capture attention and generate more clicks. I’m not saying to click-bate all you readers, but it should invoke curiosity.
Check out a recent post on how to write attention-grabbing headlines with examples.
Let’s go over a few steps to help you come up with a title that will blow the socks off your readers.
Understand your blog post goal
Before writing your title, make sure you understand the goal of your blog post. Is it to teach your audience something? Is it to get them to download or purchase something?
Understanding your main goal for the post is crucial to nailing the perfect title to stop your readers from their infinite scrolling.
We have all been there, scrolling without comprehending anything. Scrolling like a zombie, as I like to call it. 🧟♂️
Choose an SEO-friendly topic
Naturally, you want people to discover your blog post without paying for ads, right?
This step is where you need to do some keyword research using tools like:
- Ahrefs (my favorite)
- Ubersuggest (free)
- Google Keyword Planner (free)
A few things you should be looking for are the difficulty to rank (especially if your blog is new), search volume potential, and what sites are currently ranking on the first page of Google.
The winning keyword will have a low difficulty to rank, a decent search volume of 500 or more, and a few sites that have a DR (domain rating) of 30 or less on the first page of Google.
It’s time to write out some ideas
Just a heads up, your first title idea will rarely be the title you use for your post.
Dan Lok has a fantastic video on how to write compelling headlines in 3 easy steps. Check out the video below.
I recommend coming up with at least 5 - 10 headline ideas and refining them. The title of your post will be the most critical element to grab attention and increase traffic to your blog.
2. Write down major key points
Now that you have an attention-grabbing title or headline, it’s time to develop a few major key points. These will be the foundation and building blocks of your fantastic blog post.
What is a major key point?
A major key point is something that will be a key talking point for your post. Let’s say your post is on how to “Create an Instagram Carousel,” a few major key points would be:
- Creating an Instagram carousel
- What your first slide should be
- How to come up with unique content
- Where to find royalty-free images
When you are first writing down your major key points, it’s okay to let your brain flow. You will go through each one and refine, edit, or remove them in the next step.
3. Go into detail with each major key point
At this point, you should have a list of major key points. This step is where you will take each major key point and create smaller, more detailed bullet points. You can start to think of this process as sorting a pantry; each major key point will be in its category.
The average blog post that doesn’t need a ton of detail to comprehend will have 3-4 major key points.
If we were to take our post on creating an Instagram carousel, the refining point might look like this:
- Creating an Instagram carousel
- Benefits of using carousels
- How to create a carousel template
- What your first slide should be
- How to write a headline
- What image works best
- What layout works best
- How to come up with unique content
- Where to look for content ideas
- Where to find royalty-free images
- What types of photos work best
- How to make your image transparent
- Conclusion
4. Refine each section for a better flow
Your blog post outline is looking pretty good at this point! It’s not quite to the point where we can start writing quickly.
Refining is where a lot of blog posts go wrong. You can quickly jump ahead of your competition by taking the time to refine the flow of your outline.
Put yourself in your readers’ shoes; imagine reading a blog post that jumped from one topic to another without any logical flow. I bet you would exit the blog post faster than you can blink your eyes.
You might also add bullet points to your major key points, beefing up your blog post.
During this process, you will also start to think of other ideas. Maybe it’s a way to strengthen your intro or discover another major key point. It’s a good idea to make a quick note to remind yourself when you begin the writing process.
Look for things that don’t add value to your blog post and remove them. Your goal should be to solve your readers’ problems or answer their questions as quickly and fast as possible.
Final thoughts
Now that you learned how to create an effective blog post outline in four easy steps, it’s time to write your next post!
It will be a breeze to write with an outline rather than starting from a blank Google Doc. Trust me, I’ve been there wanting to pull my hair out, not knowing what to write next.
Outlines are also great if you will outsource the writing to a freelancer or agency. Saving you time and money.
