Crafting a resonant blog post can feel like capturing lightning in a bottle. You want to grab your reader’s attention, deliver your message, and leave a lasting impression—all without losing them halfway through. It’s a balancing act, and Blog content creation is at its heart. This post will unpack what makes a blog post good and plentiful. You'll discover practical tips to refine your craft, elevate your content, and engage your audience more effectively. Ready to nail your next post?
To assist you in achieving this, Feather's notion to blog provides a seamless way to optimize your process.
What Makes a Good Blog Post?
1. Compelling Topic
If you want someone to read your blog post, they need to, well, want to read it. That brings us to the first point—coming up with a compelling topic. Your topic is your base. And to make it convincing, you must first understand what your audience cares about.
There are several ways to do that:
Google’s SERP
The SERPs can tell you a lot about what people are searching for. Don’t underestimate it. For instance, if you have an affiliate website focused on LEGO, you can type something like ‘best lego sets’ and search for topics you find interesting and relevant to your website.
You can use SERP features like People Also Ask and Related Searches to find new topics that searchers are interested in reading about.
Use Your Competitors
Another great way to find new content opportunities is by looking at what your competitors are also writing about. If you want to combine and speed up the two processes above, use SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. Ahrefs, for example, has a convenient tool called ‘Content Explorer,’ where you can find interesting topics and keywords that rank well.
You can also take a more detailed approach and use your Google Analytics to find pages that support your business objectives (recommended for eCommerce sites).
Unearthing Competitor Conversations via Advanced Search
Another quick way to find your competitors' discussion is by using advanced Google search operators. All you need to do is search the following in Google: site:competitordomain.com inurl:/blog/ or site:blog.competitordomain.com. You can also filter the results by looking at the most recent articles they’ve published.
It’s also possible to ask your audience directly via social media channels or emails what they want to read about. So yes, there are numerous ways to find the topics your audience might be interested in.
2. Captivating Title
A compelling topic is, unfortunately, not enough to convince someone to even click on your article. After all, you’re likely not the only one writing about that topic.
How do you entice someone to click on your blog post? By writing a captivating title heading. It’s the first thing your potential readers notice. If it doesn’t attract their attention, they won’t even consider reading it, no matter how well the content is written.
3. Gripping Introduction
Convincing someone to visit your blog post is a win. It's a small one, but still a win. The more significant challenge is turning your visitor into a reader, which most bloggers fail to achieve. In other words, your introduction matters.
The sad reality is that an average reader’s attention spans eight seconds. That’s right. You’ve got eight seconds to convince a user to read the rest of your article. The article you spent 4 hours writing.
Write Intros That Hook Readers
That would be an interesting Mission Impossible movie—just Tom Cruise trying to write a gripping introduction to his newest blog post. And that’s precisely what your article needs. Your introduction must convince the reader that they should keep reading.
A good introduction needs to be direct. Don’t beat about the bush. Tell your readers about the article and how it will help them.
Crafting the Perfect Hook
For instance, you can create a hypothetical problem your article will help resolve. Add a pinch of storytelling and a tablespoon of powerful keywords, and finish with a hook. Don’t answer all the questions. Provide readers with enough information to make them care and slowly lure them into your story. You’ve got eight seconds for that. Don’t waste it.
4. Engaging Subheadings
How you structure your article matters. First, a clear structure will help your reader navigate through the article. And secondly, it makes your content look much more aesthetically appealing. Think about it. If you throw a block of text into your readers’ faces, they will get lost fast. It even looks off-putting, forcing readers to read every line to find the information they seek.
Your Blog's Navigation System
This is where the subheadings come in. They offer context and serve as visual clues, allowing your readers to navigate through your post more efficiently, ensuring they quickly find the answer to their queries. What should your blog post structure look like? This graphic from our SEO Textbook sums it up perfectly.
SEO & Readability
Dividing your structure into several sections using different subheading sizes creates a hierarchical structure for your page. It’s excellent for both your readers and for SEO. Oh yes, Google loves well-structured articles. And if your subheadings use the right keywords, that’s a home run.
Keyword-rich, Reader-Focused Subheadings
When optimizing your subheadings with keywords, remember not to stuff; make them as natural as possible. You’re writing the blog post for the reader, not Google. Using too many subheadings can make your content challenging to read. The best idea is always to use H2 subheadings and treat H3-H6 headings as optional.
5. Table of Contents
Speaking of subheadings and content structure, don’t forget to add a table of contents to your post, especially if it’s longer than a typical 800-word article. The table of contents serves two primary purposes.
Improves Navigation
First of all, it helps your readers to navigate through your page. They can quickly locate the part of the article that interests them the most and head straight into it, mainly if you use anchor links.
Good for SEO
And secondly, search engines love tables of contents! Google often displays them as site links and pulls them out into SERPs. If you’re looking for a straightforward way to boost your SEO, adding a table of contents is an excellent idea.
6. Appealing Visuals
Adding relevant images, videos, or infographics to your content is key to making it aesthetically pleasing for your audience. Visual aids help break up the text, making it easier for readers to go through it.
Engaging Your Audience
Nevertheless, there’s much more to visuals than just that. See, the thing about humans is that they are visual creatures. Indeed, visual learners represent approximately 65% of our entire population. Simply put, we respond better and faster to visual data than text: 60,000 times faster, to be exact (MIS Research Centre).
These aren’t just interesting facts. These two pieces of information show precisely how essential data visualization is. Adding images, infographics, gifs, or graphs to your blog post significantly impacts how readers process and respond to your content.
Optimizing Visuals for Impact
Visuals will make it easier for your audience to understand your article. And if you put some time and effort into providing appealing images or infographics, readers will be more likely to remember your article. Of course, you can’t just add any photos you like. Ensure they’re relevant, high-quality, and optimized for search engines (use alt images).
7. Relevant Internal and External Links
Without links, there would be chaos. Sure, it sounds dramatic, but it’s 100% true. The lack of links would make navigating through the meanders of the internet an almost impossible task. Let alone finding helpful something (there’s a reason why they’re called links).
But are links necessary when writing a blog post? Yes, they are. Links make navigation more intuitive for your readers. They also provide them with additional sources of information that may interest them.
There are two types of links you should implement in your blog post:
Internal links: These links are nothing more than links to materials within your website, such as other blog posts, products, guides, pages, etc.
External links: Links that lead to other websites are called external links. These are used to provide sources for your citations or included data.
Both types of links, internal and external, play a significant role in your SEO. Internal links help search engines crawl your website, whereas external links if they’re high-quality, can help build your site’s credibility.
8. Content Length
How long should your blog post be? On paper, that is a straightforward question. Nevertheless, once you go on a quest to seek the optimal content length, you will soon find out that the answer is more complex than you anticipated. Some say it’s 1,000 words. Others say that it must be over 2,000 words. You may also find the best SEO word count between 1,500 and 3,000.
Finding the Sweet Spot
Which one is it, then? It doesn’t matter. Recent studies have shown that longer pieces (2,000+ words) rank higher and generate better results. Still, there’s no one-size-fits-all word count, especially if you’re optimizing for SEO. It will depend on your content type, target audience, and topic.
Tailoring Length to Audience & Topic
For example, younger audiences tend to have shorter attention spans. They expect your content to deliver fast and straightforward answers. On the other hand, more comprehensive topics may require longer content to explore them and generate value for the audience entirely. The best idea is to use page depth scroll tracking in Google Analytics, which will help you understand how far your visitors scroll down your blog posts or analyze the competition.
For the latter, you can use Surfer SEO’s SERP Analyzer tool to provide information about your competition and their content body length.
Surfer SEO Serp Analyzer
The previously mentioned Content Explorer tool from Ahrefs offers a similar feature, displaying word counts next to the competitors’ examples. The main takeaway regarding word count is to align your length with what Google rewards for the primary keyword you’re targeting.
9. Strong Summary
Some say it doesn’t matter how you start but how you finish. And while it does apply to many situations, blog content writing is not one of them. As discussed, how you begin matters the most, but it doesn’t mean you ought to neglect your article’s ending.
Crafting Conclusions That Convert
Your conclusion is the last chance to make a lasting impression on your reader. It’s also when you want to entice readers to act, such as signing up for a newsletter, following your social media page, or checking out your service or product. A reasonable conclusion should include key takeaways and, if you want your reader to take the desired action, an engaging CTA (call-to-action).
10. Shareable, SEO-Friendly URL
Before you post your blog article, ensure it has the correct URL. It may not seem like a big deal, but the URL plays a role in SEO. Correctly structured URLs can improve user experience and help search engines crawl and rank your web pages.
Your content’s URL should tell readers and search engines about the blog post. It should be short, descriptive, and keyword-rich. Overly complex URLs can even cause issues for crawlers.
Writing a great blog post starts with keeping it conversational. Unlike formal writing, blogs are informal and often playful. Even technical blogs keep a conversational tone to explain complex topics. Notice how blog posts speak directly to you, the reader, using the second person. This wouldn't fly in academic or professional writing.
Authors often reveal their personalities through short asides, personal opinions, and intentional grammar rule-breaking—like using sentence fragments to magnify impact. Just make sure you’re breaking the rules with purpose. A polished, edited post still reigns supreme.
2. Ride the Keyword Wave
Want to boost your blog's visibility? Research trending keywords. If you're writing just for fun or close friends, skip this step. But if you want your post to rank higher on search engines, take the time to research relevant keywords. Tools that can help include:
They let you test how well a keyword ranks and find related keywords to sprinkle throughout your post. You can find inspiration for future posts through associated keywords. Keywords are key to reaching a wider audience.
3. Bust Down Those Text Walls
Nobody wants to read a wall of text. They're intimidating, and people often scroll past or stop reading altogether. In blog posts, text walls are never necessary. A wall of text usually means a paragraph that takes up several lines.
Short Paragraphs, Big Impact
When you spot one, break it into two or more paragraphs. This boosts your blog's readability score, making it more appealing to readers and improving your SEO ranking. A good blog post is scannable. As you read your first draft, look for spots where you feel slowed down or can't quickly scan the information. Break those spots into smaller sections.
Feather: Blog & Newsletter 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!
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Types of Content and Blog Post Structure
When an interviewee captivates, a Q&A format might be the best choice. This straightforward approach alternates between the interviewer’s questions and the interviewee’s responses. It highlights the unique voice of the interviewee, making the piece not only engaging but also authentic.
The Allure of Listicles: Why They Never Go Out of Style
Listicles are the undisputed champions of shareability. They’re simple, engaging, and easy to digest. Typically, you’ll start with a brief introduction and then dive into a series of short, numbered paragraphs. Each item on the list provides value, creating an easily navigable format that readers love.
Case Studies: Showcasing Real Impact
Case studies are powerful tools to demonstrate your brand’s real-world impact. They follow a problem-solution-results structure. Describe the subject’s problem, explain how your business provided a solution, and detail the results. Visuals like images and data can enhance the story, making it more compelling.
Checklists: Step-by-Step Guides to Success
Checklists offer readers a clear path to achieving a specific goal. They’re prevalent in lifestyle and DIY content but can also be effective for complex topics like cybersecurity. The format is straightforward: list the steps needed, ensuring each is actionable and easy to understand.
Crafting Narratives: Bringing Stories to Life
Narratives are less common in B2B marketing but can deepen connections with your audience. This format focuses on storytelling. Avoid using bullets and subheadings; instead, create a cohesive and engaging story that keeps readers hooked from start to finish.
9 Best Tools for Producing a Good Blog Post
1. Streamlined Blog Management with Feather
Feather is a game-changer for bloggers and businesses seeking an efficient, user-friendly platform. It integrates seamlessly with Notion, making publishing SEO-friendly blog posts and newsletters without coding or design expertise a breeze.
Feather simplifies your workflow by allowing you to manage everything from content creation to email campaigns within Notion. You can:
Customize your blog’s design
Collect emails
Set up a subfolder blog to boost your SEO
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. Stay Organized and Creative with Notion
Notion is an indispensable tool for bloggers who need to capture ideas on the go. Whether you’re jotting down quick notes, saving links, or collaborating with your team, Notion’s versatile platform has you covered. With apps for virtually every device, you can keep track of your ideas wherever inspiration strikes.
3. Gain Insights with Google Analytics
Understanding your audience is crucial for creating content they’ll love. Google Analytics helps you identify which posts are resonating and which need improvement. By analyzing metrics like page views, time on page, and bounce rate, you can better tailor your content strategy to meet your readers’ preferences.
4. Find Inspiration with BuzzSumo
If you’re struggling to find the right angle for your next blog post, BuzzSumo can help. By showing you what’s already been written about a topic and how much engagement it has received, you can identify gaps in coverage and offer fresh insights. In doing so, you increase the chances of your content being successful.
5. Keep Your Ideas Organized with Trello
Managing a blog calendar and keeping track of ideas can be challenging, but Trello makes it easy. With its intuitive interface and customizable boards, you can seamlessly organize your content strategy and collaborate with your team. Even if you’re working solo, Trello helps you stay on top of your ideas.
6. Improve Readability with HemingwayApp
No one wants to read a blog post that’s difficult to understand. The Hemingway App highlights complex sentences and suggests grammatical changes, making creating explicit, concise content easier. Aiming for a readability score of 10th grade or below ensures your writing is accessible to a broad audience.
7. Craft Compelling Headlines with Headline Analyzer
A great headline can make or break your blog post’s success. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer evaluates your title’s effectiveness, offering suggestions on word choice, emotion, and action. By refining your headlines, you can increase the likelihood of attracting readers and driving traffic to your site.
8. Create Visuals with Lightshot
Screenshots are essential for posts that teach readers how to do something or introduce new concepts. Lightshot makes capturing, editing, and sharing screenshots easy so that you can provide clear, practical examples.
With its built-in editing tools, you can:
Highlight important areas
Draw on images
Add text
9. Design Eye-Catching Images with Canva
Canva is a powerful, user-friendly tool for creating professional-looking images, even without design experience. With a wide range of templates and tools, you can create visual elements for your blog posts and social media, enhancing your content and making it more shareable.
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Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today with Feather
Feather makes creating and managing content easier by letting you write in Notion. You can publish blogs and newsletters without needing to code or design. This means you can focus on what matters: creating quality content.
Boost Your SEO
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Customize Your Design
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Grow Your Audience
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Get Started Today
Feather is designed to make your life easier. You can create an account and start using it right away. Write in Notion, publish to your blog, and send newsletters. It’s that simple.