How do you write a blog for beginners when you’re not a writer

Hi I’m Praneeth Kumar.

In this blog you will learn how to blog when you’re not a writer and How do you write a blog for beginners?

So without further ado let’s get started.

Here is a 30000 foot view of the blog post.

Does blogging require skilled writers?

No absolutely not,

blogging does not require you to be skilled in writing.

Here is the deal,

Blogging changed my life quite a lot.

As a 18 years old adult, 

I have never imagined that I would start anything like this project in my life before.

Blogging helped me know my strengths, weaknesses, passion and interest.

Blogging has given me a voice and strength to communicate my ideas to people all across the globe, and live a life in my own.

• Read why you should start a blog?

It wasn’t like this earlier, 

I was very introverted back then in my school and college days and afraid of talking to people, and when I got to know about Blogging, I thought it is impossible to start.

Hey, I am not a writer. How can I write blog posts and communicate my ideas with people whom I never know?

Slowly, reading, analysing and practicing some popular blogs on the internet.

I have learnt the most important lesson,

YOU DON’T NEED TO BE PERFECT OR EXPERT IN WRITING TO START BLOGGING OR ANYTHING IN LIFE AS LONG AS YOU ARE OPEN TO LEARN THINGS.

Take my example,

Before starting this blog, I was just another 17 years old kid or adult studying high school education and mostly was not good with English writing but I learnt an important lesson.

You don’t need to be a great writer to be a blogger, you need to be a good communicator to be a good blogger.

Look,

every time you write a blog post you are actually trying to communicate with the real human beings who are searching different queries online on Google and social media so you can solve their queries with your blogs, share knowledge and expertise with them.

It is just that simple.

The best way to approach Blogging is,

Whenever you have started writing a blog post, think of it as you have a solution to a problem that your friend is facing and you are trying to explain the solution to that problem with your friend online.

It is basically a conversation that is happening online.

Blog posts don’t have to be formal or anything like that, 

If you can be informative, friendly, and approachable in the writing style of your blog posts, 

80% of battle is finished for writing blog posts without having any expertise in writing.

But along with these things you need to manage and follow some important rules of writing blog post which I am going to share you in the next section below.

How to blog when you’re not a writer & a beginner?

Look,

Now that you know that blogging does not require you to be expert in writing,

You just need to be a good communicator,

Here are 15 tips on how to blog when you are not a writer and having no experience in writing anytime before.

I practice all these tips and strategies which I am going to share with you in every blog post I write because as a matter of fact I am also not a skilled writer or experienced in writing before just like you guys.

1. Know your audience.

The number one thing all bloggers do before writing a single word in the blog is this.

You should know your audience well before writing a single word in the blog post to those audiences.

Well, you might be wondering how do I know and define my audience?

Well, it is simple,

For example if you are interested in writing a blog post on Keywords like,

What is the keyword research process?

Now you know what is Keyword research, 

You must ask a few important questions to yourself to define and understand what your audience, their characteristics, the questions are these:

• What is the problem the audience is looking to solve by searching that query on Google?
• How specific the question is which the audience is searching in that niche as more specific means the audience is more knowledgeable than rest?

In this case we have taken the example of the Keyword,

What is the keyword research process?

Here when we ask the questions we will know that,

Because the person searching for this question he has the following characteristics,

• He is new to SEO because he doesn’t know what keyword research is.
• He is a very beginner kind of person.
• He might want to learn everything related to keyword research process.

By knowing your audience characteristics and interests you can create better blog post which is targeted to the particular individual.

Let’s take another example, shall we?

This time,

The Keyword is,

Ahrefs Vs semrush.

When the audience is searching for this keyword in Google,

By asking the questions mentioned above you can learn the following characteristics of the audience which are these,

• The audience knows what is Keyword research but they are confused between which keyword tool they need to buy of the two.
• The audience knows SEO, they are not beginners.
• The audience must be bloggers and content marketers because they will only use these tools.

This is the process how you understand the audience and their characteristics before creating a blog post.

Sometimes, for some head keywords like,

Protein powder.

It is hard to know what the searcher is looking for and how you can define the audience characteristics before writing a blog post,

In such cases,

You can just search the Keyword in Google and analyse the top search results of that query like this here,

If you see lots of results are top information articles you should create the same as the audience wants to learn more about that topic and

if you see some products pages, You know the searcher is looking to buy that thing.

This is the best way to know and understand your audience.

2. Research.

You can create a excellent blog post consistently without being a skilled writer if you grasp this thing well,

What makes a blog post really helpful and great is the level of research and information presented in the post.

To do research you can read other blogs on the internet on the topic that you are interested in writing about.

Look and analyse how in-depth the information is present in those blogs.

Before writing blog post make sure you do enough topic research so that you have enough points and data to cover in your blog post and make your blog post full of helpful information.

3. Make an outline first.

Now that you know your audience and their characteristics, and you have done the research of your blog post reading other articles and resources online to get yourself educated about the topic before writing it.

It is important for you to make an outline of the blog post that you want to write first.

You can include the following things in your outline like,

• You can just write rough points you want to add in your post which are pillar information points in your post.
• You can decide and divide your blog post in multiple subheadings.
• You can use writing tools like Google docs to create a outline for your blog post like in a bullet points list.

By creating an outline of your blog post first, 

You now have a clear Idea and direction on how you can write, design and craft the blog post.

To me, whenever I write a new blog post to my website,

I first start with creating a outline of the blog by dividing the blog post into multiple subheadings,

This helps me to start writing from one section at a time and because of that I am able to publish long forms of content blog posts all the time consistently in my blog posts.

4. Make your introduction concise.

Your blog post introduction is the most important section.

You cannot afford to mess up your introduction and expect your blog post to be successful.

Your blog post introduction sets the tone to the audience who read the blog post.

In such case, 

To maximize the best results possible,

Always have short introductions in your blog post, 

Don’t tell the reader why and which about the topic or any story in the blog post intro that makes it lengthy and too wordy.

One of the best strategies you can use to write introduction for your blog post is to follow something like this, this is what I use in every blog post introduction that I write, here I explain below.

It goes like this, 

You let users know about yourself (your name).

You let the users and readers know what they will learn in the blog post in a question form.

You will let the users know what is your expertise and knowledge about the topic you are writing about like why your audience should listen to your advice or information,

you can let your audience know that you have an experience or case studies to share, this let’s audience know that you are an expert and trustworthy source for the topic for users.

Then you use bucket bridges something like this,

• Without further ado let’s get started.
• Let’s dive right in,
• Let’s learn.
• You might be wondering.

You can learn more about it here.

Your blog post introduction should be very concise and sweet as it is where you can grab the attention of your audience and keep the audience engaged reading your blog post throughout the end.

5. Use images and video.

Look,

One of the best ways to increase user engagement on your blog is to include lots of images and video content.

As a matter of fact,

Humans process images 60 thousand times faster than text.

And someone said it very well, a single image can tell a Thousand Words.

So by including images and video content in your blog post you can make your blogs more visually appealing and increase your user engagement on your website/blog post.

A Pro tip:

Because you know images are important for your blog post, 

Don’t insert stock photos in your posts all the time,

Sometimes create custom images and infographics like the one I use in my blog mainly in this one,

they look different and attractive unlike stock photos which are quite bad, mostly unattractive and generic.

You can use tools like Canva to create custom images for your website.

• Read Canva review.

Apart from images, 

You can embed YouTube videos of the topic that you are writing about in your blog post.

Learn more about why videos and images and important for your blog post explained with stats.

6. Make your post easily scannable.

Most people on the internet, when they visit blog posts, they first skim and scan the blog post from top to bottom and then read the blog post if they like the design and if the post is appealing to their eyes but not word to word.

People on the Internet judge a book by its cover and first Impressions really matter for a blog post.

In order to make your blog post visually appealing and have a good design,

Here are a few things you can do to make your blogs easily scannable and skimmable.

• Use short sentences not more than three lines maximum, nobody likes to read big blocks of text in a blog post, most people on the internet want information quickly and also because of low attention span.
• Use Bullet points and numbered lists in regular intervals of your blog post which help make a blog post easily skimmable and appealing to the eye for the reader and find the important information fast.
• Always highlight the important sentences of your blog post in bold and Italic lines to make it standout.

If you are a regular visitor of my website you must have noticed that I follow all the things that I am sharing with you which is why

I am recommending this because these are the best practices of writing a blog post even if you are not a skilled writer.

7. Use copywriting strategies.

Copywriting is an art of writing a text or words that influence people to take some desired action.

So, there are some few important principles you need to keep in mind about copywriting to make your blog post engaging with users and also convert users into customers for your business, 

Some popular copywriting strategies for blog posts are these,

• Use short URLs.
• Make your entire blog post conversational toned and use words like “you” a lot.
• Use short sentences and small paragraphs over long sentences.
• Avoid technical words and use simple words, make sure the blog is easily readable.
• Use emotional words in your titles and meta description to increase CTR.

You can learn more about SEO copywriting here.

By using these effective Copywriting strategies in your blog post, you can maximize user engagement and increase conversions for your business everything without being a skilled writer at all.

8. Take the help of tools.

To make the process of writing easy for you, You can use the following tools which I use most often whenever I publish a blog post.

• Use Grammarly Chrome extension to find and remove grammatical errors in your blog post while editing it.
• Use Hemingway editor to improve your blog readability scores.
• Use Dupli-checker to check and remove Plagiarism in your content.
• Use Google docs to write and draft your blog post before getting it into WordPress so your work is automatically saved.
• Use popular keyword tools like answer the public to find relevant questions of your target Keyword which you can include as subheadings in your blog post.
• Use surfer SEO to create better content optimized for SEO and users.
• Use tools like Trello to organize your different projects and monitor them.

There are lots of other amazing tools you can leverage to make your content writing easy even if you are not a skilled blog writer.

9. Read the post loud.

When you complete writing the blog post,

You can preview your drafted post and read the post yourself loud or ask any one of your friends to read your post and

let you know their thoughts and opinions about the post and any constructive criticism that they could provide.

This helps you to identify sentences which are not flowing good with each other and remove those sentences for better engagement and readability of your blog posts.

With this technique You can review your post and remove errors before making the post public and published on your website.

10. Headlines are very important.

There is a popular saying that goes like this,

80% of people read your title but 20% of people click it and read your post.

So, your blog posts titles are HUGE.

Blog posts titles are so important that in some large digital marketing companies like buzzfeed,

there are copywriters who are assigned the job and paid thousands of dollars every month just to craft and come up with great titles for the posts that are published.

So titles are critical.

If you write the world’s best piece of content but fail to craft a attractive title, you won’t do well on the internet because,

Your blog title is going to be the first impression of your blog post and what information the Reader gets in the blog.

Your blog post title is going to be huge factor in Google search results because,

People click on titles which are interesting and attractive in search results and CTR is huge ranking factor in Google.

To make your titles attractive and compelling to click,

You can use the following techniques which are crafted to maximize CTR.

• You can use numbers in your titles.
• You can use the year in the title.
• You can use brackets and parentheses in your titles.
• You can make your titles as questions.
• You can use emotional words in your titles to increase CTR.

You can use tools like emv headline analyser to test your titles.

Look, you need to practice how to craft titles, you can learn from other websites on how they are creating titles mainly magazines and online Ads,

it is an art and if you can master the art, it can create a huge difference in your blog posts success.

11. Always have a CTA.

A call to action is as important as beautiful and attractive headlines for your blog.

Every blogger and copywriter understands the importance of a call to action in a blog post because, 

If the audience reads the article from start to finish then because the audience has consumed your content and taken value from you,

if you don’t give your audience the further direction for what they need to do after reading your blog they will be confused and leave the blog without letting you get any profit from it.

A call to action is very important because, 

You are asking your audience to do something after providing them value with your blog post first.

The audience will agree and act upon your CTA because they have trust in you, they have consumed your content, they know you are a legit guy as long as you are publishing good content.

A call to action depends upon each blog.

You can ask your readers as simple as to share the post or comment down their views.

You can even ask your readers to sign up to your newsletter to receive the latest updates from you or buy your product.

I personally use this CTA in all of my posts,

I ask readers to comment their opinion about the post in the comments section below,

I ask them to share the blog.

I ask them to read my other similar blogs on the topic to let the users stay engaged on my website longer.

The effectiveness of your call to action will depend upon how good and valuable your content is to the end user.

But, never forget to include a call to action in every blog post ending.

This strategy alone can make or break your success.

12. Optimizing for SEO.

No matter what, 

SEO was, is and will be the largest source of traffic for Blog posts on the internet.

There is social media and emails which have their small roles.

So, because SEO is the largest source of traffic for most blogs,

You should definitely optimise your blog posts for SEO.

Ans believe it or not,

Sometimes even if you optimise your blog post on page SEO properly, without building a single backlink to the blog,

You can rank in top position of Google.

Yes, I have did it multiple times through my blog posts.

I will talk about that later in another post but,

Talking about SEO optimization of your blog,

For a beginner, it might sound very technical or complicated but it isn’t.

If you started your blog on WordPress CMS then you can install a plugin called rank math.

This is a no. 1 SEO plugin.

I use it on my wordpress website.

This plugin will guide you through all the things you need to take to properly optimise your blog post on page SEO while writing the blog in WordPress.

If you have not started a blog on wordpress then SEO can be quite hard.

You can learn all the things you need to do to optimise your blog on page SEO here.

13. Add a featured image.

When people visit your website or any blog page, the most important and visited page on any website is its home page,

By adding beautiful and attractive featured images for each and every blog post that you publish on your website.

You can show the recent posts that you have published on your website along with those featured images,

Because images are visually appealing and attractive to human beings.

People can click on the blog posts which have featured images and read your articles from your home page because it is more appealing to eyes and grabs the attention of users, and hold users stay on the website for a long time by reading the articles.

14. Use stats, case studies, examples and stories.

Look there are already a ton of blogs published on every topic in every industry you can imagine.

One of the best ways to make your blog post unique and different but better from other blog post on the internet on whichever topic you are write is by doing this,

Always use statistics and include relevant examples and stories whenever possible in your blog post.

This helps to make your blog post unique and authoritative and stand out in the competition.

In the world full of fake news and fake information, the best way to convince people about something is by showing the facts and statistics and leverage case studies in your blog post.

You can find lots of online resources to take the stats and case studies from by just doing a Google search like this,

Your Keyword+stats. 

Or your Keyword+ case study.

For example if you write a blog about,

Does Affiliate marketing work,

To find relevant statistics about affiliate marketing you can search something like this in Google,

Affiliate marketing+stats.

To find relevant case studies about affiliate marketing you can search something like this in Google 

Affiliate marketing+case studies.

You can then use the following data in your blog post and link the original post as a source.

By including examples in your blog post, you can make your blogs of better quality and it is good for UX.

And use personal stories and experiences whenever possible in your blog post to convince your readers about something in your blogs because,

the audience visiting your blog post and want to learn from you, they care about your experiences and stories more than any testimonials and statistics.

Stats tell but stories sell, people can connect and relate well if you can add stories in your blog posts if it supports your point in the blog post.

This is best way to make your blog unique and different from the rest.

15. Be consistent.

Overall, the only way you can learn blog writing even if you are not a skilled writer is through regular practice of writing blogs.

You cannot expect to succeed as a better blogger if you just confine yourself by reading this article but not acting upon it and practicing the blog writing.

• Read, how frequently you should publish blog posts?

Look, you can get better at writing skills over time but if you take it as an excuse that because you’re not a skilled writer you don’t want to start a blog and not start a blog,

it could be one of the biggest mistakes you could make.

No one on the internet wants to know whether you are skilled in writing or not,

They just want someone to explain a topic in a simple and easy to understand way and if you can do it, you are going to be a successful blogger without writing skills but by following the above strategies.

Bonus strategy:

16. Read, write and listen.

There are alot of people who know blogging, like it but don’t start a blog either for one of these 2 reasons,

• They think they need to be skilled writers.
• They are not good in English language.

For those of you who think they are not a skilled writer I have written all the strategies you need to start a blog without being a skilled writer and for those of you who are not good in English language.

Don’t make it an excuse for not starting a blog.

English language is just another language can learn through these 3 things,

• Read.
• Write.
• Listen.

Read popular books, have a dictionary or popular blogs on the internet and get a feel about how they write the posts, their writing style and explanation method.

Write as much as you can, try to imitate the way the popular blogs write.

Listen to podcasts and videos like ted talks or movies in English.

In order to learn English language You need to submerge yourself in it.

This is the proven method to learning English language.

This is how I have learnt English language by reading popular books like,

• Think and grow rich.
• How to win friends and influence people?
• How to stop worrying and start living?

These are popular self help books but I have improved my English language by reading these books.

And talking about how to start a blog if you are not a writer, it is as simple as, start slow and small but with steady steps.

Start from writing 100 words a day and gradually increase your pace with 100 words every alternative day.

With this, You can eventually get better at writing posts.

It is a skill that you can learn and master with practice and dedication.

Ending remarks.

There you go I have answered everything related to how to start a blog if you are not a writer.

Do comment down what you think about what else you can do to write good blogs without being a skilled writer.

Share the blog post with your family and friends to let them know that writing blogs is not that hard if they ever think of starting a blog.

Sharing is caring.

Read my other blogs,

• How to start a blog on WordPress?
• What is a good blog and how you can make your blog good?
• Important blogging mistakes you should avoid doing.

I will catch you next time till them,

Keep learning and keep growing.