How to Write Compelling & Unique Blog Posts (4-Step System)

Like Dory’s anthem from Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming,” writing a blog article follows the same aim, but there is a straightforward process to make your blog articles rock.

Today you will learn the 4–stages to take every blog post through so you can write compelling and unique articles every time:

1. Discover or create blog post ideas
2. Craft powerful titles and captivating outlines
3. Optimization habits that please Google and your readers
4. How to edit your articles like a boss

A blank page is stifling, and the quicker you can get words on that page, the more fast and better your articles will turn out.

Let’s dive in with the first critical stage, which will help you never have to deal with writer’s block again.

Discover and Refine Your Blog Post Idea

People Google phrases like these all day everyday:

• best waffle makers
• best stress relief
• best breakfast sausage
• best conditioner for color treated hair
• And thousands more!

It is easy to find ideas for these “Best” search phrases people are entering into Google every day, here’s how.

Look in your amazon purchase history and pick any product you bought that was around 30-100 dollars.

What was it?

Let’s go with shoes for this example.

We have four boys, a big goal of our shoe purchases is that some of the shoes can be handed down.

To begin this step, put one of the “product types” you have purchased into the search bar on Google’s home page like this: “best kid shoes” and then add a space.

Note:

Doing this in incognito is best; it removes your history, so you get more organic results.

Find a Search Phrase a.k.a. Keyword

Google autocomplete gives these “keywords” to refine your idea.

But none of that is “relevant” to my family or my kids.

Why is this important?

While I could research and create a post like this, this would likely be a “one off.” Which goes against Google’s desire for uber relevancy.

Your aim is never “SEO,” blogs are powerful when they steward a group of people better than anyone else and then, SEO falls into place.

Look:

Google’s SEO starter guide says it this way:

“Cultivate a reputation for expertise and trustworthiness in a specific area.”

Adding “that” instead of “for,” these more specific ideas pop.

“Best kid shoes that last a long time.” Bingo!

Why is this important?

The googler of this phrase is either:

1. Budget-conscious or
2. Looking for shoes that can be “hand me downs” as well.

Either way, since our family is large, almost all decisions are “budget conscious” or “decisions that last.” Instead of purchases that add clutter or are “trendy.”

There could be plenty of “additional” relevant content for this type of person on our blog.

Look:

These “best” blog posts types can easily become some of the quickest ways to make money from your blog.

How?

Many of the searchers of these “keywords” are looking for guidance in making a purchase. They want to buy right now and need help!

• best belgian waffle maker with removable plates
• best conditioner for color treated hair
• best dog collar for pulling
• best lights for growing weed indoors, lol

When people read your blog article that ranks for these “buying phrases”, many of your readers will click on links in your blog post to then make a purchase.

Amazon and other websites will pay you a commission for the “referral.”

This is called affiliate marketing, and it is one of the most straightforward ways to make money blogging.

But I’m jumping ahead of myself.

For now, write down a few “best product type” articles ideas from your Amazon history on a Google doc or other note taking system.

Note:

Workflowy is the best for saving blog post ideas. Click here to add a few future ideas to WorkFlowy free.

Here’s another blog post type that can earn you money, a “how to article.”

How-To Articles

“How to” articles are powerful for three reasons:

1. “How to” articles yield an immediate “experience.”
   1. Over time this establishes yourself as an “authority” for your readers.
2. You can combine 27ish “how to” articles or so, and more easily write a book or create a course.
3. How to articles can make you money

How do these blog posts make you money?

Taking the shoe idea, or another 50ish dollar purchase on Amazon, there was a “reason” you made this purchase.

Why did you buy it?

Our kid shoes get purchased with these uses primarily in mind, helpful at the ninja gym, or useful for hiking.

You can turn these “reasons” for your purchases into how-to articles:

• How to Prepare Your Kid for Ninja Warrior Class
• How to Help Your Kids Be Safe When Hiking

In your how-to article, your readers will often need to purchase items to accomplish the “how to effectively.”

When your readers agree with you that the tool, toy, or other commodity will help them accomplish their goal:

Like the “best” blog post format above, readers will “click” a link from your article and “buy” the item on Amazon or wherever you send them for the purchase.

In the above examples, specific shoes and other items could be helpful purchases to recommend in those how-to posts.

• Bear spray
• A whistle
• Specific athletic shirts
• Or shorts
• Etc.

Looking at your three or so product lists from Amazon, what “goal” did those purchases help you to accomplish?

Next is the maybe more important way to eliminate a blank page—writing your biggest idea.

When you form this habit, you will always be empowered to create unique blog articles that have “expertise and trustworthiness in a specific area”—you.

Biggest Idea

One of the steps in my blogging journey was reading this post on writer habits. Then cultivating a “write my biggest idea” habit on my mind each morning by setting a timer for 21ish minutes each day and getting out the first draft of a biggest idea.

And guess what?

Each of those writings can turn into blog posts.

For me, sometimes only 250 words or so are all that get down, sometimes over 1k get dropped.

It doesn’t matter.

A primary objective when beginning your blog articles this way is to—not forget why you wanted to start this writing before you get deep into it.

There are two ways to “not forget why” and begin manifesting your biggest idea:

1. Just start writing
2. Just start writing

Don’t think just do.

The goal is not to “finish” the article. The aim is to get a decent start on your post and eliminate a blank page.

You’ll organize and perfect your article and make it rock with the next steps—finding a compelling title and creating an outline.

Note:

You should already have a “unique ideas to you” list for your life.

If you don’t have a unique ideas list started, the second exercise in this life purpose post will help you create this essential list.

Here’s how to begin to refine blog post ideas into an article that ranks on Google.

Create Compelling Titles and Outlines That Rank

Put a few of your “keyword ideas,” words into google but don’t hit “search” yet.

My article “idea” is how to make a home peaceful or inviting so I am entering—how to home—and then a space, not too much relevant help.

Adding the beginnings of “atmosphere,” this topic pops.

“How to keep home atmosphere happy.”

Don’t hit search yet, do this first:

If more than one of these autocomplete phrases are “relevant” to your blog readers, add those phrases to your Google doc or Workflowy.

You may use these “keyword phrases” for future article ideas, or in your outline discussed below.

Here’s what to do next.

Click on one of the “auto complete” phrases to search that topic idea and notice the titles on page one.

There are these “keyword themes”:

• “Happier Home”

• “You Happier at Home”

• “Your Home Happier” and “Improve Your Mood”

• “Positive Home” with “Raise Happy Kids”

• And, “Positive Atmosphere at Home”

Lots of angles to talk about a “happy home atmosphere.”

Notice any trends?

Which is best for the people that will resonate with other content on your blog?

At this stage in the blog writing process you are primarily looking for a title “theme.” Here’s how.

A Good Title for Launch

Your title on Google will determine if you “get clicks” to your blog or—if people choose another article.

More on this in the “optimization” section, but at this point, you want to know…

What does the flow of your article need to be?

• Tips,
• Steps,
• a List,
• Etc.

Using the above example, “How to keep home atmosphere happy,” a “list” looks like what most people click. This is one of the reasons these are on the top of Google instead of page five!

Which makes sense.

Sure there would be “steps,” but likely most googling this phrase have a burning problem to solve right now. My kids and I are cranky. What can I quickly do?

Looking again at the current “list” of Google results, numbered lists are at the top:

• 15 is top,
• then 10,
• then 11
• and then a How to (steps, likely)
• followed by “tips” without a number.

This one is relatively simple. A larger list of “ideas”, “tips”, or “methods”.

“17 Happy Home Ideas to Enhance a Home Atmosphere Fast”

Or, this may sound crazy right now, but if you never want to go back and improve this article:

Write a “101 Best Happy Home Ideas for Families”.

These long list types of posts are more straightforward than you may realize.

One week of “documenting” what makes you happy in your home, conversing about this a few times at lunch with coworkers, etc., and boom—more than enough “ideas” to complete a list like this.

And since many of the ideas will be things like “light candles,” most will not need an in-depth explanation.

Additionally, the next step will come to the rescue with plenty of ideas—outlining.

Outline

Here are a few goals you want to accomplish with your article outline.

1. Article Flow
2. Depth of Serving
3. Rank for the most “Search Phrases.”

A clear outline will help the flow of your article, increase the thoroughness of the topic covered, but additionally:

• You can rank on Google for more than one search phrase, “keyword,” with every writing you publish.

Here’s how to get good ideas for this process:

First, are any of the other Google autocomplete phrases you jotted down from the step above, relevant to this article?

Instead of using this topic for a future blog post idea, open up a Google Doc and add these phrases to begin forming the outline of your article.

Next, go back to Google, enter the more specific idea that resonates with you and your blog readers and hit search.

I’m going to enter “happy home atmosphere ideas.”

A little way down the page, there is a box you may not currently notice called “People also ask.”

There are not many specifics for this article, “What is a positive home environment” is the only one close…

Clicking the arrow next to this “question” will reveal more:

“How can I create positive energy at home?” and “How can I make my home happy?”

Clicking “How can I make my home happy?” will show a few more ideas that may enhance your outline.

What do you do with these questions?

Simply add relevant to this post “people also ask” questions to your Google Doc.

Additionally, at the bottom of the Google search results is a section called “Searches related to”:

These “searches related to” are a way to find future article ideas that are “in a specific area,” and some may fit into the outline of the article you are getting ready to write.

Here’s what to do next.

Organize all of the–

1. phrases from Google autocomplete,
2. people also ask, and
3. the related searches from Google into an outline.

Here’s a possible outline for this article from these suggestions.

• 17 Happy Home Ideas to Enhance a Home Atmosphere Fast
  • “What is a Happy Home?”
    • Likely my introduction
  • Fundamentals of a Positive Home Environment
    • Answering the People also ask question: “What is a positive home environment?”
      • I would likely open up this section with almost that exact phrase.
  • 17 Happy Home Ideas
    • Would likely open up this list with one of these people also ask questions:
      • “How can I make my home happy?” or
      • “What are things that make a house a happy place to live in?”
  • Love Coming Home Every Day
    • The Conclusion

What’s the next step?

Fill Up Your Outline

Now, all that’s left to do to eradicate your blank page completely is to write a couple of hundred words per “mini topic” in your outline.

Don’t take a couple of hundred words, as a rule, that’s not the point. The point is to get further along from eradicating the blank page.

Just like anything else worthwhile, It’s done one step at a time.

A maybe more straightforward way to do this, as opposed to going from top to bottom, is this:

• Just start writing in the section that is the most simple for you.

Research is often procrastination, consuming instead of creating.

Simply set a timer for 21ish-minutes and just start writing.

Another point to make here is:

• You are not editing—at all.

You will fix all word problems and improvements in the next steps, optimization, and editing.

Stay away from thinking you need to find a better word, or this doesn’t connect with, or that sounds dumb, etc.

But, you can’t optimize or edit a blank page or a page with an outline. Get words down before you read the next steps.

Ready?

3 Optimization Habits

Here’s why article optimization is important.

Nobody cares what you have to say, unless they know they care what you have to say.

Here are 3-optimization habits that will quickly show blog readers that what you are saying in your article is essential and relevant.

1. Add Scannability
2. Perfect Your Title and Meta
3. Crush Your Introduction

Let’s dive into each one.

Add Scannability

The scannability of your blog article is vital for two reasons:

1. Scannability aids in catching the big picture fast
2. Being able to scan your posts will improve your rankings on Google

In modern times, people’s attention level is crazy low, which is why they scan—first.

If your blog post does not show “value” quickly, your readers will rapidly leave your page and go back to Google.

Scannability is also important because of Google’s drive to enhance blog readers’ experience on mobile devices.

With smaller screens and fat thumbs, having “space” in your article is important for these little screens.

How do you add scannability to your article?

In these four ways:

1. Headers
2. Lists
3. Bolds and Italics
4. Short Paragraphs

1. Headers:

A header is a few words at the beginning of different sections in your blog post.

Headers help your article in two-ways:

1. It looks good and adds scannability
2. Headers tell Google the “hierarchy” of topics in your article.

Headers range from H1 (Heading 1) to H6’s (Heading 6).

Let me show you how to think about headers by using the outline from above.

• 17 Happy Home Ideas to Enhance a Home Atmosphere Fast (H1)
  • • “What is a Happy Home?”–Introduction.
  • Fundamentals of a Positive Home Environment (H2)
    • Fundamental One (H3)
    • Fundamental Two (H3)
    • Fundamental Three (H3)
  • 17 Happy Home Ideas (H2)
    • Fast Mood Enhancers (H3)
      • 3–ideas
    • Happy Home Habits (H3)
      • 5–ideas
    • Atmosphere Tips (H3)
      • 4–ideas
    • Organization Ideas (H3)
      • 5–ideas
  • Love Coming Home Every Day (H2)
    • The Conclusion

Notice the “hierarchy?”

The “chapters” in the article are H2’s, more ideas are under this topic, H3’s.

Additionally, “Fundamental 1” may be two elements, those could potentially be H4’s, sub-topics under the H3.

Adding headers is simple, with your cursor in the section of words you want to turn into a header: Click the “normal text” drop-down in the Docs menu and change to Header 2, Header 3, etc.

Here is an excellent guide to learn more about perfecting headings and subheadings in blog articles.

Note:

Depending on how the article turns out, the 17 happy home ideas may just be a list. Which is the next element that enhances scannability.

2. Lists:

There are two types of lists that improve your articles:

1. Numbered Lists
2. Unordered Lists

Numbered lists keep a count as you go along or show the necessary steps to take in a specific order.

Unordered lists are simply a list of thoughts, points, or ideas that don’t need a specific order of progress. Unordered lists are the “SEO” term. You see and likely use these every day as “bullet points.”

Look:

You may feel this is obvious. As you are writing, some lists are easily apparent, but maybe more critical:

After you write your article, look at sentences with lots of commas or a few sentences that affirm a specific idea and ask:

• Could this be more clear as a list?
• Would this stand out more if it was a list?
• Is space added better if this was a list?

There are more list opportunities in each blog post than most realize. Find them and create lists that that help your readers while looking out for this:

A good practice for lists is to make them short. Most of the time, you want to avoid entire paragraphs or long sentences in your lists. Keep them punchy.

This guide shows the proper lengths and other tips for ordered and unordered lists.

3. Bolds and Italics

Bolds and Italics are simply adding bold font and italic fonts throughout your article.

There’s no “rule” to how much or few, just use it a little more than you feel like you should, without being over the top and you’ll rock it out.

In fact:

There’s no real rules to any of this, how many headers, how many lists, etc.

The point is simply to add “art” to your page and help your blog readers and Google see your article more clearly.

4. Short Paragraphs

In addition to adding scannability, short paragraphs enhance the reading experience on mobile devices. How?

When you have a lengthy paragraph, that massive section of text takes up the entire screen on mobile and makes it difficult to read. “Real writers” don’t like this, but short paragraphs are critical for your blog articles.

What is the proper length for paragraphs in blogs?

There is no absolute rule; however, keeping your paragraph length to less than three lines is ideal. Notice the word line, not sentences.

As you are writing your article create new paragraphs breaking up sections of text that are longer than three lines.

Here’s the next optimization step—your all important title and meta.

Write a Compelling Title and Meta

Your Title and Meta Description are the words on Google search results that will entice people to click on your blog post instead of the other options on Google.

Look:

Title writing is copywriting, the art of using words to persuade a reader to take action.

The action you want googlers to take is, click your title and begin to read your article.

It’s hard to say what is the most important part of a blog article, but there is one for sure rule:

• If your title is not enticing, no one will read your article. So it may be the most important.

Additionally, outlining and the “hook” of your intro stem from your headline, which adds to the titles’ importance when blogging.

Copywriters spend years learning the art of “headlines,” the word for a “title” on a sales page or advertisement.

I don’t want to say you’ll never master it, but diving in here and committing time to this artform will never finish.

Earlier, you created a “Title” to guide your article creation.

With the article almost finalized, it is now time to improve your final title.

How do you do it?

It’s a combination of art and tools.

Let’s cover the first part—art.

The Art of Creating Blog Titles

Here’s a helpful definition of art, “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.”

Your blog is an expression of you; part of your title game will be from your personality and imagination.

We have added a few ideas to our outline that may help to improve our title:

• what is a happy home,
• positive home environment,
• a home you love coming home to,
• and the original idea, happy home ideas.

A good practice is to “google” each of these topics and look at the top results.

You likely have many ways to “spin” your title, and doing this will give you catchwords to use in your final title.

Ex:

Immediately I see the word peaceful in this top result.

Does the word peaceful fit with your target readers and come alongside your “expression” in your article?

Also, there are a lot of “family” results.

A thought going into all parts of each blog is how you can spin this title to target people who will enjoy other articles that you have written.

Remember:

“Cultivate a reputation for expertise and trustworthiness in a specific area.”

If your blog will have a lot of “family” content, adding the word family may be an appropriate catchword for you.

Let’s bring these ideas into the tools part of the conversation and wrap it all up.

Tools to Improve Titles

There are three primary tools to use when crafting titles:

1. An online thesaurus
2. A physical copy of a thesaurus
3. A title checker tool

The go-to online thesaurus is powerthesaurus, and the best thesaurus book is: “Words that Sell” by Richard Bayan.

Both will help you to replace “weaker” words to make your titles more compelling.

Power thesaurus is free to use, and “Words that Sell” is one of the best less than twenty dollar purchases I have ever made but, don’t go with the kindle version.

You’ll want a physical copy because it makes “flipping” to different word replacement sections fast. You can get this book on Amazon here.

In addition to “power words,” Google limits the amount of space available to your title and meta description.

Look:

Notice the ellipsis, the…

That means these titles and metas are being cut off because of this limited real estate Google gives for titles and meta descriptions.

Using a blog title and meta length checker that counts in pixels and not characters, is another necessary tool to write “clickable” titles.

Here’s the final title and meta description idea for this blog article:

Title – 17 Happy Home Ideas for a Positive Home Environment

Meta – Want a peaceful family atmosphere? Learn 17 happy house tips that create a positive home environment for you and your kids. Number three works fast!

Perfect Your Intro

Like the title, your intro is another “hook”—words that quickly deliver a promise or connection and entice readers to stay on your post.

You could pretty much always say, cut your first intro idea in half, then cut it in half again.

You can’t go wrong with a “too short” of an intro, however:

• An easy way to lose readers fast is by having too long of an introduction.

Think about it:

In the article outline above, if it jumped in with tip #1 immediately, would that be a problem?

It would be a little abrupt, but if it were a good tip, you’d continue to read tip #2.

But if you describe what a home is, the problems of an unhappy home, how long you struggled with an unhappy home, or other related topics for too long, they’re gone.

A primary goal of your intro is to not scare your reader away with boredom.

“Hook” your reader fast with a short and compelling intro and get them into your epically edited article.

The last step to complete your article!

Level Up Your Article as an Editor

You want to do three things when editing your article before publishing:

1. Move and Delete
2. Clean
3. Enhance

Here’s the first one, move and delete:

Many bloggers fall into a trap—sharing “philosophy” before getting into what their readers are googling.

Here’s why.

Yes, the “mindset” is likely a necessary step of what your reader needs, but they are unaware of this and don’t care—yet.

If they were, they would google the mindset problem.

Example:

There is a section after the intro, “fundamentals of a happy home atmosphere,” in the outline above. This section may fall into this snare.

How?

Depending on how “actionable” or experiential that section of the article becomes, it may be too in the weeds and lose people quickly.

Ideas in that section would probably be:

• creating a consistent cleaning routine,
• cultivating family times,
• or some other ongoing “tactic” to bring more peace to a home.

But, the googler may be having an emergency.

She needs to remember that there are candles to light and Spotify for her to turn on. Or something else she can do right now to “fix” her problem.

It may be better to either cut that section entirely from this article and post it under a different keyword or move it to the end, after the happy home ideas.

Something like, Create a Happy Home Atmosphere That Lasts.

A big part of editing is determining what is going to stay in your article.

More often than you may expect, the cut and paste into a new doc for a future blog idea, or the delete button is a huge tool in the editing process.

Tip:

I create a “Do we need?” section at the bottom of my docs, cut and pasting blocks of text down there—instead of deleting them.

These “leftovers” are often more than enough to begin new blog posts to avoid starting with a blank page!

Your next “biggest idea” for a blog article.

Clean Your Article

This last stage is often most effective after sleeping on your final article for a night.

Moving and deleting is going to do a lot of this work for you, which is why you should do that part first then:

Go back through your final article,

• checking for grammar issues,
• looking for uses of the same word multiple times,
• and having a sharp eye out for duplicate content.

There are free and inexpensive tools for grammar and other editing issues. Writing tools that reveal enhancements to your article that you can not currently see.

Editing Tools

I have used multiple editing tools for extended periods and recommend you to do the same. Because of your personality and style, you may like a different one than my go-to.

What’s great about these tools is they each give you a functional freemium version to use for as long as you want—for absolutely free.

All you have to do with either one is copy and paste the final article version’s content into their editors. Then follow the AI editor recommendations.

I use Grammarly premium mainly because it is super easy to use and very quick.

To use Grammarly for free click here,  then copy and paste your article into it’s editor.

Many of my blogging friends prefer another great tool called ProWritingAid.

You can try its free online editor here.

Another free tool to use will help you eliminate “difficult to read” sentences.

Avoid Complex Sentences

Hemingway app will show you sentences and sections of your article, which are hard or extremely difficult to read.

The fastest way to fix these difficult to read sentences is to replace commas with periods. A practice that feels off.

After using ProWritingAid or Grammarly’s AI, dump your content into Hemingway. You will quickly see a “reading” score and sentences that need adjustments.

With hemingway, it’s best to have the final version of your edited article be at a reading score of 5-6.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content happens more often than you realize. Points and ideas are often said multiple times in a slightly different or similar way. You may not see this easily, and no tool will help.

A practice that may help you see “duplicate” content is putting similar sentences or sections of text, one on top of each other.

You will likely see that you have strong or compelling points in some of each sentence or sections of text.

The rest?

Likely fuff.

When you merge these sections of text, grabbing the “power” from each one, you then have a few rocking words instead of multiple weak words.

More deleting, lol,

Or:

• More words for future blogs! Yeaahhhh!

Enhancing Your Article

Editing, moving, and deleting is all enhancing your article, but at this final stage of editing, enhancing words for blogs is primarily adding in more of the optimization habits:

• Headers
• Lists
• Bolds and Italics

You also want to look at the “flow” of your header words. Ensuring they are either going in a forward direction, something to do, or a moving away from, avoiding direction.

New bloggers mix this flow often and there are two ways to fix this error:

1. More moving
2. Shifting the Language

You can transplant, moving away from or avoiding tips into an avoid section or shift the language to a positive, do this.

Here’s a checklist for your blog posts to help enhance your articles:

1. Will your title run with the current top 3-google results?
2. Is every word in your intro important and compelling?
3. Is your introduction short?
4. Does your outline make sense? Is it a logical progression?
5. Are your steps or lists all positive or negative, do this or avoid that?
6. Do you have tons of:
   • Headers
   • Unordered and/or ordered lists
   • Bolds and italics?
   • Are all paragraphs shorter than 3-lines?
7. Are repeating or similar ideas merged to avoid saying the same thing?
8. Did you run your final words through Grammarly or ProWritingAid?
9. Does Hemingway still show you have a reading score above 5-6?
10. Does every section need to be in this article, or should some go to a future post?
11. Do you have ideas for a “go deeper” topic from this article to write next?

Then you’re ready to publish your article!

Note:

Number 12–Do you have ideas for a “go deeper” topic from this article to write next–is really important!

This post became an idea after writing my, how to find your purpose post.

I needed a source on my blog to link people from; start writing blog articles, one of the ways to find your purpose. A deep dive on the topic, as opposed to a few tips in that article.

As you progress in writing blogs, you will see these “cliffhangers” that need an entire article to discuss.

Chasing these cliffhangers is one of the games to play in your mind that helps you stay in the worthwhile blogging game.

These future blog post ideas are in every article.

Once again, Workflowy makes saving and organizing these ideas easy.

Look:

Begin to pay attention and notice them, and you will never run out of ideas for your blog!

Publish It

Here’s why most creative endeavors like blogging fail.

You never ship the work for a long enough period of time.

Blogging is momentum, like a rocket leaving earth, a log placed above coals, or lighting leaves on fire with sunbeams through a magnifying glass.

You have to focus on consistent publishing for a long enough period of time to shift from consumerism to a co-creator.

Publish this article, then determine how many you will publish each week for the next year.

Somewhere in-between now and then:

You will begin to stumble into your unique and creative purpose and get addicted to enhancing lives–from your soul.

By your side in the journey.

Josh