Create a Blog Post Outline for your Website

How to write a post from scratch in simple steps

If you're looking to create an effective blog post, having an outline is key. A blog post outline can help guide your writing and ensure that you don't miss any important points. Creating an outline for your blog post can also help you organize your thoughts and come up with ideas for content.

The first step in creating an effective blog post outline is to decide on the purpose of the post. Consider what you want to achieve with your blog post, such as informing readers, building relationships, or driving sales. Once you've established the purpose of your post, create a list of topics that you want to cover in each section.

Next, create a structure for your blog post outline by breaking it down into sections. Start with an introduction that will hook readers and give them an overview of what they can expect from the rest of your blog post. Then move onto body paragraphs that cover each topic in detail and provide evidence to back up. Let's see how, step by step:

1. Identify the Topic

What is the main point of your blog post? Before you can make a blog post, you need to decide what you want to talk about. To start off your outline, you'll need to think about the topic of your blog post. Start a good outline that has a topic sentence, three to five supporting sentences, and then a conclusion sentence. As you're writing a blog post, you'll then want to expand on each of these points to get your point across.

Think of a few things you would like to talk about. If you know a lot about a certain topic, there might be some questions or ideas that you are really interested in. Write a few things about those questions and go from there.

2. Develop the Structure of the Post

Break down the main point into smaller points or sections that will make up your post. These section usually are:

Title: Grab people' attention with an interesting theme originally expressed. Subtitle: Give a little more info about what you will be sharing in the post, without repeating the title. (Take advantage of Headlines to do some SEO). Introduction: Here, you want to include information about the topic of your blog post. To do this, you can include a brief description of the subject and where it fits within the topic. It's also a good idea to include what the reader will learn from the post. To do this, you can include a list of the key points that you'll cover. Body: Next you are going to develop each point in the main area of your post, properly structured in a deeper and clear manner.
Conclusion: Finish the post with your final thoughts. End the main post theme summarizing the points you discussed in the body and closing the idea with a personal conclusion. Don't forget saying goodbye, thanking the readers for arriving at that point (especially in long posts) and asking to share and comment if they liked it. Add some links to your website and provide a call-to-action if applicable' and you are ready to go to 'Draft'.

3. Brainstorm Ideas

Come up with ideas for each section that will help you make your point. You can write from scratch about anything you want to share, or you can go for some inspiration first to other blogs, news, books, videos or anything you find interesting and useful. Take ideas from others and mention them, but remember not to copy, we want to create original content here.

When you're writing an outline, it's also good to define any key terms that you're going to use. When you're writing, you'll have a reference of what these words mean so that you can be as clear as possible.

You'll want to nurture each section so you and your readers can understand what you're trying to say and where you're coming from.

Prepare some bullets to every section, like:

Brief explanation of your argument Examples of how your particular item/step/tactic, works Potential expert quotes (if you're using them) Data you'll be citing

4. Create the Body of the Post

Writing the body. It's the moment to expand on each section in your outline. Now that you have an introduction, it's time to make an outline for the body of the post. To do this, you want to include a topic sentence for each of the points you're going to cover. To give you an idea of what you should include, you can use the following sentence structure:

topic sentence supporting sentences conclusion sentence

After that, you want to expand on each of these points to get your point across.

5. Add Supporting Media

The last thing we want is a boring article. If you go too long or put nothing but long paragraphs with no separation or good punctuation, people are going to get tired and won't get to the end of it. Instead, include relevant images, videos, or other media to enhance the post. You can make it look professional by inserting good photos within the text, relinking to other websites talking about the same subject or quoting a guru. Anything to make it look more entertaining and at the same time that you are adding value.

6. Edit and Proofread

Please review your post for any errors and make sure it flows. None likes to detect a grammatical error in any document. You are supposed to be a good writer but you are human as well. You could perfectly forget typing a letter. No worries, there are many tools you can use to double check your texts, like grammar and spelling check in Google Docs (at the tools bar), Grammarly Chrome extension or Revise by Word, any of them will make it easy for you.

Conclusion (yes, the one for this specific post)

It's better to at least have an idea of what you want to write about before you start typing. Writing an outline helps you to be more focused and disciplined when you write. It also makes it easier to organize your thoughts so that you can cover everything you want to talk about. By having an outline, you can also get a good idea of how long the piece will be and how much work you'll need to do to complete it.

Before you start writing the draft, show your plan to someone else'like a work friend, a boss or a pal. They can help you by giving you ideas and pointing out any mistakes. Once they give you their feedback, take their advice and add it to your plan. Then you can start preparing your draft.

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