How To Structure Your Blog Posts To Get On Google's First Page

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Having a proper structure for your blog posts is vital to get on Google’s first page. Actually, I will show you a simple trick that works for response posts that can get you the first spot within a few weeks.

Now you must be wondering what is a response post?

Well, a response post is a type of post that answers a SPECIFIC question. Certain types of response posts can be:

The ‘How to Posts
The ‘What is’ post
The ‘Why’ Post

These posts are usually anywhere between 1,300-1,500 words that get ranked very easily. The trick is to win feature snippets for these small blog posts.

Here is how I do it:

The question people are searching for on Google is: “How to increase outbound clicks on Pinterest?”

So, to answer this specific question and get the featured snippet:

I added the question in the first 3 paragraphs.
I answered the questions with a short answer that is not more than 288 characters.

Pro Tip: You will notice that both the question and answer are in BOLD as I need to signal Google that this is an important section of my content.

What type of blog posts tend to perform really well?

Creating content that solves people’s problems is the most effective way to build a long-lasting online business.

Here are a few types of posts that you can include in your blog :

The ‘How to Posts
The List-based Post
The ‘What is’ post
The ‘Why’ Post
The Pillar page post
The Infographic post
The Instructional posts
The Informational Posts

Before you start to write your blog post, there are two things that you should keep in mind:

Why would someone want to read your entire post?
Why will people come back again to read your posts?

If you keep these two things in mind when you are creating your content, you will have a much better chance of success than almost all new bloggers.

Related :

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How to structure a blog post to get on Google’s first page

1. Find what your audience is searching for

Your post title should be in a way that attracts the right audience to your blog.

People should be intrigued by the title.

They must be willing to know what your blog is all about.

So, how you can create a compelling title that will make people click on it like crazy?

Well, the first step is to find what problems people are facing. This is where keyword research comes in handy.

Doing keyword research will allow you to find a kick-ass post title that will have a HIGH chance of getting on Google’s first page.

Doing keyword research is really not difficult at all. All it takes is just a few minutes and you will be able to find some interesting keywords ( Long-tail keywords).

If you are confused about the topics you want to write about, then these two resources will help you.

There will be times when you will be tempted to rank for more than one keyword for your blog posts.

But I won’t advise you to do so.

Why?

Well, what I have noticed is that when you try to rank for more than 1 keyword in a single article, you will be spreading yourself so thin that it would have been better if you didn’t optimize for any keyword in the first place.

For you to get the best result, try to optimize your blog post for a single keyword.

When you are writing high-quality content around a single keyword, you will get a ranking for other related keywords.

Google search engine is enhancing its algorithms so that contextual keywords in the content are considered.

So you don’t need to worry about that.

That being said, the next step is:

2. Do extensive research on the topic

After having done your keyword research, which is a great starting point, your following research is even more critical.

You have to do your research extensively on the topic that you will be writing about.

If you already have excellent knowledge of the topic, then you don’t need to do a lot of research.

But what if you barely know the topic?

You will have to do your research in such a way that you gather information from sources that are legit only. It’s vital to provide accurate information to your audience for them to trust you.

Trust is vital if you want to build loyal customers.

A few loyal customers will not only buy products that you recommend, but they will be the few people who will read all your blog posts. They will be the people who will talk about your brand with their family and friends.

Basically, they will be the people who will market your brand for free.

Therefore, it’s much better to have 50 loyal customers instead of having 10,000 people on your email list.

So, be very careful when you are gathering information online.

Think about your authority and credibility down the road. You will want people to rave about your content. Isn’t it?

Pro tip: It is mandatory to do at least 30 mins of research before you even think to create your content.

This leads us to the next step.

3. Create an outline for your blog post

If you want to become more effective with content writing, you should make an outline for your blog post before you even start to write.

A good blog post contains an introduction, a body with at least three main points, and finally, a conclusion.

Remember, when you were writing an essay back in school? It’s the same.

It’s essential to have your outline ready so that during the writing process, you will know exactly which point you will be elaborating on.

Having an outline will act as a guideline for your content.

Remember, you want to maximize your productivity to be able to create more quality content with the least effort.

If you are all over the place, then creating a single piece of content can become a pain in the @ss.

For instance, if you have to write content on ” Best tools for marketing”, your outline will look somehow like this:

Introduction about marketing

↓

Description of Tool 1 and its advantages

↓

Description of Tool 2 and its advantages

↓

Description of Tool 3 and its advantages

↓

Conclusion

Now that you have your outline ready, it will be much easier for you to write your blog post.

4. Write your introduction

Your introduction should be able to map out what your blog post is about. It should be clear so that your audience will know why they should keep reading your blog.

You can also use an anecdote:

A short story that is related to your blog post. This can also be effective to grab people’s attention if they can relate to the story.
You can also use something funny or even painful. If you can make someone laugh or make them cry, you have already captured their attention.
Use a powerful quote that will instantly grab their attention.

Grabbing people’s attention in the introduction will guarantee that they are going to read your content.

Since people’s attention is very limited, you will have only around 15 seconds to convince them why they should read your content.

Also, do make sure to include your keywords in the first paragraph as it will help to get a higher ranking on Google.

5. Create your content

Now that you have your introduction entirely written, it’s time to create your content.

Let’s say you have 3 points to discuss. You should make sure to have 3 subheadings in the body of the content.

There are 2 simple ways to create interesting content:

Write in small and short paragraphs of no more than 3 sentences.
Use headings that allow your audience to skim through your content and refer back to the points they are interested in.

The first header of your content should be the H2 header, and it should include the keywords you are targetting in the blog post.

Well, I know sometimes it’s difficult to include the exact keywords in your first header. But don’t worry, I will tell you a simple trick that will do the job.

Keep on reading!

If ever you have to break down your H2 heading even further, then you can use the H3 heading.

I use only H2, H3, and H4 heading for my blog posts. If I have to break down an H3 header, I will use an H4 heading.

Now, what about the content itself?

Your main points should address your reader’s queries and questions head-on. You will have to add value to your readers’ lives, so these main points should be relevant and useful to them.

When you are just starting, it will be better if your blog post is around 1200-1600 words. Actually, if you are targeting long-tail keywords, you will often find that the contents for these keywords are not more than 2,000 words.

Some people prefer to post 600-800 words of content. But these short blog posts only scratch the surface of a specific topic.

Now it doesn’t mean you CAN NOT have a blog post with 600 words. It depends on the keyword itself.

Now, you might also be tempted to write articles with 3000-6000 words in the beginning. But, I don’t think you will want to spend a couple of days just creating a blog post.

Would you?

Pro Tip: You must create content at your own pace. You don’t want to get burned out within the first few months of starting your blog.

So, go ahead and create quality content, even if it means you are making 1 blog post per week.

At the end of the day, the quality of your content is the most significant asset of your blog.

Important things to know about content writing

1. When you are writing your content, you should never edit it at the same time. What I mean is that you should never do major revisions while you are typing.

If you want to be effective with your writing, write down what comes to your mind. Then when you have finished your draft, you can edit and revise it.

The best way is to revise and edit your content the next day. This will make a significant impact on the quality of your content.

2. Never write your content on Microsoft word or pages for mac. It will cause issues when you paste the content into the editor of WordPress.

You can use notepad in windows or notes on Mac.

Now, you can also write directly on WordPress which I do.

But you will need to use Grammarly to correct grammar and punctuation mistakes.

Instant Grammar Checker - Correct all grammar errors and enhance your writing.

3. Once you have created your content in WordPress, you can then add pictures and links to your content.

4. Never justify your text. Gaps between the words become bigger and interrupt the reading experience. Gosh, it even looks worse on smaller screens like smartphones and tablets.

5. Use internal linking to make your audience engage more with your content.

Internal linking gives Google an idea of the structure of your website. This will help them establish a hierarchy on your blog and provide the more important pages and posts with more link value than others so that you can get a boost in your SEO.

Now, don’t link all your blog posts in a single article. You must do it in a way that makes sense and is related to the blog post you are writing.

6. Wrap things up with your conclusion

Usually, your conclusion can summarize the main points you have discussed within the body of the article, and it’s where you can include your call to action.

If your reader reached the end of your blog post, it means they are interested in what you have to say.

Well, that’s good news. Isn’t it?

So you should take advantage of that interest and create your call to action.

Some calls to action can be:

Ask your reader a question and ask them to leave a comment.
Ask them to share your post if they found it interesting.
You can also give them a freebie for opting into your mailing list.
Send them to your products page.

This is a great way to engage with your audience. People who will read your blog post till the end, want you to show them what they should do next. Since they expect you to help them, they will usually take some sort of action before they exit your blog.

Conclusion: How to structure a blog post to get on Google’s first page

As you might have noticed, blog writing is far more like an essay. The most important thing is to write your content at your own pace.

Above I mentioned that there is a simple trick you can use if you are not able to insert your exact keywords in your header?

Do you still remember?

As you may have noticed in this post, I included the exact keywords in the conclusion section.

Example: ‘Conclusion: How to structure your blog post.’

I think this is the easiest way to include the exact keyword if you are struggling to insert it in the first heading.

If you are new to blogging then you may find these articles interesting:

If you liked this post, please don’t forget to share it so that others can benefit from it too.

See you soon.