How do you structure a blog post? I often do it in the same way I wrote essays throughout high school.
You can blog faster and more effectively when your posts follow a well-defined structure. One such structure that I frequently use when blogging is the essay structure. Don’t let the word essay fool you — I am not suggesting that you make your posts unnecessarily long. Rather, I am suggesting that structuring your writing in the form of an essay can help you get your point across quickly and effectively.
Leading sentence and introductory paragraph
When writing a blog post that references another source on the Web, I begin the title of the post being referenced (hyperlinked), followed by the name of the blog and whatever the author’s point or conclusion may be. Example:
“Effects of solar power on Widget production costs” by tech blog Widget News Daily discusses the potential of solar power to increase profits by reducing the production cost of Widgets.
This structure lets the reader know exactly what your are about to discuss, and has the added benefit of packing a great number of relevant keywords into the very first sentence of your post’s content. I am not an SEO expert, but I have been told on numerous occasions that the first few words in a page’s content are very important.
The hyperlink used in this lead sentence features extremely relevant anchor text — specifically, I used the title text of the blog post being referenced. Building links using relevant anchor text is much more effective than meaningless phrases like “via” or “click here”.
After the lead sentence, follow up with another one or two sentences that outline the points that will be discussed in your post. Example:
Author John Doe asserts that the savings generated by using solar power in place of oil will only continue to grow as the price of fossil fuels becomes more and more expensive.
Body of the post
The body of the post expands upon the points outlined in the introductory paragraph. The body can be (and often is) as short as one paragraph, but ultimately can be as long as you deem is necessary to get the point across.
Conclusion
Follow up the post body with a short paragraph that rephrases the main idea presented in the introductory paragraph, and sums up whatever you said in the body. This let the reader know that your post and ultimately your ideas are well-rounded and complete.
When your writing follows a pre-defined structure, you will often have portions of a blog post put together mentally before your blogging software even has a chance to load up. By starting off with a clear vision of where your post is going, you will be able to produce better content faster. The essay structure is simple for a writer to utilize, and for a reader to understand.
