10
Essential Elements
for the
Best Blog Post
Writing the best blog post is more than just choosing a great topic and publishing your post.
Many blog posts online have more potential than what was invested in them. Many of these blog posts are not seen because the authors didn’t take the time to perfect them.
I’ll admit that writing the best blog post isn’t as easy as it may seem. A lot goes into creating great content. You have to work, especially with such a busy competitive internet.
But if you get the essential elements down, creating that perfect blog post will be much simpler.
In this article, I’m going to explain what these essential elements are. So, let’s get right into it.
1. It all starts with a perfect topic
Choosing an ideal topic is the first essential element of the best blog post.
You must choose a well-researched topic that solves a problem or answers a challenging question.
It’s best to stick with topics related to the industry or niche that you blog about. It’s best to have a blog that is specific to a niche.
It’s good to focus on keyword research at this point and plan out your search engine optimization strategy for your best blog post idea.
2. The Best Blog Post needs a Perfect Title
You want to pay attention to this essential element.
A good title is required to create the best blog post.
Not just any title, either. You need to create a title that grabs the reader’s attention, hooks them in, and makes them want to click on it for more.
One of the best ways to help come up with the perfect title is to look at the top results on a search query and learn how perfect their titles are. How can you apply their practices to crafting a title for your perfect blog post?
3. The First Sentence Matters the Most!
After you create a compelling title, you need to focus on creating an effective first sentence.
That first sentence should be made to keep your reader hooked on the blog post.
Carefully consider what to put in your first sentence. It should be just as good as your title but with something more. Each sentence a reader reads should give them something more each time.
And on that note, any other sentence that follows needs to be audited, like the first one.
4. Make Sure All Headings Count
Any headings you add to your best blog post need to count.
This means they need to be just as good as your title. It’s what will catch your readers’ attention and keep them reading.
You don’t want the heading to give away what the content under it provides, but you want it to remind the reader that the answer is in the following sentences.
Remember, a sub-heading should be just as good as the title, but it should also continue to provide something new for the reader.
5. Big Articles are Like Books – Treat them that way!
If you plan to write an extensive article with thousands of words, include book-like elements.
A table of contents will work wonders when creating your best blog post. Google likes them. Readers like them. Websites looking for external links like yours like them.
It just makes your blog post look professional and easy to navigate.
The idea is to make a longer post easier to read for your consumers.
6. Your Best Blog Post needs the Best Pictures
Add great-looking pictures to your blog post to help catch your readers’ attention.
We, humans, love to see captivating visuals. Especially when they’re related to the niche that we’re reading about. If you’re scrolling through social media, it’s usually a high-quality picture that makes you stop the scroll and look.
Adding these visual beauties will help keep a reader on your content.
Make sure the pictures you use make sense of the content you’ve created.
7. Add Links
Add links to your content.
Add internal links. Add external links. But make sure any link you add is relevant to your content. Ensure the content on those links is of the highest quality.
This is the perfect time to spotlight other related blog posts you have created. It helps to connect your content together this way.
Make sure the anchor text explains what the reader is going to see. Don’t just add a “click here” link.
8. It’s About Quality, not Quantity
Don’t focus on the number of words you need to use for your blog post.
Focus on the quality!
If you want to write a 1,000-word blog post, it needs to be a 1,000-word quality blog post. But if you can only write a 500-word quality blog post, then it should be just 500 words. Don’t use more words because you think you need filler content. That doesn’t get you, readers!
Your best blog post consists of quality content. It doesn’t consist of being the longest post about the topic.
9. Your Conclusion Should Be Copy
Don’t give away your point at the conclusion!
Many bloggers make this mistake. They summarize the entire post in the last paragraph, and the reader scrolls down to get what they need and skips the rest.
We want to ensure the reader gets the information they’re looking for. But to waste our time writing our best blog post to be only read at its very end is pointless.
Use copywriting tactics in your conclusion. Get the reader who scrolls down to read it to go back up and read the rest of what your blog has to say. Make sure they understand that by reading the above text, their problem will be solved.
10. End Your Best Blog Post with a Call-to-Action
It’s best to end a blog post with a call to action that will benefit you.
Maybe it’s an invitation to your paid course. Perhaps it’s a plea to subscribe to your free newsletter. Maybe it’s a request to follow you on social media.
Whatever you choose should be an action that somehow benefits you and your blog.
And it’s OK to have a different call to action on other blog posts.
These were ten essential elements of creating your best blog post. The ten elements are my ten commandments for making successful blog posts. If you follow the recommendations above, I promise you will have successful blog posts. For more blogging tips, be sure to follow me on Twitter.
About the Author
Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.
Super tips here Shawn. Blogging is a skill. Mastering the tips you note above allows you to hone and own that skill. Quality does win over quantity but something neat happens when you blog for 5, 10 or 15 years; you nail down both quantity and quality. Each post is quality but over 5 years, you publish a high volume of quality content. Doing that expands your presence and credibility in a wonderful way. Excellent blogging tips. Keep up the great work.
I definitely agree with that. My bigger blog is six years old. Most posts on it rank page 1 on Google. After year 5, getting traffic and better search ranking became much easier. This blog is still relatively new, and while I see positive results from blogging every day, it will still take some time to grow it up to the level my other blog currently maintains. Too many people wish for success overnight. But it takes work and a few years to get it going without a budget, that is.
Thank you for your great comment! 🙂