Creating unique content that stands out from millions of other reading options has become more difficult than ever. Just take a look at the internet life stats on the millions of blog posts that are published per day. Every blogger has to struggle hard to get at the top of the ever growing blogosphere. But, it takes more than simply good content or great design to create a brilliant blog post. Even if you have a top rocking topic for your audience, there is still a lot to remember for crafting a solid blog posts worth reading.

The following guide & checklist for bloggers will help you to write blog posts and optimize your blog posts and to promote your blog posts in less time for more traffic and conversion on your blog. To make your blog stand out you have to make sure that your blog content is awesome, catchy and sticky. You also have to make sure that your blog posts are user friendly as well as SEO- friendly. Most importantly, you have to promote your blog and you posts like hell, using social media, content syndication and networking with influencers.


Once you have written an new blog post and are ready for publishing just take a short break and check, if you thought of everything to turn your post from good to great. If you have put so much effort into writing your post, you should not miss to make sure you have thought of everything to brush up your post for your audience as well as for the search engines.


Get your free complete guide & checklist on How to Write, Optimize and Promote Blog Posts

This article provides you with a comprehensive guide and checklist to tick off before and after you hit the publish button. So, you don't forget the basics that will turn a good post into gold. The checklist is loaded with tons of useful tips for writing, formatting, SEO-optimizing and promoting your posts. And, we also included tips for tools to help you tackle your tasks in no time to make your writing life a lot easier.

This is your ultimate guide on How to Write Perfect Blog Posts, Optimize your Posts for SEO and Promote Your Posts for Top Performance. A free down-loadable checklist will help you to cross-check you have not forgotten anything before & after hitting the publish button.

# 1 Make sure your Blog Post Title is Catchy

Every great blog post starts with a captivating title to grab the attention of your audience. Make sure you have a catchy headline and your introduction will attract your target audience right away. Write something that makes your readers want to read the rest of your post.



There are several types of article headlines that are catchy by nature:

- How To  . . .  is something many people ask and actually enter as search phrases into the search engines. Use these for basic help content, that gives advise for frequently asked questions or for a - Step-by-Step Guide.
- Listicles with Numbers: 3,5 or 7 Steps, Tips, Tricks, Tactics, Secrets, Things, Ways, Reasons, or odd numbers like 19, 37 or 101 Ideas, Principles or Facts is always something people like to read and to share.
- Strong Adjectives like Effortless, Fun, Incredible, Essential, Killer, Painstaking
- Freebies: A Free Checklist, Whitepaper, Step-by-Step guide, Infographice, Template is always tempting
- Arguments: Dos and Don'ts, Pros and Cons
- Triggers and Promises: What, Why You Should Never . . . , When is the Best Time to. . . , How I Managed to . . .
- Best Practice: advice or tips from experts or professionals of the niche your target audience looks up at.




An example:
17 Ways to Grow Your Blog From Top Bloggers, is a blog post title from Social Media Examiner that hits a top position in the search engines when searching for the keywords tips and blog, because a lot of bloggers are searching for tips to grow a blog.


These are the reasons why this headline is particularly good:


    1. It's a listicle post with numbers: 17 Ways which is very likely to hit the search results. Search engines love listicles because people love them.
    2. It includes keywords (“grow blog”), which are search words / phrases the target audience is very likely to search for.
    3. Best Practice: Top Bloggers. Every blogger looks up at top bloggers and wants to become a top blogger himself or herself, so the headline addresses the target audience as well as the target keyword.
Your Magic Headline Formula
If you are looking for a Magic Headline Formula, try this one: Take your Keywords and than add one or two or tree of the following headline catalysts:
Numbers/Triggers/Arguments/Freebie + Strong Adjective + Promise/Warning/Best Practice 

When creating your title, always think of the specific audience you want to address and what your targets are most likely to enter as search terms when they are looking for the topic you are covering in your post.
The more specific your topic and title is focused for a specific audience or niche, the more likely it will hit the target. Don't try to reach out for everyone, or your will end with no one.

The perfect blog title consists of 6-8 word with 54-57 chars and your focus keywords.

Always begin and end every post with a focus on your headline and don’t publish until you've got a catchy headline.
Tools to use for creating perfect headlines

Try the Portent Content Idea Generator is a creative blog title idea generator. If you enter a keyword the tool will come out with some serious, some fun and cheeky suggestions. Though you should not take it too serious, it is worth giving a try, especially if you have a bad day or a writing blockade. However, the tool will inspire you and brighten up your day.
Try the Seopressor Blog Title Generator to get some ideas on creative titles for your blog posts. You can enter and describe your focus keyword and the tools comes up with a couple of strong headline titles surrounding your keyword.




 
# 2 Write a Descriptive Blog Post Introduction with a Hook
The second most important part of your blog post is your subline or introduction of your blog post, depending on the structure of your article. A subline is an extension of your headline adding more important information. The introduction is the first paragraph outlining the topic of your post. Use the introduction to tell the key arguments of your topic without giving away the suspense.


Start the introduction of your blog post with:

interesting facts, stats or arguments to rise eyebrows
a controversial argument
a question
telling your readers "Why" you are writing the post, or "What" they learn by reading it

 
To make your introduction search engine friendly keep it less than 160 characters. Or write the first 160 characters of your introduction so, that it can double act as meta description snippet. The meta description snippet is the text which is displayed underneath your headline in the search results. Introductions as well as meta descriptions can be any length, but search engines generally truncate snippets that are longer than 160 characters. So make sure to use an introduction long enough to be sufficiently descriptive, but keep it within the 160-character limit.


An Example:
The following checklist will help you to write and optimize your blog posts in less time and to promote your blog posts for more conversion and traffic on your blog. 



Write 1-3 well created introductory sentences to hook your readers into reading your post and make sure your keywords are included in the first 160 characters of your post and meta description.
 

 
# 3 Maximize the Readability of your Blog Post

The average attention span of a human reader in today's news media is less than 8 seconds and that is less than the attention span of a gold fish. Most people scan a post to see if it sounds worth reading, and only then they decide if they’ll actually read the whole post. By overwhelming your readers with a wasteland of big text blocks without subheadings, you’re making it quite hard for people to grasp what your post is actually about. A well organized and structured post is more fun to read. The better you break up and divide your content into smaller sections with strong subheadings the better you help your readers to grasp your content in a minimum of time. A well structured blog post helps to maximize readability for your readers as well as for search engines to index your blog post for matching searches.
Perfect length of a blog post
There is no perfect length of a blog post. Short posts can be as effective as long posts, depending on your topic and target. However, the minimum length of a blog post - recommended for SEO - is about 300 words. Everything above 1,000 words is regarded as long form post. According to Research by serpIQ Google ranks content that has more than 2,000 words better than content with fewer words. Research by Moz shows that articles with 3,000 – 10,000 words get twice as many shares than content with 1,000 words. With 4,000 to 8,000 words you will hit the average of an in-depth blog post. Whatever the length of your blog post, make sure you're addressing your main keywords throughout your text and you organize your content well.




Bring your copy into easily digestible titbits

Keep your post as short as possible and as long as needed to get to the bottom of your topic.
Create strong subheadings focusing on a single aspect of your topic, including top keywords.
Organize your post in sections with less than 300 word each and add a strong subtitle to each paragraph.
Keep each paragraph with less than 150 words.
Use italics and bold to highlight important sentences, keywords or important terms, but don't overuse it
Include lists with bullet points to stress your key facts and tips.
Keep your sentences short and easy to understand.
Use a language that meets the linguistic usage and tonality of your target audience.
Always proofread your blog post and check for grammar and spelling mistakes.



Tools to use for checking the readability of your blog post

Use the  Yoast SEO plugin to help you with a basic readability checker for your text structure (free & premium)
Try the Hemmingway app to check the readability and your style on a wider scope (free)
Use Grammarly  to eliminates grammatical errors and spelling mistake and enhance your writing  (free & premium)

 

 
# 4 Use the Power of Images and Videos as Visuals for your Blog Post 
 “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Thats old knowledge, but images and videos have never been more important than in the age of social media. For statistical proof, take a look at Hubspot's collection of stats on the importance of visual content. Photos, infographics, diagrams, charts, tables, screenshots, slides and videos can help your readers understand abstract ideas or complex topics. By using visual media, the readers will understand better the concepts that you are demonstrating. However, your image should always be relevant to your topic and directly relate to the context in which they appear. Images and videos also helps you grab a lot of traffic from image search engines like Google image search or YouTube. And, they will compel users to share your content on their social media networks. images and videos also helps you to drive more traffic from social media sites to your blog or website.
How to use images and videos for your blog post

Include at least one image near to the top our your post.
Always include keywords in image names or video titles, image’s Alt tags and description.
Define your featured image with a strong and descriptive visual



Tools to use for creating awesome images, infographics and videos


Use Canva to create super fast and easy visuals and infographics for your blog posts. Canva offers a huge variety of templates, layouts, photos and icons you can use to create professional looking images. (free & premium)   
Try Movely to create animated videos (starting from $ 5 per month)
Use the SEO friendly images plugin for your blog to automatically update all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes for SEO purposes. Additionally this makes the post W3C/xHTML valid as well. (free & premium).
Try Zara4 image compressor as web app or as plugin to optimize your image sizes in order to reduce impact on page speed due to


 

#5 Use Internal and External Links in your Blog Post
Links are the backbone of the internet and so are links for your blog posts. Interlinking your blog posts turn your blog into a well structured encyclopedia on your topic. External linking connects your blog to the blogosphere and provides the base for backlinks to your blog.
Use internal links to your past posts, when you are referring to a topic you've written about before. This both gives your readers more information about your topic, but it also hooks people to your site. Linking to related posts will make your post stronger because it shows some authority on the subject. 






Internal links for your blog posts
Your internal link structure is also important for your ranking in the search engines. Read Yoast's post on how to use cornerstone articles, if you want to know more about this.

Use at least 1-2 internal links to link to past post.
Write a descriptive anchor text for the link to make it clear where the link leads to.
Always use keywords in your anchor text.
Only use links that are relevant to your current topic.
Don't use too many links to irritate or mislead your readers.


External links for your blog posts

Also use external links to other posts, if you are citing or referring to a topic someone else has written before. If you cite content from key influencers on your topic and link to their site, you automatically give credit to their websites. You can also use this to reach out or automatically ping their website. If they like what they see, they may be willing to share your content or link back to you.

Use at least 1-2 external links in your blog post.
Only link to websites or articles which actually add value to the topic you are writing about.
Link to websites with a good page authority or domain authority. Look out for influencers in your industry or in your niche.

Tools to use for internal and external link strategies

Use the WordPress default feature to interlink your blog posts. When you select a text and click on the hyperlink symbol to add a link, you can search for your published posts. You can select your post and link it directly with an anchor text. Or, you can search for your post by keywords.
Try the Internal Link Generator plugin to automatically create links and anchor texts for your blog posts.
Check the domain authority for your external links with Moz open site explorer.


 

#6 Use Strong Call-to-Actions to Make your Readers Stick to your Blog and to Generate Leads 
Once you have managed to drive people to your site, your want them to stay as long as possible. You need a strong call-to-action leading your readers to take an action after they finish reading your blog post and before leaving your site. The best way to do this, is to guide them to further readings on your site. Also, ask them to comment on your post or to discuss their opinion on the topic. To collect your readers e-mails and to generate leads to follow-up, invite your blog visitors to subscribe to your blog or take away some bonus material by leaving their e-mail address. Most people need a little nudging for doing something. So, if you want your readers to do something before leaving your site, then say so with a strong call-to-action (CTA).
How to hook your headers to your blog


Link to other related posts on your blog at the end of each post to make your visitors read on and browse your site.
Add a question at the end to encourage your readers to comment on your post or discuss your topic.
Invite your readers to subscribe to your blog.
Encourage your readers to subscribe to your social channels.
Provide a free download to let your readers take away something from your blog, a white paper, a checklist or an ebook with additional help content to follow up.


Tools to use for sticky content and inbound leads



Use the Icegram plugin to collect leads with all kinds of forms you can create for your blog, white papers, checklists or ebooks. (free & premium)

Use the Email Subscribers plugin to get your visitors subscribe to your blog. (free & premium)
Try the Related Posts for WordPress to automatically show related posts at the end of each post without any impact on your page speed. (free & premium)
Get the Content Aware Sidebars plugin for your blog to add sticky content to the eye of your readers. This plugin lets you display custom sidebars on any post, page or category of your blog. This helps you to displaying content specific adds or offers to your sidebar for different contexts. The sidebar manager lets you create post sidebars, page sidebars, category sidebars and more. (free & premium)




#7 Optimize your Blog Posts for SEO

 Just remember, everything you learned in #1-6 will make your blog post SEO-friendly. If your target audience likes your post, the search engines will love it. However, there are still some more steps your should take for better matching search results.
You don't have to be a SEO professional to tackle SEO. Some minor adaptions to your text and structure will suffice to make your post readable and searchable.

There are basically two major principles for a top ranking in the search engines:

valuable content that attracts your target audience,
relevant keywords that meets the search terms of your target readers.

How to place keywords in your blog post
Use keywords your target audience actually uses for searching when looking for information on your topic. Integrate your keywords in your:

headline / title
introduction / lead
subtitles
copy
images and videos
links and anchor texts


How to optimize your headline and introduction of your blog post for SEO
Make sure title and introduction meet the requirements for the 'title' and 'meta description' displayed in the search engines:

Write a title with less than 57 characters and include your keywords. This makes sure your title is properly displayed and gets not truncated in the search engines.



Make sure the first 160 characters of your introduction cover the essence of what your post is about and also include your focus keywords so that it can double act as meta description and snippet for your post.

Tools to use for SEO optimizing your blog posts

Use the Yoast SEO plugin to help you with basic SEO-optimizing your blog and your posts.  (free & premium)
Try keywordtool.io or ubersuggest.io to find keywords related to your topic. (free & premium)
Use the SEO friendly images plugin for your blog to automatically update all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes for SEO purposes. Additionally this makes the post W3C/xHTML valid as well. (free & premium)







#8 Make it Easy for your Blog Visitors to Follow, Like and Share your Blog Posts and Images
In order to connect your blog to your social media profiles, you should make it easy for your visitors to follow you on your social channels and share your blog posts and images to their own communities.
Placing social media follow buttons on your site can increase the number of followers on your social profiles. Placing social media share buttons at the top and at the bottom of each posts will encourage your readers to share your post. Also encourage your readers to share your images. If you have an infographic, invite your readers to share them or embed them on their blogs by displaying the embed code. Always use strong call-to-action like "please share" to nudge them into action.
How to encourage your visitors to follow, like and share your blog posts and images

Add social media buttons for your social channels at the top of your blog, in your footer and on your contact page and add call-to-action: Follow me.
Add social media buttons and bars at the top and at the bottom of each blog post.
Use social media buttons on your images.
Display an embed code for your infographics and invite your readers to share (see an example).
Always use strong call-to-actions like please follow, please share.

Tools to use to make it easy for your visitors to share your posts

Try the Simple Social Icons plugin for your blog to display simple social media icons to follow you on social networks.  (free & premium)
Use the Better Click to Tweet plugin for your blog. The plugin adds ready to use Twitter boxes to your posts or pages. (free & premium)
Try the GetSocial Social Share Button or the Social Warfare plugin for your blog to add social media buttons to your post. There are multiple design options to choose from more networks, designs and analytics options. (premium)
Get the Pinterest Hover Pin It Button plugin for your blog to make your blog post images pinnable (free)
Use the WWM Social Share On Image Hover for your blog, if your want to offer your readers more options to share your images on social media. The plugin adds 6 social media icons on your blog post images: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ Pinterest, and Tumblr. It will show the social media icons automatically on hover the post images on your site.  (free & premium)


 

Find out how to promote your blog post right! Read the full article and get the free checklist here.