How to research a blog post content & write it in 2022

Hi I’m Praneeth Kumar.

In this blog post I will walk you through step-by-step on how to research a blog post and write it so that you can rank higher on Google and drive traffic.

This is the exact process I use before writing any blog posts and publishing them on my websites.

So without further ado let’s get started.

Here is a 30000 Foot view of the blog post.

how to research and write a blog post?

Normally there are three steps of publishing a blog post

1. Finding blog topics.
2. Research the blog content.
3. Writing and publishing content.

Now I am sure that you have found a decent blog topic for your blog post. Let’s take a look at how we can do the other work which is research and writing the blog post.

How to research content for your blog?

I will share with you my exact process and the process that most bloggers and digital marketers use in order to do research for the blog posts and publish content.

There are five major steps in this process. Let’s take a look at them in detail.

Let’s dive into it.

1. Understand the audience needs.

Normally you will only do research for your blog post when you have a good topic ready to start blogging about.

For example, here is a keyword or any topic.

How to start affiliate marketing without a website?

If I were to write a blog post on this topic ( infact, I have already written a blog post on the topic here) the first important thing you need to keep in mind is to always understand what the user is looking for when he types that keyword or phrase in Google.

You should get into the brain of the user and understand the why and the user’s problem.

In the above example, when someone searches for how to start Affiliate marketing without a website?

The user is looking for information regarding how they can start affiliate marketing without having to start or create a website on their own and it makes sense.

You can easily start affiliate marketing with other strategies apart from creating websites like using social media and many more in no investment which you can check here on my guide.

The keyword example that I have taken is called informational keyword which means the user is looking for some information when he searches those keywords in Google.

Here are some more examples of informational intent keywords,

• How to start a blog?
• How to tie a tie?
• How to learn Digital marketing?

Similarly there are other types of keywords with different search intent such as,

• Navigational keywords- when users search for keywords related to this in Google, they basically want to visit a website or a company like Facebook login or bluehost.
• Commercial keywords- it is a type of keywords where the user is looking for some information before purchasing products or service like Bluehost vs hostinger, semrush Vs Ahrefs, best email marketing softwares, etc.
• Transactional keyword- it is a type of keywords where users want to purchase any product or service like purchase iPhone 12, Bluehost coupon, etc.

Here is an image which explains all the types of search intent of keywords with their definition and examples in detail,

When it comes to blogging most people believe that it is just about finding a low competition keywords with high search volume and writing content that other blogs have already written but

if you don’t research and match the search intent behind the  properly then no matter how many backlinks you build or how good your content be it does not rank in Google or get traffic to your website as a whole.

Because, Google and any other search engines job is to rank highly relevant results and give right information for users which serves their needs when they search something in Google.

Relevance is the key factor to ranking in Google,it is what every search engine is relied on, not just Google.

Researching the search intent of the keyword is crucial because it helps you to get into the head and shoes of your audience and find out their problems and needs when they search for anything in Google so that you can create the right piece of content which matches their needs.

2. Google it.

Now after you understand the search Intent it’s time to just do a quick Google search of that keyword and analyse what type of blogs are ranking in Google for that keyword.

For example there is a keyword like, SEO tools.

There are different types of things you can think of like,

• If the audience wants to buy SEO tools.
• If the audience wants a list of SEO tools.
• Are audiences looking for pros and cons of SEO tools?

So, for such broad keywords, the intent is not specific.

So, you should do a Quick Search in Google to see what type of results that Google is ranking so that you can create a similar piece of content but of high quality and better than your competitors to be able to outrank them in Google.

For this keyword, SEO tools, Google has listed blog posts on the SEO tools list.

Apart from that there are other types of content formats for blogs you should keep in mind like

• Tutorials.
• How to’s.
• Why and what.
• Reviews.
• Roundups.
• Case studies.

Obviously depending upon what type of results that Google shows in search results you should choose that specific content format and use your common sense as well to determine which content format works the best for that topic.

So now, you know the intent and content format for the blog post.

This will also help you come up with the right headline or title for your blog by analysing the headlines of your competitors’ articles.

3. Educate yourself on that topic.

Now, it is the time to educate yourself on that topic

This is where having interest in the blogging topic that you choose is crucial because it helps you with having that passion on that topic, not feeling bored about it, learn more about selecting right niche for your blog here.

Inorder to educate yourself, you can follow the tips and strategies which I frequently use below.

• Just read the blogs that are ranking in Google for that topic, see how they have answered the topic, the perspectives and examples they used.
• You can visit forums like Quora and Reddit and others to come up with more ideas related to that topic which you can include in your blog post
• You can find industry papers and case studies on that topic Google scholar to do expert level research.
• If you are writing a blog post like a product review then you can purchase the product yourself, test it in different conditions and then write from your own experience of how the product performed.
• You can email or phone call to the experts of that niche to ask them for their quote and perspective.
• You can listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos of leaders and experts of that industry to get new insights and ideas for any blog.
• You can gather important data, case studies and statistics through google search like you can search your keyword + statistics or your keyword+case studies and use statista to get results.
• You can also survey people with survey monkey or run polls to gather data yourself in order to write the blog post.
• If you are a complete beginner to that industry or topic you can also buy any book or course to get more information on that topic.

Always keep in mind that whenever you are using an external quote from an expert, data and Statistics from other sites, research analysis from other official sites, images and visuals, always link out to them as a source,

it will increase your credibility of your blog with your audience and you won’t have to deal with copyright infringement issues.

There is no such rule that you should only start writing your blog as long as you complete the research process and educate yourself thoroughly on the topic, it depends upon different individuals and

in my case I will start getting the words out of my head as soon as I learn a few things about the topic only, it of course varies upon individuals.

By properly educating yourself on the topic even though if you are complete beginner then you can get ahead with the knowledge more than just a beginner on the topic and

you can be an eligible guy to write a blog post on the topic as long as it is not related to something like health and money because information regarding those topics needs to be written and

fact checked by a subject expert on the topic as any wrong and false information in that blog can hurt people money and life, such topics are called YMYL and you can learn more about it here.

4. Take notes.

You should do this alongside when you are educating yourself on the topic in the learning process only,

If you are reading a blog post or any industry papers to educate yourself on the topic then you can use highlighter Chrome extension or one tab extension to keep all the chrome tabs at a place.

If you are reading a book on that topic, you can take note in your journal or in Google Keep or ever note application.

You can highlight and save important points, statistics, sub headings, points you found while learning, which you don’t forget and can help you in the process of writing the post.

5. Create an outline.

Now it’s time to create an outline for your blog and start filling those outlines with paragraphs and write blog posts from whatever knowledge you have gained about the topic in the learning phase.

You can add multiple subheadings in your blog posts to create an outline which makes your blog easy to read and give you direction when you sit down to write the post.

When you are creating outline for your blog ask yourself this question,

What are the next couple of questions that people might have related to this topic and write those as your subheadings and answer those questions in your blog in detail to make your blog more comprehensive on that topic.

You can find other related questions to your target keyword using answer the public tool.

This is the exact process I use & most bloggers I have met and saw use to do the research for the blog post and start writing blogs that rank on Google.

Now let’s have a look at some suggestions and tips on writing a blog post

How to write a blog post?

Even though I have written a step by step guide on how you can write an excellent blog post, here are 9 key suggestions from that post.

1. Don’t worry too much about how you should write a blog post even if you are not a writer. Rather, think of writing a blog post as having a conversation with your friend online and always write like you talk to a friend.
2. Use Canva to create amazing custom images and infographics and add them in your post where necessary, a single image can easily replace 1000 words, images make your blog more engaging and hook the readers to read.
3. Create amazing headlines for your blog, you can use this tool for that.
4. Make sure you properly optimize your blog post with SEO like on page SEO.
5. Improve the readability of your blog content, most of the people who read blog posts on the Internet are beginners to any industry so if you have expert level knowledge and use all the technical words and jargon in your content, people might not understand your blog post better so remove all that jargon and this tool to improve readability.
6. Always build a common ground with your audience through sharing your stories, ideas and opinions in your blog posts so that it does not feel that your blog post is written by Robot and AI by a person and a human being, bring some emotion, show your personality and passion on the subject through your words in your post.
7. Save your time proofreading the content using grammar checker tools like grammarly.
8. Most of the people who read blog posts don’t actually read it in the first place rather skim it, so make sure that you use short sentences and paragraphs and use simple words to hook people reading your post all through the end.
9. Always try to publish long form content like 1000 to 1500 words blog posts as much as possible compared to a 500 words blog post which don’t rank well nor be much helpful for users.

You can take the help of many content writing tools listed here for writing better blogs.

Don’t focus on achieving perfection in every blog post you write, the beautiful thing about blogging is that you can always edit the post you published 5 years ago on your website and use it today.

This is not the same in YouTube and podcasts where you once publish content and you can’t get it back, so avoid perfection and publish content on your blog ASAP.

Don’t worry, you can easily make changes to your post in future.

It is not just about writing a blog post and publishing it. Rather, you should also consider promoting your blog on social media and your email list. Read this guide on how you can promote your blog?

If you are new to blogging then I would recommend you to read this guide on blogging mistakes you should avoid in order to succeed in blogging in 2021 and beyond.

Ending remarks;

These are all the tips, techniques and strategies I have for you right now in order to learn how to research and write a blog post.

Do comment down and let me know how you do the research for your blog post and write it.

Share the blog post if you have found it helpful. Sharing is caring.

I will catch you next time till then keep learning and keep growing.