Five tips for writing a great blog post
Although it’s tempting to just sit down and write the first thing that pops into your head, a great blog post requires serious thought and a logical structure.
Here are five tips you can use to achieve great blogs.
1. Write about your business or industry
A topic is relevant if it is about the service you offer, or about the industry you’re in.
So a real estate agent could write a blog about the costs associated with selling a home, the services they offer or industry news.
Investors would most likely be interested in an article on rental vacancy rates and related market trends. So businesses that deal with investors, like lenders, mortgage brokers, buyer’s agents and real estate agents, could all write blogs on vacancy rates.
Similarly, an article on the cash rate could be relevant to a variety of professionals. But in this case, they may need to customise the article according to their profession.
For example, let’s say the Reserve Bank increased the cash rate:
- Lenders could write a blog on how cash rate increases affect their home loan rates
- Mortgage brokers could write a blog on the cash rate as an introduction into which types of clients should think about refinancing their home loans
- Property managers could write a blog for their investor clients discussing whether they should increase their rents since their mortgages will be costing them more
2. Write compelling headlines
Headlines are the first thing people see and can cause a reader to click through to the article or keep scrolling.
So don’t just use the first headline you can think of.
For example, in the above example, a thoughtless headline might be “The Reserve Bank increased the cash rate”. But more compelling headlines would be:
- How the cash rate affects your home loan rates (for lenders)
- You don’t have to pay more for your home loan (for mortgage brokers)
- Should you raise your rent if your home loan costs you more? (for property managers)
3. Write an engaging lead paragraph
Once your headline has drawn the reader’s interest, they’re likely to read the first paragraph. This paragraph should be interesting enough that they’d want to continue reading.
Going back to the previous example, the obvious choice might be:
“The Reserve Bank has increased the cash rate by x percentage points to x%. So let’s look at how this impacts us.”
But this opening paragraph would not be a strong choice, because it would be telling readers something they probably already know, so it would not be giving them enough information to make it compelling.
More compelling opening paragraphs would give the readers a reason to continue reading. For example:
- “No, lenders are not in cahoots with each other. If we all raise our home loan rates at the same time it’s because we’re guided by the Reserve Bank’s changes to the cash rate. Let us explain why.”
- “Did you know that you could save thousands of dollars by refinancing your home loan? Of course, this assumes you qualify for a lower interest rate. So let’s look at three factors that make lenders offer clients lower interest rates.”
- “Should the cost of your home affect the rent you charge your tenants? It might, because it’s one of five factors that affect the amount of rent you should charge for your property.”
4. Make it easy to read
Avoid large blocks of text because they’re hard to read.
Often, people first scan a blog before they decide to read it, so the more headings and subheadings you have, the easier it is for people to get a general idea of what the blog is about when they scan it.
Also, consider breaking up text with bullet points, images or infographics. For example:
5. Include a call-to-action
The reason you’re writing the blog is to encourage people to do business with you. So make it easy for them by telling them what they should do next and include your contact details at the end of the blog (see below).
If you need help writing great blog posts, talk to Hunter & Scribe. Contact us for more information.
