Strengthen Your Blog Posts with These Outline Tips

blog post structure

Outlining a blog to get everything you need in a post can be a very meticulous task. The structure, better known as your outline is incredibly important in any blog post. When you ask yourself how to write a blog post online, your answer is broken up into a few different parts. You have to answer what kind of blog post you are writing. Is it a how-to, list-based, interview, news article, review, personal, or image-based? The options are endless for the topics of these blog posts, but it’s critical to determine the structure before you begin writing to strengthen your blog posts.

Research

Before you start your outline, you’ll need to know what’s actually going into it. It’s impossible to even brainstorm before researching. This is when you can do a deep dive into your topic and find out everything there is to know. This way you can produce a more informative blog post with an easy-to-read structure with verbiage that is clear and easily understood. One great way to research is to read other blogs on similar topics. The more you read, the more you understand, and the easier the writing process will be.

Brainstorm

The next step in your outlining process is to gather all of your takeaways. Then, think about what you want to include in each takeaway paragraph. This could be jumbled onto your document, could even be in grouped tabs, or written down on a sticky note beside you. You will find what works best for you in your research and brainstorming process. The most important thing is to get the information down.

Bullet Points

Now is where the structure truly begins to take place on your blog post. You can now put your key points and takeaways onto your document and put bullet points underneath with everything you plan to include in the paragraph. This short-form writing process will make your overall blog much easier to write. You will have all the information in front of you for the entire post. This will flow much easier than trying to remember everything you wanted to include if you were writing it bit by bit. Or even jumping around throughout your paragraphs.

Headings

No one wants to struggle to read an article, they want it to be an easy experience. Another way to strengthen your blog post is by using headings. This will make it easy for someone to scan and see the type of information they will be getting throughout the blog. Then they can decide if they want to read all the way through or not. Having headings will automatically make your blog more attractive than one long section of words.

Use your key takeaways as your heads, this will help with the outline process from the beginning. It will also be helpful for the reader as it serves as another reminder of what the key points are in the article rather than having to go back and look within the paragraphs for them. The more keywords are stated, the better chance they have to stick.

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Paragraphs

In order to keep your readers interested and hold their short attention spans, you’ll want to have shorter paragraphs. The key to a great post is short paragraphs, and shorter sentence structure if possible. Breaking up the post not only by headings but by multiple short paragraphs will hold their attention for longer. Additionally, you will have more readers to finish the post all the way through.

Visuals

Another way to hold your reader’s interest, especially in long-form blogs, is to add visuals such as pictures, graphs, or videos. This can easily be a part of the bullet point step in your outlining process. Even if you aren’t sure exactly what pictures, videos, or illustrations are, you can add details of what you envision for the visuals to be. That will help you continue to brainstorm even after you begin writing.

Wrap up

Now that you’re all caught up on all the best tips and tricks to strengthen your blog posts, you can confidently outline a blog post so that you can complete it without leaving out any important details. Always use outlining as your first line of defense and you will have a much easier process from thereon.

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Picture of Adeline Howell

Adeline Howell

Adeline is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she majored in Communications with a concentration in Public Relations and Journalism. Currently living in Charlotte, she enjoys reading, volleyball, and strolling through her favorite farmers markets with her Goldendoodle Theo.

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