Connor BrookeYou’re sitting at your desk, sipping coffee, gearing up for a productive day and…
EUREKA!
Out of nowhere, an idea for a great blog post pops in your head.
You know it would be a huge mistake to let this idea slip by, so you immediately start pecking at the keyboard.
Thirty minutes into the writing session, you lean back in your chair, put your hands behind your head, and say to yourself, “Wow, what in world is this BS?”
Backspace, backspace, backspace. Now you’re frustrated and that frustration instantly kills the creative process. So you take a break. After your blood has stopped boiling, you decide to take another stab at it…and the exact same thing happens again.
Maybe you try a couple more times, but to prevent further self-destruction, you eventually convince yourself the idea wasn’t so good after all and toss it in the garbage.
Sound familiar? Let’s figure out how to put an end to that.
Pinning Down the Disease That Plagues Unsuccessful Bloggers
The writing process above — if you can call it a process — is the single most devastating disease that plagues would-be successful bloggers. It’s one of the primary reasons tens of thousands of blogs are updated for a couple months, and then quickly turn into an abandoned wasteland.
Nobody wants to feel like they’re up against a wall every time they try to take an idea from mind to paper (or computer screen).
The thing is you can’t change how ideas are generated. They fly in at the strangest times — while you’re taking a shower or thinking about everything except blogging.
Ideas come to every blogger in basically the same fashion — randomly and spontaneously. They give no warning. They bring no set of instructions about how to most effectively use them. They just show up, sit on your desk, and stare at you.
(Ideas are actually creepy little guys when you think about it.)
The beginning of your creative process is always going to feel like it’s on a crumbling cliff edge, because getting an idea is little more than a random, spontaneous burp of the universe.
If You Can’t Change the Way You Generate Ideas, What Can You Change?
What separates you from the successful bloggers who seemingly have no trouble pumping out amazing content in short periods of time?
If it’s not the way they generate ideas, it has to be how the ideas are managed once they spring up, right?
Surprisingly, the answer isn’t all that complicated: You need a structured writing process and a post template that has been proven effective.
There’s No Such Thing as “Sweating Out” A Great Blog Post
You get from Point A to Point B by having a strategy, not by stressing and cursing at a keyboard. I’ve had days where I fumbled around on the keyboard for hours only to come up with a mediocre 1,000 word post.
That’s not the way blogging should be and it’s downright destructive to the creative mentality.
Efficient and effective bloggers — the Brian Clarks, Derek Halperns, and Danny Inys of the blogosphere — are those who follow a simple, yet flexible, structure when they get an idea.
And the beauty of it all? Anyone can replicate the process even if you’re a beginner. That’s not to imply replicating the process will instantly put your blog on the level of Copyblogger or Problogger, but it is a major step in the right direction.
So what is this post structure I keep alluding to?
The secret is in the image below.
Start funneling your ideas through the structure below and I guarantee the creative block described at the beginning of this post will become less and less threatening.
(Click the image below to enlarge – Credit to Derek Halpern of Social Triggers)
Like this? Learn how to use psychology to get more traffic and sales with Social Triggers
Let’s walk through the most important parts of the image, shall we?
The Headline
The purpose of your headline is to grab attention and get people to read your opening. That’s all.
- Lose the fancy adjectives and SAT words. Speak in simple English.
- Lose the puns. They’re rookie comedy and lack persuasive value.
- Tell the truth. The truth is the best marketing gimmick around.
If you’re creating headlines for any purposes other than increasing click-throughs and scroll-downs, you’ve missed the point.
I highly recommend Jon Morrow’s Headline Hacks if getting people in the door is a struggle for you. Jon is the Associate Editor at Copyblogger, so let’s just say he knows his way around creating effective headlines.
The Opening
(Side Note: You’ll probably start noticing a trend soon.)
The purpose of your opening is to get people to read your opening and get hooked into the content. That’s all.
This section of your post should illustrate a problem your target reader is experiencing and leave them wanting to read more.
If visitors read the opening of your post, it means two things:
- Your headline grabbed their attention and this is a post that interests them.
- They’re very likely to continue reading your post, because they’re interested in the topic and they’ve already made a time investment.
The takeaway? Work disproportionately hard on your opening. If you can get people to read your intro, you’ll have people reading the rest of the post more often than not.
The Importance of Images in Your Opening
Surprisingly, there’s been a fair amount of research done on the subject of online reading behavior.
For bloggers, one of the most relevant conclusions of this research is sentences which stretch far across the screen tend to discourage reading.
This means you should do your best to include an image (usually right-aligned) in your post’s opening, because it decreases the perceived length of your sentences and increases the likelihood of people reading your opening.
Your First Subheading and Content Section
Back to the trend: Getting people to read the beginning of your content is the purpose of your first subheading. Nothing more.
Readers are investing time and energy into reading your post — they need to know there’s a benefit for reading further.
Your first subheading should make a promise to the reader telling them exactly why reading your post will benefit them.
- “A Simple, Yet Powerful Formula for Generating Traffic”
- “How to Convert One-Off Customers Into Regular Customers”
- “How to Discover What to Sell Your Blog Readers”
Catching on?
Of course, it doesn’t end there. The content immediately following your promise should describe why the benefit is worth the time it takes to read your post.
For example, let’s say you’re writing a post endorsing a certain strategy used to grow your traffic three-fold. This first section is where you’ll want to show the reader this strategy works and why.
How do you show that?
Bring out the graphs, charts, and stats. Describe the time investments needed. Explain why this strategy is superior to any other strategy being used to grow traffic levels.
Then, give the reader a small piece of what’s to come in the next section of your post. Hook them just like you did with your opening.
Now you have eyeballs. You have an interested reader. You’ve made a promise. You’ve outlined the why of your post. The reader is waiting.
What next?
Your Second Subheading and Content Section
It’s time to deliver the prize: a step-by-step “how to” guide.
Lay out practical steps your reader can effectively start using tomorrow morning to solve whatever problem your post addresses.
Let’s face it: In a blogosphere where thousands upon thousands of people are trying to solve problems for readers, being known as a blogger who provides practical solutions and tangible results is sure to land your name in high places.
Don’t take this section lightly, because this is where you make or break the loyalty of your readers. No pressure!
Your Call to Action
Never leave yourself empty handed after investing so much passion and time into a blog post. You did the hard work and provided a service, so you deserve a reward for that.
Quite a few people, especially in digital marketing, believe consumers don’t like to buy things.
It’s a myth.
The truth of the matter is people love to buy things. What they hate, on the other hand, is buying something that doesn’t live up to its expected value.
If your post delivers results — true value — and you prove you can continue delivering on your promises, most readers won’t take issue with you asking for their email address or money.
Always have a call to action at the end of your post whether it’s a question that encourages comments, an email subscription opt-in box, or a relevant product for sale.
Making This Structure Your Own
If you notice, this post doesn’t follow every single detail of the post structure described. Everyone has a different approach to writing and it’s perfectly reasonable to find your own groove and comfort zone.
What’s really important is that you take away the core aspects of this structure and mold them into a process that helps you better manage your ideas.
- Describe a problem your reader is having.
- Promise the reader you have a method to solve this problem.
- Prove your solution is worth following — show them why they should listen to you.
- Promise the reader you know how to solve their problem.
- Walk them through the solution using actionable steps they can walk away with and immediately start putting to good use.
- Call them to action — encourage comments, ask for the sale, or prompt for an email subscription.
That’s the structure you want to follow. The details can be filled in to fit your personal writing style and approach.
What Do You Think?
I’d love to get your feedback in the comments. Have you used this structure to write any recent posts? Do you follow a similar posting template and find that it helps you manage ideas?
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
This post appears courtesy of MySocialGamePlan.com
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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I think I have been using the formula but only in a hit or miss fashion. Thanks for the visual. Now I’ll have a visual reminder to follow the proven formula every time.
My pleasure Linda! Hope it helps :)
Thanks Jonathan for a well-written article. I really like the idea of working from a template. I can see it being a real time-saver. I’m glad you added the need to customise the idea. This example is specifically for a “How To” article, and it is an excellent layout. However I imagine most bloggers are like me and their posts will vary in content and style. So perhaps the solution would be for us to have a selection of templates that we can select from before starting writing the post. Would you agree?
Thanks for commenting Shirley. I think a set of guides or templates is a great idea. In fact, you could probably easily springboard off this model and mold it to fit different posting strategies.
Well put Jonathan.
Once its pointed out it is easy to start to see the structures used by successful bloggers to catch and keep our attention.
Just because it is easy to read and flows smoothly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was easy to write or that it was written from start to finish in the order that you read it.
Seems that advice from all my high school teachers to create an outline and work from it was actually the way to go…who would have thought?
The best advice I every received was to remember to write when writing and save editing for the editing phase. Get the ideas written down instead of allowing yourself to be distracted by the quest for perfection.
Thanks Trevor. I completely agree with that last point — I frequently outline my ideas, then go on a writing rampage, then come back and edit later. It’s taken a while to get this habit down, because I’m a perfectionist and I used to frequently find myself editing as I was writing. It really slowed down the writing process.
I can’t lie, I think this is blatant manipulation of your readers. Effective? Probably, but only in the short run.
I firmly believe that simply better content will improve your blog better than following a formula created to entice readers. People aren’t schmucks, they’re going to realize your posts are geared towards getting their clicks rather than providing quality content.
For example, making the subheader promise to benefit them is changing your content solely for the sake of eyeballs, rather than improving the text. Why not just have such good content that the reader can decide for him/herself? Why does your content need you to justify reading it in the first place?
In essence, this blog formula is nothing more than creating a glorified advertisement – promising to deliver for the sake of getting clicks. The reader suffers because the goal is not the best content but the best manipulation.
I wouldn’t go as far as manipulation…no more so than any other kind of marketing. You don’t have to sacrifice content or value to follow this strategy, this is simply a tool to guide bloggers through the process of writing a psychologically appealing post.
There are places where calls to action are more effective than others. Some headlines and subheadings are more effective than others. Shorter lines of text are more likely to be read.
The purpose of a blog post is to get people to read the post (and ultimately to subscribe or purchase). Great content gets you far, but structuring it in a way that is most appealing to readers is also important.
When you go into a supermarket, everything in every aisle is arranged a certain way to make it as psychologically appealing to consumers as it can be. Is that also manipulation? Is all marketing simply manipulation?
All marketing is not, of course, manipulation. Marketing can be a great way of getting out information to clients or building trust. Manipulation is generally not a good way to go about doing those things. You could argue that all marketing is manipulating on some level, but there’s a line.
If your field is blogging, your product is content – so you probably do not want marketing to completely determine the design of your product. Using your supermarket analogy, you probably do not want the marketing department to make all the store decisions. Sure, it has a decent amount of sway but at some point there’s a line where the quality of the product (store/blog) will degrade if the design is based mostly on marketing.
Ultimately, your reply makes very good sense. We just disagree about the purpose of a blog post. I do not think the purpose is necessarily to get people to read it – rather to create a more meaningful interaction from the people that do read it.
I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t agree on some points. The product design and quality are almost entirely the jobs of marketing (apart from the pragmatic questions when it comes to actually creating the product, which of course does involve operations, IT, finance, etc.).
In a supermarket, I wouldn’t want the marketing department to be the sole decision maker of everything in the store, but when it comes to product design, quality, positioning, and merchandising, they should have more than a decent amount of sway. If not the marketing department, then who?
As for the purpose of a blog post, meaningful interactions can’t be created unless people read the post. Additionally, I would venture to say most people who publicly publish a blog want to maximize their readership.
That requires getting peoples’ attention and designing your post in a way that is visually and psychologically appealing to the target consumer (reader). I don’t believe you need to sacrifice value and quality at the expense of good design. In fact, I think they necessitate each others’ existence.
I appreciate the discussion! We’re coming from two different perspectives, of course. I respect that :)
Jonathan: so crazy that you shared this template and expanded on Dereks thoughts bc I just emailed him before to thank him for the wonderful resource (then I see your post!). I use this template a lot to keep my message on track and deviate where appropriate. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for the comment, Mike! Derek is definitely a beast when it comes to marketing online.
The visual really ties it all together. Great post that will be very much appreciated by my friends Jonathan! :)
Jonathan… from talking to many bloggers, it usually starts with finding something to write about. These would be your average bloggers. Outside of that, I like the chart that you supplied. I guess my only discrepancy in regards to the headline is to create catchy headline, one that will grab your attention, but with key words. I can think of many catchy headlines that might not have the key words that you should have. There are several ways to be found, yet you would want all the possibilities. I guess that would be my one thing to add and or clarify. But then again, everyone is different when it comes to these topics. I do like the way you broke each one down and sharing a structure is important, that can help bloggers get into the flow of things… Something many don’t point out, so I like this one..
Thanks Jeff. I find that ideas come pretty readily if you’re completely immersed in the niche and knowledgeable about the topic. Of course, it does help to take time to think creatively and browse resources like StumbleUpon if you’re completely stumped.
Great post Jonathon. I think the most important point was your last, finding a way to make it your own. People who are natural born writer (which not all bloggers are) are creative and need structure, but their own, not a rigid system that doesn’t feel right to them.. That is one of the most important things I have learned about blogging… It has to feel right to you. I also love to keep an “idea bucket” for the times those great ideas pop into my head. I jot the idea down, and 3 or 4 key points to go along with it- sort of a mini outline.
That’s a good idea Angela. I know some people recommend the “file approach,” which entails having 2-3 different files for ideas at various stages of development.
Great post, Jonathan, and thanks for the template. Coming from a history of writing research reports, I can tell you that blogging is a bit of a struggle, but with practice it becomes less so and more enjoyable. One of the things I notice most serious bloggers incorporating (this include Derek H.) is a lot of white space. Paragraphs are short and sweet where possible, so readers aren’t faced with dense blocks of words to get through. Since most of us scan online, rather than actually read, white space helps facilitate the scanning process. Thanks for the post.
Research reports…I might have a few questions for you in the near future :)
White space is huge. It’s one of the reasons I use bullet points and large spaces between subheadings/body text. It’s definitely quicker to read and easier to follow.
Jonathan,
I immediately noticed the ‘soundbite.’ I frequently use a soundbite from posts that I retweet. Do I understand correctly that your recommendation is to include a simple way to include a soundbite along with a tweet of the link to the post? If so, do you know of an embedded tool that does that? I read the link about the soundbite, but didn’t follow that there is any automated method for creating it. Am I on or off track in the context of your recommendation?
In this context, a soundbite might be a small quote (usually from the body of your post) that is pulled out and emphasized. Next to this quote will be a “Click To Tweet” link, allowing the reader to easily tweet out your selected quote.
An easy way to see this in action is actually on Derek’s blog: http://socialtriggers.com/ryan-holiday-trust-me-im-lying/
If you scroll down just a bit, you’ll notice a yellow box where Derek has made an effort to emphasize his point, and a “Click To Tweet” link next to that.
The Click To Tweet aspect is actually pretty easy to implement. There’s a nice website by that name (http://clicktotweet.com/), which allows you to quickly create shortened links for small soundbites.
If you have any trouble with it, feel free to reply here or ask me @SocialGamePlan. I’d be happy to help you with it if needed.
I cannot thank you enough for sharing this awesome info Jonathan! When writing blog posts I sometimes I feel like pulling out what little hair that I have left. By nature I’m not very organized so organizing ideas and then putting them in to writing can be challenging at times, however I’m working on my writing and this definitely gives me an awesome guideline to follow from here out. Thanks bro!
Thanks Paul…glad I (and Derek of course) could help. A loose structure for blogging is a huge key to producing quality content on a consistent, frequent basis. And we could all use quality content more often…
Thank you for this post. I recently felt overwhelmed by blogging and almost gave it up. I will put this in practice. Blogging can be challenging and without an effective startegy it can feel like a chore that no one wants to do.
This strategy combined with relevant content makes for a winning blog.