My 8-Step Guide to Writing Quality Content on Your Blog

Writing quality content is where a lot of new bloggers fail.

Every nice market is huge. There are so many other blogs to compete with. It feels impossible to be able to compete in just about any blog niche, doesn’t it?

The truth is that it just feels that way. That’s it. It’s not impossible to compete with bigger blogs. It’s not even that hard.

You just have to get your mind straight and strategize a bit.

Most importantly, you have to get into a habit of writing quality content on your blog. That alone will significantly help you compete on search results.

The following guide is an 8-step system that I invented for myself. It works almost every time I use it. I want to show you my system so that you can try it with your blog. If it works for you like it does me, then you’ll do a lot better in search results.

Why Writing Quality Content Matters in Blogging

Writing quality content is one of the most critical steps in blogging.

Without quality content, your blog will fail.

That’s because most niche markets are highly competitive. Take the blogging niche, for example; there are hundreds of blogs about blogging, some that are 10 times bigger than mine. If I just posted quick and generic content or something created by AI, chances are, I’d never be able to compete with the bigger blogs.

Your blog posts only work when they satisfy the needs and wants of your target audience in your niche.

The only way to satisfy their needs and wants is by writing quality content on your blog; otherwise, they’ll just go to a different blog to get what they want.

If you want to take blogging seriously, gain more readers, and make money, you must ensure that every post you publish is of the highest quality possible.

Make it a point to write the next blog post better than the last one you published.

 

8 Steps of Writing Quality Content for Blogging

The following 8-step formula is what I use for writing quality content on my blog. I use this system for practically every blog post I write. I’ve noticed significant success in getting on page one of Google Search results by using the following system. If it works for me, I’m certain it can work for you.

Step 1: Choose a Blog Topic

The first step in writing quality content for your blog is to choose a good topic.

The best topic is a topic that fulfils the needs and wants of your target market. You should definitely have a target audience and niche before you start writing a blog. These are the people who you provide content for. Write based on their needs and wants because that’s the content they’re seeking.

Once you determine your audience’s needs and wants, you can target a specific keyword or keyphrase for your blog content.

This is for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. You’ll use your chosen keyword or keyphrase in your content to help it rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs).

Research your keyword or keyphrase based on three important factors:

• Search Intent
• Keyword Competition
• Search Volume

Understanding each factor is critical.

Search intent is the intent that someone has when they enter a search term. What exactly are they looking for? You need to match that with your blog content.

Keyword competition is important because highly competitive keywords are going to be nearly impossible to compete against. Your best bet is to use a long-tail keyword which includes more words and has less competition.

Search volume is the number of searches that a keyword is getting each month. If the keyword doesn’t have that much search volume, that means people aren’t looking for it and it will not perform well to try to rank for it.

You want to match search intent, find a low-competition long-tail keyword, and ensure that the keyword is actively being searched for.

There are free ways to research keywords, but it’s often recommended to use a premium SEO tool like Uber Suggest, Keywords Everywhere, SEM Rush, or Ahrefs.

Once you find a compatible keyword associated with your chosen blog topic, you will complete this step.

 

Step 2: Conduct a Search

The next step in writing quality content for your blog is to search for the related content you will be competing against.

This is more than a simple search engine search.

The first thing you’ll want to do is open a private browser session. This will prevent the browser from recognizing you and provide results curated to your search preferences. You want search results to be as raw as possible.

You should use Google Search. However, you should also use a few other different search engines to help rank higher on those.

Take your keyword and perform a search for it. Try to use different variations of your keyword when performing the search. This will help you develop an even better understanding of the search intent, which is important.

This step is fairly simple to do and complete.

 

Step 3: Find Top 5 Search Results

Your next step in writing quality content for your blog is to locate the top 5 results from your searches.

You should do this for each search engine you’re searching on. I definitely recommend doing it on Google. Personally, that’s the search engine I exclusively rank for. I might occasionally use Bing, too.

Some factors apply to finding your top 5 results.

First of all, as stated above, make sure you’re using a private browser session so that your cookie setting is not identified and the results curated to your search behavior.

Next, make sure you choose organic results.

Organic results are non-sponsored listings. Don’t choose paid listings, sponsored listings, or advertisements as any of your top 5. You want organic search engine ranking, not sponsored listings.

The first 5 organic results are not always going to be your top 5.

Try to take the links only off of page one, too.

If you’re writing quality content for a blog, you should stick to the blog format. Look for the top 5 results that are using a blog or article format as their content distribution.

Your results should also be relevant to the keyword and topic that you’re trying to compete with. Some results may not have the same search intent. You can usually figure this out by reading the listing title and text provided on the search page.

Once you find your top 5 results, open those links up on their tab and then move on to the next step.

 

Step 4: Research the Top 5 Results

This is probably the most time-consuming step of your process of writing quality content for your blog.

 Start researching each of your top 5 links on Google Search (or other search engines).

You want to note the titles, different sections and their header titles, and a quick scan of the article’s information. Note this stuff down on paper or a word processor. This is vital research that you will use when writing quality content to improve your blog post.

If other articles in the top 5 posts have the same sections, make sure you note that, as well.

Any research you can get from your top 5 selections will be useful research.

 

 

Step 5: Research the Competing Post Format

You also need to research the format of each of the top 5 blog posts about your topic.

While you’re at it, take note of the majority or overall format being used on the first few pages of the search engine results.

The format is something like how-to guides, listicles, case studies, and writing formats like that.

You’ll want to use the most popular format because readers enjoy seeing it the most.

 

Step 6: Writing Quality Content in Your Voice

Now it’s time for the main part – writing quality content.

With your research and the dominant posting format, you’ll write the same content as the other top five on your blog post.

Now make sure you cover every topic they covered, especially topics that were covered in multiple posts of the top 5.

Write the content in your voice, in your own words, and as if you’re speaking to someone face-to-face. Don’t plagiarize. Don’t copy and paste. Write about the same topics but completely in your own words.

You need to include the same content because you’ll be providing a post that is just as good as the competition, covering the same information but in your own words. You should also try to be a little bit more detailed than the rest of the competition.

After that, don’t publish yet; you have more writing to do.

 

Step 7: Fill in the Missing Gaps

Now, to make your post unique, you’ll be writing quality content by filling in the gaps.

Continue to research each section of the top 5 articles.

You need to determine what information was not included, but it would be really helpful to the reader. These are the gaps. You need to fill in the gaps.

This will set your article apart from the rest. That’s because you share the same content, but you also include information that the competition is not including.

You really have to make this part perfect.

You need to fill in the gaps with information that people actually want to read – not fluff.

Usually, after I write one of these articles, they’re around 3K words longer than the other top 5 articles. The article, in general, is usually 8k to 15k words. But if you want to compete on page 1, you have to do it this way.

Provide information in the gaps, meeting the needs and wants of your audience.

 

Step 8: Edit, Publish, and Promote

The last step is important when writing quality content on your blog.

Edit your article to include SEO strategies.

Please put your keyword in the following locations on your article for best practices:

• Title
• H1
• A few H2 headers
• In the first ALT tag of your first image
• The URL slug
• The first sentence in the first paragraph
• A few more times throughout the post

Make sure the keyword blends in and doesn’t sound weird when reading it out loud.

If you use WordPress, I recommend Yoast SEO for auditing your posts for SEO needs. Just don’t feel like you need to match their keyword amount suggestions perfectly. Don’t use it too much, but don’t feel like you’ve not used it enough if you’ve at least placed it in the locations suggested above.

Edit your post for grammar, spelling, and formatting mistakes. I use Grammarly to speed up this process and catch mistakes that I might miss.

After you’re done with SEO and editing, publish your post.

Promote your post as you usually do.

It might take a while, even up to a year, before your article hits page one, but personally, I have found this strategy to be the fastest way to do it.

But as I said, writing quality content during the process is required – no fluff allowed.

 

Final Thoughts About Writing Quality Content

This concludes my 8-step process for writing quality content on your blog that will help you get listed on page one. If you follow this process for most of your blog content, you’ll likely see some significant success in terms of search engine ranking.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If you did, please share it with others to help support me in writing it.

You can also support me with a one-time donation if you’d like to.

If you want to get more out of your dollar, head over to my private online community, Serious Bloggers. There, you get access to interesting daily resources, upcoming courses, one-on-one sessions with me, and upcoming webinars, all about blogging exclusively. I really hope to see you there!

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.