How to Write A Great Blog Post Every Time

1. Welcome to the Course: hi and welcome to how to write great block posts every time. Who is this class for? Beginning riders who want a structure to help them share their message clearly concisely and conversationally entrepreneurs with a product or service that can help lots of people. Nonprofit leaders who want to get the word out about the great things they're doing. If this is you, your in the right place. Here's what you'll learn in this course an eight part structure that will take you from beginning to end every time you write five steps that will help you make the most of your idea and ensure that it's good for essential keys to make your research payoff and save you time. When you write how to turn a mountain of research into a solid outline every time a productivity hack that will help you draft your post in record time. The real goal of editing and how to trade perfection for something far better. Three things that great headlines do, one of which mind surprise you Why every post needs to end with a call to action and how to make sure it's appealing how to format your work so people read it all the way to the end. Sound good, Go to the next video right now and let's get started. 2. First, Get a Great Idea: the idea came to me while I was brushing my teeth Rather than look at myself in the mirror , I turned on YouTube on my smartphone, put writer tips into the search box, saw a video that promised me JK Rollings Top 10. So I clicked the link and started watching. Now she has an amazing story. When Harry Potter came to her, she was riding a train. She saw the story in vivid detail, and as soon as she got home, she started writing. You probably know what happened after that. She is now the world's richest author, worth $1 billion. That came from eight books, licensing deals and movies. I won't promise you a $1,000,000,000 for your efforts, but what I can promise you is you'll understand how to write a post that gets people talking, telling their friends and following you wherever Ugo. So how do you get a good idea? First, find out what people are already talking about. I chose the celebrity. I didn't use her because I wanted to ride the fame train. I chose her because I knew that whatever advice she had for riders was gold. She had tested and tried in the marketplace and had proven its worth to the tune of a $1,000,000,000. Credibility is crucial. Second, find out what bothers people not being nosy. You're looking for opportunities to serve people by setting them free from what blocks them . When people hurt, they want relief. When problems get them down, they want the weight lifted off. If you can show them what they're missing and make it so easy, they can start their breakthrough. Today, you win them over in a heartbeat. Third, learn what they want most. What do your readers or customers dream about? What would they have if they had all the money that they ever wanted? What would they do if they could sway the masses with their persuasive power? What difference would they make in the world if they could tap their fullest potential? Well, that, my friend, is what you sell in your block Post. The strategies, the secrets and the keys to success are merely tools to get what they want. You know, people don't care about workout videos. They want to show off their sculpted bodies on the beach. They don't care about magic tricks. They just want to amaze their friends. Remember that, and you can sell more of what you do to make a difference in the world. Fourth, don't make it about you. People always have and always will care more about themselves than anybody else. We remember J K Rolling because we love her Harry Potter stories. We love her because we want the same thing to happen to us. People may not remember that you wrote that epic piece, but if you do it again and again soon, they'll associate you with what you do for them. So again, when you make what you do about your reader or your customer, they'll think you're the best thing that ever happened to him. Fifth and by people to dream college classes. Air boring because they're all about the syllabus, right? This paper. Attend this class. Do this and you'll get a good grade. Afterward. You sell the textbook, forget what you've learned and move on to something else that looks just like it. Get people emotionally involved, invite them the dream, lead them to picture what life will be like once they're using your secrets. When people are engaged, they'll have no trouble remembering in a sense they'll write their own version with their lives. When they get excited and apply what you teach them or the story you tell them. Their chances of success and happiness go way up. And when they do succeed, they're gonna tell everybody they know. If you want to make a difference, get people happily involved in your process or your story. Help them make their dreams come true. Soon you'll find that your dreams come true, too. It all starts with a great idea. What's your great idea? Take a few minutes and write down 10 of them. In the lessons that follow, you'll pick one to work with, and if they're all good, you can just run them all through this process. Happy thinking. 3. Practical Research: you don't know everything there is to know about your topic. So what can you do to make it come alive for your readers? How can you get them to know what you know? Understand what matters and care about how it affects them? You've got to hook them to move them first, match your enthusiasm to their desires. Ever had a friend who is so excited about what's happening in their life that they had to call you right now to tell you about it? I'll bet that was a joy to listen to let your enthusiasm show through. When you do, people will pay attention. If you want to take it a step further, find out what they care about what's bothering them. What problem do they want to solve right now or yesterday? What pain do they want to get rid of forever? If possible, God answers. Great. If you want people to hear them, you've got to speak their language. You learn it by listening to their conversations, and there are plenty of ways to do that. Without hiring a private detective, you can visit forums. You can join Facebook groups. Follow your topic on Twitter wherever people get together to share their thoughts, you can eavesdrop without guilt. The information you get will be priceless. Do more than listen. Take part. Don't be nosy. Be helpful. Listen, empathize and earn their trust. Then offer solutions like you would. A friend who asks for advice that'll open the door for more opportunities to serve people with your talents. Here's another way to learn what people want. Read Blawg. Post comments. What questions? Don't get answered. Can you bridge that gap? Look at reviews for products and services like yours? Or did people complaining about Can you make that go away by providing something your competitors aren't? Can you go deeper than others have? Experiment with what you find over time, you'll refine your message into something that set to your part as an expert in your field . Second, be entertaining. You've got more competition than ever in a world where everyone has a microphone. People go to social media because they want to escape. They want to see how they're doing compared to their friends. They want to brag about their dinner, their new car in their kid's graduation when they feel right. Social media offers a great place to preach and gloat. If you can help people feel good about themselves, they'll love you forever. They'll talk about you to their friends and they'll sing your praises on all their platforms. Make sure the information you give them is top notch. Social media is for stories. That's great, because life is a story. We live until others when you're young, your parents and teachers and still values into you with stories. It's one thing to hear. You shouldn't tell lies. It's quite another to see the consequences in a story like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. If you're not familiar with that story, it's about a board shepherd boy who wanted some action. So he invented it by crying out Wolf Wolf, a wolf is attacking my sheep. Hearing his cries, his neighbors came to help when they saw no Wolf was there, they grumbled and told him, Don't cry, wolf, unless you see one. He cried Wolf again the next day, and his neighbors rushed to his aid. Ah, he laughed. His angry neighbors admonished him once more, not to fool them again. The next day he did see a wolf wolf wolf. He cried. No one came when the shepherd went down the hill, he told one of his neighbors. I cried and no one came. He put his arm around the boy and said, We'll help you look for your sheep in the morning. No one believes a liar, even when he is telling the truth. Third, break it down into bite sized chunks. Don't assume your students or readers know as much as you do about your topic. You didn't understand it without breaking it down. Do that for your readers. As you do your research, you learn what they need to know and what is fluff. Paring it down to the essentials will help you teach with more precision and power. When people don't understand, they don't move. They say no, they move on to something clearer. Don't lose your reader because you didn't simplify the complex. You might lose a few who knew the basics already. That's okay. They'll skim through and look for what they didn't know. But for those starting out who won an edge simplicity, it's like finding gold. The biggest win you can make is to make the impossible seem possible when you learn to do something you couldn't do before it raises your status. That's a win for you and your reader. Fourth, gather more than you'll ever use writers. Air Re writers The draft is like an idea Dump The edit is the polished presentation that greets your readers eyes. Thing of it is a sculpting project. You start off with a big pile of clay. Your research is the raw material. As your work takes shape, you'll have to cut off what doesn't fit. That's okay. It's clay you might find. You need it somewhere else to fill in. You won't know how it all fits together until you work with it. When you have more than you need, you'll have enough to meet your needs. What's left will be better than if you start with a little and stretch it. Information is there for the asking hunt and gather all you can. At the very least, it will cost you time. At most, you'll have to pay someone to get it. Whatever it costs. Don't scamp here. Your readers deserve your best insights, and your career success demands it. Will you do the work to make life better for the people you serve 4. The Right Way to Outline: The worst thing any writer faces is a blank page writer's block begins with linear thoughts when you need to fill in the blank. For the number one, it can be hard. What's the most important thing? What order should this follow? You don't always know when you begin. That's why we talk about research and ideas before we talk about outlines. A few years ago, our family built a house. It was a long process. The first thing we did was decide what we wanted in the house. How many bedrooms? How many bathrooms? How big did we want the rooms to be? Do we want one story or two stories? What colors would we paint the walls? There were 1000 questions to answer, and more arose as removed along. We heard an architect after we thought about what we wanted. It's not enough to say I want to build a house. He wants to know what kind, and after you do your research, you'll know exactly what you want the house to look like. Then you can build it. When you build a house, you have to do some things in a certain order. Order matters, but not until you're ready to go to work. You'll also need to build in some flexibility for cost overruns and unexpected code requirements. Here's how all that applies to writing a blawg post. You've got a ton of research. It might go in countless directions if you're like me rabbit trails or an invitation into the abyss. The more I learn, the more I want to know, you know, that can go on for ever so set a time limit for your research. When you're done and ready to write your outline, you can simplify the process. First, look for patterns. What topics come up again and again. Is everyone saying the same thing, or are there other opinions to consider? What do they think is important? What do they skip over? What questions have they answered already? And what questions did they leave unanswered? What gaps can you fill in these patterns will give you clues about what to focus on Second , see what stands out when you did your research. What questions did people asked repeatedly? What problems did they face that didn't have satisfactory answers? In other words, where did they seem to be left hanging to figure out things for themselves. How can you come to the rescue in ways others haven't? How can you approach this topic with your unique bland of experience, insight and talent? It might be a simple as arranging ideas and a new and more useful way. When you know what people really want, you can give it to them. Third, refine your focus. You don't need to recover old ground. You might need to cover enough to set the context, though. If you forget everything else, remember this. You don't have a lot of time to make your point. We live in a world where there are so many choices. We can't examine everything deeply, so we scan to save time. Your opportunity to hook the reader is in your formatting. Make your headline your subhead and your paragraphs sing. Hit them with what matters in your bold print. Let them know what they're getting and wet their appetite for more. You probably only have about eight seconds. Make them count. Here's a simple template you can use for your outline. If you're writing frequently, refine your top insight down to one sentence. Add three points that support your premise then recap that by restating and reaffirming what you said at the beginning, add power by asking your reader to do something with what they read. If you're writing a longer post, use this template to find the problem the Raider faces. Next. Amplify the pain named. The reasons the problem hasn't been solved. Then show them what's possible. This could be a set of instructions or a list of strategies. Once you've painted the dream for them, look into the future. How will their life be better afterwards? Be lavish. The whole Mac. You can have all this, but you'll have to use what you learn to get it close by asking them to do something right now. Remind them what they'll gain by acting or what they'll lose by waiting. This is especially powerful when you don't have any tangible deadlines for action. Now go give your blood post a strong skeleton 5. Draft it Fast: Are you ready to write the words you're dying to share with the world in this lesson? I'm gonna teach you how to do that fast. Maybe faster than you ever done it before. It is possible. Especially since you've done extensive research beforehand. And by now, you've even arranged that research into a linear progression. That makes sense. You've already done the hard part. Now you just need to tell other people what you've learned and why it matters. First, get excited. You were probably pretty motivated when you chose your topic and started diving in tow. Learn more about it. You made discoveries. Maybe you did some experiments. You talked about it with your closest friends and colleagues. Writing it will be a lot easier now. The blank page is an invitation to share. Are you ready? First set a timer. We all need a little pressure to get stuff done. I know. I dio So if no one else is setting deadlines for me, I set them for myself. If you have 500 words to write and you've already thought about it beforehand, you can write that draft in 15 to 20 minutes. Easy. Here are the rules. Set the timer for 20 minutes. Once the timer starts, you start writing. Don't stop for anything. Not typos. Not bad grammar, nothing. Just race forward and don't look back no matter what. By the time the alarm sounds, you'll have a few pages. A pretty good stuff. I'm not going to tell you that your first draft is crap. Sure it won't be perfect, but who cares? Perfect. Compared to what you'll have some cleaning up to do, No doubt. And that's perfectly OK. You'll do that after you take a break from writing. So how long should your break be? If you can't wait until tomorrow to add it, wait at least an hour or two or wait until after lunch. But if you can wait until tomorrow, go for it. The key is you want to get far enough away to be objective when you read your own work. If you're too close in time, you're gonna miss some things If you come back And you don't like what you wrote, Guess what? You can just set the timer and draft it all over again. You got this, my friend. Did you run out of time before you said everything you wanted to know. Problem. Set the timer and draft what he missed. You can add it to the end or open up a new document. If you know where you want it, just start typing right there and before Ugo. Here's one piece of advice that has saved me thousands of headaches and endless hours of mental slavery. I want you to listen closely to this. In fact, this is so important that if you forget it, you'll never write fast. Here it ISS don't edit as you right. Let me repeat that. Don't add it as you right. Editing and writing are two separate tasks they call on different parts of your brain. So if you try to do both, you'll be frustrated and confused and end up throwing your hands in the air in despair. And we're still he might give up from writing altogether. So please, I'm begging you don't mix writing and editing. It's as toxic is binge drinking beer and liquor on the same night. And trust me, he don't want to do that. Keep running fun and fast and you know what? Your productivity is gonna soar and Here's something powerful you'll get when you write against the clock, you'll automatically bypass your inner critic. Yes, that nagging voice won't have time to bother you. It's like you're saying Quiet now I'm writing. We'll talk later, Not now. Feel free to put off later as long as you want. Now go pour out those awesome words you're dying to share. Take 20 minutes right now. Set your timer Right. Your research in your own words, from the first thought to the last, then calls to do something. It won't be perfect, but it will be a great start to taking your research and telling it to your reader in your own words. 6. Editing for the Gold: by now, you've got a heaping pile of words you already knew not to call it crap. All dirt's not alike after all. So why in it? Well, there are the obvious reasons. Typos, awkward sentences, needless words, fluff and disorganization. An easy way to end it quickly is to read your work aloud. If you have an iPhone, you can set it up to read your work to you. The voices are amazingly good now. In fact, some sound better than the people you know. The key is, the computer won't do it. Your brain will. It won't automatically fill in the missing words. It won't scan over the text and not see what's missing or sounds weird. No, it will read every single word without judgment. Listen closely and you can fix what's wrong. And since the voices air so good, you'll have an idea how conversational your words are. That's what you listen for in your first reading. Next time you'll listen for content. Did you cover all the points that you wanted to do? You need to fill in anywhere. Did you need to cut some away? The better you write your outline, the easier this will be. You'll also look for flow. Did you follow your process? Did you start my qualifying? The listener does your first sentence lead them to want to read the next? Did you front load the post with the most important information so they don't miss it? Ideally, you want to hook them in every paragraph. That way, Before they knew it, they've reached the end. Now let's look at the main goal of editing. Everybody wants their work to be perfect. Your grammar can be clear, concise and conversational, and it should be. Your formatting can look like art. All of that's important, but none of it matters. If you forget one thing, did you accomplish what you wanted? In other words, was it effective? One does effective, mean effective means people read your post all the way to the end. It also means your words moved people to comment to share or do something. And it means your tone is helpful, friendly and irresistible. I'll grant that you can't know this for sure until after you publish it, but it does. You've use, um, parameters. To shoot for that will increase the share ability of your work. Now give your draft a test drive. With all these parameters, knees is way to do that is to form a small critique group. If you're not confident doing it yourself, Here are the rules. Each of you share your work with the others and give honest, helpful, constructive feedback. Answer questions like, What impression did it make? Are your words clear, conversational and persuasive? Did you stir the emotions you wanted? If you missed the mark you set? What adjustments can you make to get back on target? Keep your group small and generous. Play fairly and everyone congrats. Oh, improve and win a couple more things before you go. It's tempting to edit forever. I used to do This is an art student. Our draw large portrait's and spend hours on the details. I would add charcoal or graphite smoothed in and erase what I didn't want. I do this over and over until I was happy with the result, and it finally looked my what I envisioned. That's not a bad approach in itself, but it can cost you a lot of time, so if you want to publish every day or every week, you've got a limit how long you edit just set a timer as you did when you wrote your first draft. Said it for 30 minutes or an hour. Whatever seems reasonable, just have a deadline and don't violate it. And with that in mind, here's another thing to remember. Take a break between writing and editing. Like we said before, these activities use different parts of your brain. And when you take a break of an hour or even a day, you give your mind a chance to reset for the task ahead. And don't sit at your computer for hours at a time riding or editing without getting up and walking around. I started doing this when I learned about the Pomodoro method. It works in cycles like this. You work for 25 minutes, then you take a five minute break. Then you go back to work for 25 minutes and take another five minute break. You do this four times and then you can take a 15 minute or a longer break. It sounds counterintuitive to take so many, but honestly, it will do wonders for your productivity deadlines. Even those imposed by timers have amazing motivating power and a surprise benefit of this is you'll be more focused then maybe you've ever been. When you use these tips, you'll be able to mine the gold that lies sleeping in your brain and your words. 7. How to Write a Great Headline: you look at first when you decide to read a block, post the headline. A close second might be the writer. If those two grab your I, the article must pass one more test. Do I care about this? If you do, you click the link. Today we'll talk about writing a headline for a blonde post that sings. There are three things to remember when you write a headline. First, a headline is an invitation. When you have a party, you send out cards, e mails or texts. Toe. Let people know when you write on your blog's. You let people know you've published by sharing the link to your newsletter or your social media profiles. You ask by making a promise. That's the second thing good headlines do. But before we move into that, there is one thing you have to remember, and it might just shock you. Since a headline is an invitation, it's also a filter. Your post isn't for everyone. It's for some, a specific group with specific interests. That means your headline will exclude some people to you can't write for everyone. Pick a specific group with a worldview similar to yours, facing problems you can solve, then you can make your promise. Your promise depends on what you're offering. Can you relieve someone's pain? Can you share a lesson you've learned from a challenging experience? Can you show someone a better way to do what they're trying to do? When people read blogged fists, they're looking for something. Align your promise with that and you'll build a following. The 13 you need to do to write a great headline is to stand out. If you're in the self help market, there will be lots of people competing with you. Don't tell the same story or share the same principles. Dig into your story and owned the lessons you've learned. Can you span an old idea into something counterintuitive? Here's an example from my own catalogue. Stop feeling guilty for not writing every day. That's controversial, because all the experts tell you that if you don't write every single day, you're not a real writer. But, you know, life interferes. Sometimes your creative well dries up. Sometimes you take on too much and riding feels like a chore. You get the point. Be willing to say something daring if you Kenbrell back it up with solid facts and principles. How about headline analyzers should be used? Those? Absolutely. They're helpful because they're backed with scientific, carefully collected data. If you run your headline through one of these tools, it will be better than if you don't. But don't feel like you have to depend on them as the sole arbiter of what a good headline is. Run your own tests. Collect your own data and analyze it. Then, if you want to use the analyzer to see how your headline measures up, you can also study the headlines on your favorite posts. What made you click to read what didn't and why. Answer those questions and you'll design your own great headlines in no time. Here's your assignment, right? 10 different headlines for your blonde post. What promise are you making? What emotion are you attaching to it? How you make it stand out from other block posts that are similar to yours. Work with your headline until it sings. Succeed here, and everything you do afterward will have mawr impact 8. Ask Them to Do Something: your reader has reached the final paragraph. You just say goodbye and wish them well. Or do you ask them to do something with what you just taught them? If you like someone you're seeing, you ask them to go out again. If you don't, it might not happen if you have a business. You know, repeat customers are better than those who by once and never return Your business goals will determine what you ask if you sell it high ticket item. You'll need to build value and steps. When you buy a car, you spend a few days thinking about the features you want and how much you should spend. You won't spend a dime until you believe the big purchase is worth more than your money. Asked people to take a small step forward. This can be a free video training, a special report or e book, a strategy that helps them do something they couldn't do before. These gifts aren't freebies. Their samples. They're the test drive you take before you buy the car. Give people a taste of what's ahead. If it fills a hole in their life, they'll be hooked. If it doesn't, you won't waste any more time chasing the impossible. Here's a tip that will make it easier for you to sell anything, no matter what you offer. Deep down were all selling the same thing. Hope when you have a problem and you've exhausted your resource is you want relief, you want the pain to end. You want things to go back to normal. In other words, you want hope. If you could make the pain go away, you'll make sales. If you could make dreams come true, you'll have customers so hope and you'll build a business. A good culture action has these three elements. First, it's short once in its no more. Second. It asks for one thing. If you want to ask for more, right? Another blonde post. Third, it promises something better you offered her when they started reading. Now invite them to make that hope. Riel. Every block post is an opportunity. Make it count by asking for action 9. Publish!: you've written a great draft, you've shaped it into something helpful, something remarkable, something worth sharing. Now it's time to ship. Publishing is the package you put your words into. It's the form they take in search results. Will your words grab people by the eyeballs and real them in? They will. If you've done all the hard work up until now. Now it's time to raise the curtain and take the stage. What are some things you can do to dress up your post for the public First? Remember that readers today our scanners first put any popular topic into Google and you'll get millions of results. Picture that say you have a city of three million people and you're all given the same assignment. Will every post look the same? Will they be different? And with three million choices, how will anyone tell yours is better? If you want to stand out, make your post easy to scan. So one of people scanning for in a word value they want to know you've got the goods is what you're sharing so good they can't pass it up. Does it answer. They're burning questions. What? Leave them better off than it found them. You've already done your research. You've got the answers. You've talked with people. Now you've got to tell them formats so people can tell at a glance that your work is worth their time. You're a few ways you can do that. Have some heads, some heads, air, bold text that breaks up your copy so people can see what your points are. Use them to show your answering their questions. Even better, show them you've got better answers. Every subhead is a main headline for the paragraphs that follow. They answer the question. Why should I read this? Don't write long paragraphs. Sticks of the main idea. Organize it into points. Think of it is rungs on a ladder. You don't stand on one for long. You keep moving until you get to the top so you can get off and do something at some bullet points. These are a great way to add variety to your formatting, and they're an excellent way to show a list. It's a lot easier to read a list of bullet points and this to read a list separated by commas. Bold statements stand out and invite the reader to stop for a moment and think about this on medium. You can make a Senate stand out by formatting and, as a quote, make it easy for scanners and they'll read every word and a photo or two. We're visual people. Photos can help us picture what you're talking about. Much like a movie invites us to see ourselves in the story. Choose a good one and you'll make your case even stronger. You can take the picture of yourself or get a great one from a site like picks. Obey, unspool ash or pixels with smartphone cameras being what they are. You can snap a great shot if you set it up right. Here's how to get over your fear of publishing. We spoke about wanting your work to be perfect. Let me say this right now. It won't be perfect. It can be good, though, so settle for doing your very best. With the time you have, you can't share your insight to view Polish forever. So put it out there and don't worry. If it's not absolutely perfect, strive to make it effective instead with what you've learned here. You can definitely do that. Here's the point of publishing your talent is for sharing help people entertain them, then you'll get the things you want. Best of all, you'll make a difference. So go ahead and hit the publish button. Submit your work to a website. Get your insights in front of people. You'll grow, your audience will benefit and your talent will multiply in ways you never imagined it would You've gotten this far and then press that button and share your awesome words. 10. Congratulations! : Congratulations even made it to the end of the course. You now have a repeatable formula for getting your message out to the people who need it most. Now what will you do with it before Ugo? You can use what you've learned to build your content calendar. What's a content calendar? Well, all it takes is three things toe. Build a content calendar. First, decide how often you'll post and stick with it. This won't always be easy, but if you have a target and hit it often enough, it'll become a habit. Second, write down all the questions and concerns your audience has. What holes can you fill? What needs can you meet your block posts Are your chance to solve your readers problem? Third, break each question or concern into bite sized pieces. Remember, you only need to cover one idea proposed. Stay focused and you won't dilute your message. Thank you for enrolling in this class. I hope you make all your dreams come true as you bring your message where it's needed.