Hard as it may be to believe, it is not much more than twenty years since we left behind those heavy encyclopedias and reference books in favor of the internet. Today, we have all the information we need just a click away, which is why writing a good post is crucial to getting our message across to everyone.
What is a post: a simple definition
But… what is a post? A post is each entry published on a website or on our personal blog. Posts are written regularly, and they are also reviewed and updated, so that they not only offer all the necessary information in a clear and concise way but are also enjoyable to read. The question is: how do you write one to succeed with your content?
With this article we aim to teach you the basic and essential guidelines for creating valuable, high-quality content that interests your target audience.
How to write a good post, step by step
To catch the attention of your target audience and also appear on the first pages of Google when someone runs a search, we need to follow a few guidelines.
Among them, we highlight having an eye-catching title, quality images and a text with valuable content that, besides answering the reader's possible questions, is written in a clear and direct way to capture the audience's attention. On top of all this comes SEO, so that the website gets optimal traffic and, along the way, appears among the top results after a search on Google or other search engines.
Too many new concepts? Don't worry. Just try to follow the steps below to cover every necessary aspect and meet everything you need to start writing good posts.
Step 1: Define your target audience
The first thing to keep in mind is that we cannot address everyone. That is why, to win the attention of readers and customers, we must create a common profile that reflects the demands and tastes of our target audience.
To do so, we must create a fictional representation of the customer and keep it in mind when creating content. To define our target audience even further, we also recommend including possible situations where someone would need to consult our post, and even creating a real scenario where the search or needs related to the post lead the user to our website.
Although it may seem like a complex process, we only need to ask and answer all those questions ourselves to build the user profile we are looking for, since the real purpose of this step is to get to know the user or customer.
Likewise, we also recommend checking social media and statistics, as well as articles similar to the ones you are going to write, in order to observe and assess what kind of post you need to catch their attention and meet their expectations.
Step 2: Define the content of your post
We will start by writing a short summary of no more than 2 lines of the topic our post will cover. We can also add a working title to help us define the topic even further. Remember that the post should be about a current topic that sparks users' interest. If it is a hot topic, all the better.
We will also need to research the topic at hand so we have all the information we need to write the post and, having informed ourselves, can add valuable content. To speak clearly it is vital to master the topic; that way the text will be much easier and more interesting to read.
With that done, we can start writing the post, keeping our target audience in mind at all times.
Step 3: Use SEO to optimize your post
To write a good post we need to work on SEO. That way we can rank our article well in search engines. To do this, you need to use tools such as Google's Keyword Planner and other finders of keywords to improve the website's visibility.
The keywords we choose must match the searches of our target audience. We should pick the ones that directly answer their possible questions or that are directly related to their interests.
For example, if a user searches Google for “Where to buy custom t-shirts”, our article should include the keyword “custom t-shirts” and, if possible, include it in the title in a natural, catchy way that invites them to click on our link.
To complete your article, you should find more similar keywords or ones that answer the doubts or needs of the reader who typed the search into the search engine. The more precise and accurate we are when choosing and using keywords, the better our article will rank and the larger the audience it will reach.
Accordingly, our articles should have an H1 or title that includes the main keyword and several H2s and H3s, as well as bold text to make reading easier and highlight the key information our post offers.
Whenever possible, we should repeat the keyword several times in the post, at least twice. And if we add images or photos related to the topic, even better. Likewise, you should also include external links and internal ones to generate more traffic and, at the same time, add more valuable content to the text. We should also keep in mind that if our title goes over 150 characters it will not appear in full in Google's search results.
Other tips for writing a good post
Writing a good post requires all the steps mentioned above to give our audience valuable and useful content. And although following these guidelines ensures we create a good post, we can still improve it by considering other aspects:
Review your own posts and those of your competitors
It is very important to see the impact of your post firsthand, whether through the comments left on your website or those found on the different social networks. Nowadays it is vital to be present on every social network to reach a larger number of users.
Learning from your competitors to assess their strengths and weaknesses will also give us the broader view we need to critique and assess the content of our posts realistically.
Use URL shorteners
Thanks to link shorteners, we can not only cut down the characters for proper use on other online channels such as WhatsApp or Twitter but also edit the link to include keywords that make our website easier for users to remember and search for.
Learn to format your posts
To improve the look of our posts and catch the attention of our target audience, besides creating a proper structure with an introduction, body and conclusion, we should use subheadings, images, bold and italics to make reading easier.
In fact, we recommend writing short paragraphs to make reading even more comfortable. With today's culture of immediacy, we must be able to deliver all the information as quickly as possible so we do not lose the user's interest.
