How To Write a Blog as a Beginner (15 Best Tips and Tools)

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Starting a blog can seem overwhelming. Whether you’re looking to share a passion, express your thoughts, or build a brand, understanding the basics of blog content creation can make all the difference. You might worry about finding the right words or reaching your audience. This guide will ease those fears. We'll show you how to write a blog as a beginner with tips and tools to get you started.

Feather's notion to blog, is here to help. This tool simplifies the process, making it easier to focus on what matters: sharing your story.

How To Write a Blog as a Beginner: Step-by-Step Process

1. Set Up Your Blog

Before writing a blog post, you need to have a blog. If you already have a website, find out if you can create a blog on your platform. You can use Feather. Feather is an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service that allows you to publish blog content and a newsletter through Notion, and it requires no coding or design skills.

Feather allows companies to write blog content on Notion and automatically publish it to their Feather blog. Feather allows you to set up a Subfolder blog (domain.com/blog instead of blog.domain.com because the subfolder is better for SEO).

Setting up your blog means determining a budget for your blog. You’ll need to pay for the following:

Hosting

The domain name

Design services (unless you opt to design the blog yourself)

Blog writing and/or editing (unless you plan to do all of this work yourself)

From Free to Fortune

Running a blog can be free, but remember that this generally means you can’t use a custom domain name, and you’ll probably have ads on your site. For a low-budget personalized blog, expect to spend about a hundred dollars to set everything up and cover a year’s hosting.

In some cases, blogs cost thousands of dollars to build and operate—these are usually high-traffic blogs with custom-designed templates requiring a large amount of bandwidth.

Balancing Costs and Growth

As your blog grows, you can offset costs by selling ad space. Another strategy some bloggers use to reduce costs is affiliate marketing, where you link to an affiliate partner’s online product listings in your content; you receive a cut of the revenue they make through your placement of their link(s).

2. Blogging Without Your Website

Instead of setting up their blogs, some bloggers publish on large, public platforms. One of these platforms is Medium. Another is Tumblr, which hearkens to the early days of social media by combining social and blogging features in one platform.

If you stick with blogging and make a name for yourself, you can also explore guest blogging on larger, established blogs. Many of these blogs publish mainly, or even only, guest blog posts. And you can get paid for doing it!

3. Choose Your Topic

Once your blog is up and running, it’s time to choose the topic for your first post. What can you quickly and passionately write about? If your blog is affiliated with your business, brainstorm ideas for blog posts that provide value to your target audience while promoting your brand. For example, let’s say you run a dog-walking business.

From Safety to Exercise

Consider what your clients want to read about—the titles they’d click on, read, and ideally share with others. You might come up with a few different topics:

Choosing a pet-safe ice melt for your sidewalk this winter

How many calories does my dog burn on an average walk?

Are pack walks safe? How many dogs are too many for one handler?

How to get your dog acclimated to a new harness in no time.

Finding Your Unique Blog Angle

Ask your clients about the kinds of topics they’d like to read about on your blog. You might be surprised by what they suggest! Another great way to come up with topics to cover on your blog is to look at the content others in your industry are publishing.

That doesn’t mean you should steal ideas or plagiarize their work; find ways to take inspiration from competitors’ blog posts and cover similar topics from a different angle and in your unique voice.

4. Write an Outline

With any writing project, following the writing process enables you to craft a thoughtful, well-developed piece. Blog posts are no exception. After you’ve determined a topic for your first blog post, create an outline. List your working title and the key points you want to hit in your post. These key points will likely become separate sections, each with its header and subheaders.

Crafting a Compelling Blog Post

An easy way to write an outline for your blog post is to follow a similar structure to an essay. Your blog post starts with an introduction, then body sections, and finally, the conclusion. But unlike an essay, a blog post’s conclusion includes a call to action. (We’ll talk more about that in a bit.)

Once your outline is complete, it’s time to start writing! You can use many great, free apps to write a blog post, like Google Docs and WriteRoom.

5. Hook Your Reader and Keep Them Scrolling to the End

In any writing, the hook is one of the most essential parts. This sentence or paragraph is the part that grabs the reader’s attention and promises that their curiosity will be satisfied if they keep reading.

There are many ways to hook your readers’ attention, and the ideal way for each blog post depends on the audience and the subject the post covers. One popular type of hook is to present a startling fact. To return to our example titles for the dog walker, a compelling hook for the post on pet-safe ice melts might be about how toxic many standard ice melts are to pets’ paws.

Another effective way to hook readers is to address one or more of their pain points directly. For the example title about acclimating a dog to a new harness, this kind of hook might acknowledge a few things:

How frustrating it is to get a dog to let you put a new harness on them

How this wastes precious walking time

How could you waste money on harnesses your dog refuses to wear?

6. Give Your Readers a Solid Call to Action

A call to action is a short phrase that asks the reader to do something. In a blog post, this might be to:

Leave a comment

Make a purchase

Subscribe to your newsletter

Read a related post next

Calls to action generally use direct-response copywriting principles, like making particular requests and creating a sense of urgency. Here are a few examples of calls to action:

Like what you see? Head over to my shop and order your custom print now.

Want to learn more about reading tarot cards like a pro? Check out my post on the major arcana’s astrological associations.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment below and tell me whether you agree or disagree and why.

7. Don’t Forget to Edit and Proofread

Read the draft carefully and note any spots where your writing feels awkward, choppy, or excessively wordy. Editing resources like Grammarly, various writing books, and even your network of fellow writers can help you become a more muscular editor by making you more attuned to issues in your work.

9. Enhance Your Blog Post with Engaging, Relevant Images

Why do kids like picture books? Because the illustrations bring the story to life. The same thing happens when you include images in your blog posts. Images break up the text and give readers short breaks as they work through your content.

Explainer and how-to blog posts can also help readers visualize the points you’re making in your text, and even help them avoid making mistakes by demonstrating what their project should look like as they complete it step by step.

10. Use SEO Strategies to Reach a Wider Audience

SEO, also known as search engine optimization, is a category of strategies bloggers and other website operators use to increase their websites’ visibility. The better your SEO strategy, the higher your website ranks or shows up in search engine results. The goal is to have your blog be the first listing when people search for specific keywords.

Keywords are just one component of SEO. Here are other ways to improve your blog’s SEO:

Organizing your content neatly. This means no walls of text (we’ll get to those in a moment) and clear headers to separate sections within the blog post.

Relevant embedded images with the appropriate keywords in their metadata. Metadata is the data that gives more context to images, like their alt descriptions and file names.

Keeping your blog post to an SEO-friendly length. As of 2021, the ideal blog length for SEO is 1,760-2,400 words. Don’t take this as a requirement, though—generally, posts that clock in at 1,000 words or longer rank well, and even blog posts as short as 300 words can rank well if they utilize other SEO strategies. Your blog post should be as long as it needs to be; don’t artificially lengthen it just for SEO. That’s because another key component of SEO is.

Value

Ensure your blog post provides relevant, valuable information for your readers. Your website platform might include analytics tools you can use to see how well your blog and individual posts are performing. By “performing,” we mean how many people visit your website and how long they spend there, both indicators of your compelling content.

White Label Blog Content

Blog Content Strategy

Blog Content Plan

How to Get Free Unique Content for Your Blog

Blog Structure

How Long Does It Take to Write a Blog Post?

How to Find Content for a Blog

Blog Content Calendar

What Makes a Good Blog Post?

4 Elements Your Blog Can't Afford To Miss

There are many different types of blogs, but a good blog often has specific characteristics regardless of its subject matter. Whether you are writing a movie review blog on Feather or a personal diary blog on Tumblr, here are some elements of a good blog post that you might want to incorporate into your work:

1. Nail Down Your Subject

To write a compelling blog post, start with a clear subject and perspective. This will guide your content creation and help you communicate effectively. Your subject should reflect your knowledge and passion, appealing to your target audience. Read similar blog posts to learn how others approach the topic. This will inform your writing style and help you connect with readers.

2. Craft a Captivating Headline

A great blog post starts with a great headline. Your headline should be strong and engaging, drawing readers in and enticing them to read more. Keep SEO in mind when crafting your:

Headline

Subheadings

Bullet points

A well-optimized headline can drive traffic to your post. This is key to attracting an audience and growing your blog.

3. Hook Your Readers

A good blog post hooks readers with a problem or issue introduced in the headline. Once into the body, quickly set up the premise with a hook that promises more. Blog posts are like persuasive essays, trying to bring readers around to your point of view. Your hook should engage readers and make them want to keep reading.

4. Provide a Personal Solution

Now that you've established your subject offer your take on the matter or solution to the problem. Readers return to blogs because they feel connected to the blogger's perspective. They trust their insights and relate to their point of view. The best blog posts offer a personal take on an issue, clearly expressing the blogger's feelings and perspective.

Feather's Publishing Power

Run your blog and newsletter with Feather today! Create a new account and send emails from Notion, or go from notion to blog in minutes! Feather is an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service that lets you publish content through Notion without coding or design skills.

How to Write a Good Blog Post

How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

How Often Should I Post on My Blog?

Personality Development Blog Writing

Best Time to Publish a Blog Post

How to Cite Sources in a Blog Post

How to End a Blog Post

What Makes a Good Blog Post?

How to Repurpose Old Blog Posts

How to Write Your First Blog Post

8 Best Tips To Make Your Blog Engaging

1. Be Relatable: Write for the People

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes. What problems are they facing? What questions are they asking online? Address these in your writing. It’s easy to fall into the trap of writing about your products or services, but that’s not what your audience is searching for. Focus on their needs. Write in a way that’s relatable and engaging for your reader.

2. Create High-Quality Content: Make It Awesome

Your content should be so informative, funny, or relevant that your visitors want to share it. This can be challenging, but if you prepare well, you can create quality content that your readers and Google will love. Consider your value and how it can be shared meaningfully for your audience.

3. Be Consistent: Keep Them Coming Back

Blog regularly. Let people know what to expect. You don’t have to blog daily, but ensure the intervals are predictable. If people see that you always publish posts on Thursdays, they might swing by your site on these days. Set up content planning to make this easier for yourself or your team.

4. Be Original: Stand Out from the Crowd

Make sure your content is worth sharing. Writing original stuff is the most effective way to get people to share your content. If your story is one of a kind, people will be more prone to sharing. Don’t be afraid to share your unique knowledge about a subject.

5. Be (a bit) Controversial: Stir the Pot

People tend to respond when they disagree. If you want to provoke people to share their points of view or start an interesting discussion, don’t be afraid to be controversial. Make your statements a little bolder and a little less nuanced. Don’t go overboard; you’ll have to deal with many negative comments.

6. Ask for Engagement: Invite Them In

If you want people to respond to your post, ask them to do so! If visitors are invited to comment, they’re more likely to do it. Ask people to share their thoughts at the end of a blog post or encourage them to like or share your post on social media.

7. Respond to Engagement: Keep the Conversation Going

If you invite people to comment on your blog, respond politely. When your audience sees that you pay attention to their reactions, they’ll be more inclined to return to your site. Don’t worry too much about negative or off-topic comments; opening the discussion can bring you closer to your readers.

8. Engage on Other Blogs: Be a Part of the Community

Make sure to be visible on other blogs related to your expertise. Comment on posts that have subjects similar to your own. If people see you engage on other blogs, they’ll be curious to see what you’ve written about the matter. Be careful not to use these comments just to promote your products or services, as this can lead to more annoyance than visits to your site.

7 Best Tools To Help You Write a Blog as a Beginner

1. Transform Notion into a Blogging Powerhouse with Feather

Feather is your secret weapon for seamless blogging and newsletters. This SEO-friendly service lets you publish directly from Notion with no coding skills required. Set up a subfolder blog for better SEO and easily customize the design. Plus, you can manage everything from CRM to website content in one place.

You can also create and send newsletters from Notion, making Feather a one-stop shop for all your content needs.

Run your blog and newsletter with Feather today! Create a new account and send emails from Notion, or go from notion to blog in minutes!

2. Write Like a Pro with Grammarly

Blogging often feels like a solo mission, and mistakes are bound to happen. Grammarly is your trusty sidekick, catching typos and grammar slip-ups before they see the light of day. This online extension works across your docs and emails, ensuring your content shines with professionalism.

No more embarrassing errors, just polished, high-quality writing that represents your authority in your niche.

3. Write Targeted Content with Google Keyword Planner

Who better to guide you on SEO than Google itself? The Keyword Planner refines your keywords by showing what readers are searching for. Input your theme, giving you combinations, search volumes, and competition levels. With this insight, your blog posts will rank higher and cater to your audience’s needs, paving the way for potential monetization.

4. Nail Those Headlines with a Title Maker Generator

The headline is your hook. If it doesn’t grab attention, readers won’t stick around. Crafting the perfect headline can be tricky, but a title maker can guide you. Just input your topic; this free tool will churn out catchy and intriguing titles, setting your blog post on the right track.

5. Defeat Writer’s Block with HubSpot’s Post Idea Generator

Every blogger hits a wall. You need fresh ideas to keep your readers engaged, but inspiration doesn’t always flow. HubSpot’s Topic Generator is your brainstorming buddy. Enter a few keywords, and it will churn out multiple ideas for you to develop into compelling blog posts, keeping your content pipeline full and your audience excited.

6. Make Your Posts Readable with HemingwayApp

Even if your topics are complex, your writing shouldn’t be. HemingwayApp helps ensure your blog posts are straightforward to understand. Paste your text into the app, and it will highlight dense sentences and suggest improvements. Your readers will thank you for the smooth, digestible content.

7. Write Great Headlines with a Headline Analyzer

The title is often all potential readers see before deciding to click. A great headline can drive traffic, while a poor one can leave your post unnoticed. Enter your working title into CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, and it will provide feedback on its effectiveness. Make adjustments and ensure your headlines are as compelling as your content.

Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today with Feather

Ever wished you could create and manage blog content without the hassle of coding or design? Feather brings that to life, letting you craft blog posts in Notion and publish them seamlessly. Forget about bouncing between platforms. Write your thoughts on Notion, hit publish, and watch as Feather transforms your words into an attractive, SEO-friendly blog.

The SEO Advantage with Subfolder Blogs

What's the deal with subfolders anyway? You’ve probably seen URLs like domain.com/blog instead of blog.domain.com. That’s because subfolders are better for SEO. Search engines love them, making your blog content more connected to your main site. Feather sets this up so you’re not left in the dust.

Integrate Your CRM and Blog Management in One Spot

Managing your CRM and blog content separately is a pain. With Feather, you can get the HubSpot experience right within Notion. Keep track of all your customer interactions, manage your blog, and collaborate with your team in one place. It’s about time everything worked together.

Design Flexibility Without the Fuss

Want to tweak your blog’s design but don’t know where to start? Feather has you covered. Use custom CSS options to change the look and feel of your site. No coding expertise is required. You'll have the flexibility you need to make your blog stand out.

Easy Team Collaboration

Publishing a blog post isn't a solo endeavor. Feather makes it easy to collaborate with your team during the publishing process. Share your Notion page with colleagues, get feedback, and edit in real-time: no more clunky email chains or lost documents.

Newsletters are a valuable tool, but who has time to manage them separately? With Feather, send newsletters directly to your email subscribers from Notion. Write, send, and repeat—all without leaving your workspace. It's an efficient way to keep your audience engaged.