Writing the blog is only half the battle when it comes to posting on your website. You also need to consider the input before during and after the blog.

Before
When writing your blog, the first thing you must do is your research. The chances are, someone would have already written an article like the one you are writing. See how they have approached the topic and read the comments from other users. Learn what you can from other people and apply it to your writing. If you haven’t written a blog before, I suggest that you have someone who has, help you. You will only get frustrated and impatient when writing if you have no clear guidance.

You may also find yourself making changes every time you read through your blog. My suggestion would be to get a colleague or friend read the blog and give you their honest opinion because we are our own worst enemy and will always find something wrong with our own writing.

Before writing your blog you must also look at your marketing plan. Do you have any events coming up? If yes, then write a blog about it. You must always have a defined marketing plan which can be reflected in your Social Media Campaign. Remember, blogs are to be shared so think about it when you are writing.

During
Now that you have done your research and started writing you blog, you need to have a plan. When I am writing blogs, I always have bullet points written on a piece of paper next to me of things that I need to cover; you should do the same. It may also help to read your writing backwards to spot mistakes that you may have missed.

As you’re writing, its worth going back over each paragraph to check your spelling and grammar. It can be really frustrating to notice small errors once you have posted the article on your website.

It is also important to remember to hyperlink your blog. This means adding links to important words in your blog that can send your readers to other places. You will notice that I hyperlink my blogs with other articles I have written. When doing this, you need to make sure you tick the box which says “open in new tab” otherwise your readers will be taken away from your blog. For my blogs on both Warren Knight and Gloople, I use WordPress. This is the best website for blog writing as it allows you to also tag your posts, insert pictures/videos and select categories.

Before you hit send on your blog, reread your writing and double check your spelling. You should also end with a call to action. Whether it be a question or a thought-provoking sentence, you should always keep your audience on their toes and wanting more.

After
Now that you have posted your blog, the work doesn’t stop there. The article will not promote itself. Share your hard work with all of your followers inside of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. Include your latest blogs in your newsletter and set up and RSS feed button to give followers the opportunity to read your latest blog in their own time.

Placing your blog on article submission websites, where your target audience hang-out, will drive targeted traffic to your blog. You may even want to look into using platforms that charge to drive traffic to your website based on the content of your blog, like Outbrain.

You may also notice comments appear on your blog – make sure you reply to them ASAP. Leaving them too long will create a negative image on your blog.

Having social share button, like ShareThis is a must for any blog and can easily be set up as a plugin automatically.

I would love to read from you about the ways that you prepare your articles.