This post was originally published on June 29th, 2017. Updated for September 29th, 2020.
Does your business have a blog? According to the latest stats, businesses that blog get 55% more visitors to their website, and 71% of business bloggers reported increased visibility in their business’ industry due to their blog. So if you’re not already blogging, you might want to think about adding this to your marketing strategy.
It’s not enough just to write great content though; you want to write a blog post that is easy to read, looks good, and has consistent formatting and branding. Here are a few steps to write a good-looking blog post.
#1. Keep your post to a good length
This is neither a Twitter post nor a novel — aim for a nice reasonable length that expands on your topic but doesn’t overwhelm your reader. 300 words is considered the minimum length for a post since this is the minimum amount of content required for search engines to accurately “read” your blog post. Feel free to write up to about 1,300 words if you have a lot to say, but you probably don’t want to write those longer posts every week (both for your readers and for your sake).
#2. Use headings and subheadings to organize your content
Help your reader out by organizing your content within relevant headings and subheadings. This helps make your blog post look neat and organized, and is also much easier to read. Using headings and subheadings is also helpful in terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as these help Google figure out what your post is about.
#3. Include relevant images to make your post look great
No one wants to read a long endless paragraph with word after word and no pictures. Include at least one image in each post to catch your reader’s eye, expand on your content, and/or illustrate a point. Be sure to fill in the image’s alt-text with a description when uploading the image to your website. This is important for accessibility as well as SEO — the alt-text is what both screen readers and search engines will read in order to know what your image is about.
An important thing to keep in mind when using images in your posts is to make sure you have the right to use the image. There are lots of great stock photo sites out there where you can find free or cheap photos and graphics that are labeled as ‘ok for commercial reuse.’
#4. Keep it consistent
Keep the formatting and branding of your posts consistent so that your readers recognize your branding and know what to expect from your posts. You may want to set up a branded template for your blog post graphics. This template would include a space for the photo or graphic for each post, as well as your branding elements. Branding elements could include your logo, company colors, company fonts, or any other elements that would help create a consistent look and feel for your blog images.
Ready to get blogging? We can’t wait to see how you write your next good-looking blog post.
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