How to Craft Compelling Blog Posts: A Complete Guide for Freelance Writers

In a time where AI writing tools are pervasive, freelance writers must constantly be at the top of their game. With AI on the rise, there is no chance for mediocrity in our line of work anymore. And to continue getting hired as a freelance writer, you must approach each project with a human touch and aim to write a better post than AI.

Learning to write compelling blog posts isn’t only necessary for you to keep getting projects as a writer but is also important for your client's business. The efforts and content marketing strategies of your clients will most likely fail if you aren’t able to write compelling articles for their blogs.

And what good are the blogs of your clients if the content doesn't inspire readers to take actions that will benefit their business?

It, therefore, becomes necessary for you as a writer to learn the art of crafting great blog posts. Posts that command actions from readers to help your clients thrive in their businesses.

This guide aims to provide you with best practices to plan and write blog posts that are compelling enough for readers to take favorable actions.

What's in this guide?

1. Identify and Understand Your Audience

2. Defining Your Purpose

3. Crafting Captivating Headlines

4. Structuring Blog Posts for Maximum Impact

5. Enhancing On-Page SEO in Blog Posts

6. Using Storytelling to Engage Readers

7. Editing and Polishing Your Blog Posts

8. Conclusion

Identify and Understand Your Audience

The very first step you must take when it comes to writing a compelling blog post is to identify and understand your target audience. This is one of the fundamental rules of content marketing.

And that is because every business has a unique target audience. Even businesses in the same industry tend to target different audiences; therefore, it is important not to assume the same audience for every project you work on. Especially for freelancers who have niched down to a specific industry.

For instance, suppose you have two clients in the cannabis industry. Both clients can have target audiences that are entirely different from each other. This is why you need to, first of all, identify and understand the target audience of each client. Alternatively, your clients could have different products that target different audiences.

Another reason for identifying your target audience is that it provides you with direction. Once you identify and understand your target audience by getting to know their interests, demographics, pain points, and so on, your tone of voice, your writing style, and your choice of words can be easily defined.

Furthermore, identifying the “who” also helps you define the “why” of your blog post.

Defining Your Purpose

When you are able to answer the “why” question, things become more clear. Is the blog post meant to educate, inform, entertain, or persuade readers?

Since your tone of writing differs depending on the purpose of the blog post, it is important to take time to define its purpose.

For instance, a post meant to educate on a particular topic will have a different tone of voice and choice of words from a post meant to persuade readers to buy a product or sign up for a certain service. The latter will have a persuasive tone.

Crafting Captivating Headlines

You've probably heard that posts' headlines play a major role in how well they perform, and that is very true.

The headline of a blog post is a call to action. It is the first CTA of any post, meaning your headline should be able to compel people who come across it to click on it and read your article.

Why Are Headlines Important?

Four items appear on a Google search result page for each webpage on the page. The website's title, the URL, the brief meta description that provides information about the post, and the words that are boldly written in blue.

Among these four things, guess the one that is screaming, “Click me, I’m important”? It is the headline. This is what draws attention to the article and gets clicks if it is compelling enough. If the headline fails to get clicks, the article ultimately suffers.

Elements of an Effective Headline

What makes a headline a “show-stopper”?

A headline that performs well mostly contains the following elements:

• Power words,

• Numbers or statistics,

• Creates curiosity, or

• Poses questions.

Use of Power Words or Phrases

Power words or phrases are words that are capable of commanding readers' attention and triggering them to take action, like clicking on a headline or an ad or sharing a post they came across with their network.

Power words are believed to trigger psychological or emotional responses, which is why a single power word in your headline or CTA can increase your click-through rate. For example, adding a power word like free or cheap creates a perception of value and emphasizes affordability, which can be a great way of increasing your click-through rate.

For a detailed list of SEO power words to use in your headlines, check out this article by Thimpress.

Incorporating Numbers or Statistics

Headlines with numbers have been proven to resonate with readers, which is why you shouldn’t hesitate to use them.

Numbers also tend to trigger a psychological response from readers. Numbers help to quantify your content, giving readers an insight into what to expect if they click on the headline.

Numbers also spark the curiosity of readers. For instance, if a reader comes across a headline that reads “13 unique ways for driving traffic to your website”, such a headline can make a reader curious as to what those 13 ways might be, especially if they know just five ways of driving traffic to their website.

Creating Curiosity

Another way you can increase the click-through rate of your headlines is by creating curiosity. For instance, you can hint at a solution to a common problem or state a surprising fact that will leave readers wanting more.

You can also use descriptive adjectives like “life-changing,” “mind-blowing,” “bizarre,” “unbelievable,” and so on.

Posing Questions

The structure of your headline can add more appeal. For instance, when you structure your headline as a question, it makes readers feel like you understand them.

After all, most people type their search queries as questions. The "what," "how,” “when," and “why” being typed on Google are all opportunities for you to answer the queries of your target audience using your headlines and the content of the post.

Having a question in your headline also makes the readers reflect and try to answer it even before they click to read the article.

Numerous studies show headlines with questions tend to have a high click-through rate.

Tools for Headline Generation

If your headline doesn’t compel clicks, your content suffers, so here are five free tools that you can utilize to write better headlines.

• Answer the Public – free and basic to use, but great for generating headlines. One focus keyword or keyphrase can produce a bank of blog ideas and headline suggestions.

• Google Auto-Suggests – Google’s auto-suggestions on your focus keyword are topics that your audience is actively searching for answers to.

• Headline Studio by CoSchedule – Apart from their nice and user-friendly interface, they provide you with suggestions and an AI tool to make your headline stronger.

• Headline Analyzer by MonsterInsights – This free tool also helps you with suggestions and provides you with a list of power words and ways to improve your headlines.

• Sharethrough Headline Analyzer – This headline analyzer allows you to compare various versions of your headline so you can pick the one with a better score.

Structuring Blog Posts for Maximum Impact

Have you come across blog posts that make reading tedious? Well, I have, and guess what I do? I bolt as fast as I can. I won’t let a blog post shatter my reading spirit, not when I know I can get the same relevant information from another page that has thought of my “reading feelings” before hitting the publish button.

In the same way, I leave those pages without reading all of their content, your audience will also leave and not read your article if you don’t structure it in a way that makes it easy to grasp the information in the post.

The fact is that blog posts and other online content are structured differently. Unlike academic or research papers, newspapers, or books, blog posts are structured in a way that makes reading as seamless as possible. This is due to the numerous distractions available online, so you need to focus on keeping your readers' interest and avoid boring them.

You can structure the post for easier reading by dividing it into three sections — the introduction, the body content, and the conclusion.

Introduction

Your blog post introduction should do two things — the first is to hook your readers, and the second is to establish and state the purpose of the post.

While headlines are important, so is the introduction to your article. Your introduction could be the reason someone stays on your page or leaves. If they leave the page, it indicates that either your introduction didn’t intrigue them enough to read the rest of the content or that it stated a purpose different from what the headline promised.

It is important for your introduction to quickly establish the post's purpose in a way that will pique readers' interest so that they want to continue reading.

Body Content

When it comes to the body of your blog post, you want to make it as easy as possible for your readers to read and digest the content of the post. Thanks to paragraphs, subheadings, and white spaces, you can structure the body of your content to improve scannability and readability.

You can also improve the readability of your content by incorporating relevant examples, anecdotes, or case studies. Examples help you paint a clearer picture for your audience and also help break down complex ideas.

You should also make sure the flow of the post isn’t interrupted by drifting away from the subject.

Conclusion

Conclusion, key takeaways, final thoughts — title it however you want. This part of your blog post is mostly a summary of your whole blog post.

It is also the part that mostly contains your CTA or directs your readers on the next steps to take.

By following these best practices for structuring your blog posts, you make them easy to read and digest for your audience.

Enhancing On-Page SEO in Blog Posts

Although Google’s newest algorithm prioritizes relevant content, there are still some SEO practices you need to follow for your blog posts to perform better in search results.

Think of SEO as structuring your blog post for search engines just as you structure your post for your audience to be able to easily read and scan through your content for the information they need.

Why On-Page SEO is Important for Blog Posts

You must follow search engines' rules for your blog posts to be prominently displayed on a search engine results page.

Search engines basically expect you to follow two rules. The first is to produce relevant content, and the second is to optimize your content for search engines.

When you follow the rules, search engines love you for it and tend to prioritize your blog post by showing it to those who are actively searching for content like the one you have published.

Hence, you must always optimize your blog posts for search engines if you want them to perform well in searches.

Keyword Research and Optimization

What are some other keywords and long-tail phrases related to your focus keywords? You must be able to identify such keywords so you can incorporate them into your blog post along with your focus keywords.

Interestingly, there are free tools out there that you can install on your computer to give you related keywords or long-tail phrases whenever you type your focus keyword in Google. Two of these free tools are:

• Keyword Surfer

• Keywords Everywhere

With any of these free Chrome extensions on your computer, you can get keyword suggestions when you type in your focus keywords on Google.

Remember that the key to incorporating keywords in your post is to do it naturally. It isn’t advisable to forcefully add keywords to your post. Search engine bots can penalize you for stuffing keywords in your post just to rank high.

Optimizing Meta Tags, URLs, and Image Alt Tags

SEO tools like Yoast and Rank Math all highlight these elements — meta descriptions, URLs, and alt tags. These tools consider the three elements mentioned above when it comes to giving your blog post an SEO score, which means they also contribute their quota to the search rankings of posts.

Although Google's algorithm might not take meta descriptions into account, they are still displayed on search results pages. They may not be a ranking factor, but they can increase your click-through rate. So make sure to add creative descriptions with your target keywords and keep it under 160 characters.

Rank Math SEO tool suggests you also write a URL under 75 characters with your focus keywords and add alt texts to the images in your blog posts. Preferably, at least one of your image alt texts should also contain your focus keyword.

Utilizing Internal and External Links

Another important aspect of on-page SEO is links. Linking to external sources tells Google you have performed your research and are knowledgeable about the topic you are writing on.

Linking from one page to another on your website gives authority to the pages being linked to. Internal linking also helps Google index new pages on a website faster.

Using Storytelling to Engage Readers

Storytelling doesn’t only apply to fiction writing. Non-fiction writing, such as blog posts, also uses storytelling to get readers more intrigued. After all, who doesn’t love a good story?

The Power of Storytelling in Blog Posts

A good story is capable of hooking your readers and getting them to read every single word of your blog post. Stories are what transform boring guides into fun, digestible bites of information. They are what make us forget our exhaustion and bury our heads in books till 3:30 a.m.

Stories are powerful, and you don’t need to be one of the greatest storytellers out there to incorporate them into your blog posts. Using stories can aid in creating unique and memorable content.

You can start incorporating stories into your post by using anecdotes, client or customer experiences, or even your personal experiences.

Remember to use active voice when telling your story. This makes it more engaging, interesting and gives it a smooth flow.

For more ideas on how to incorporate storytelling techniques into your non-fiction content, check out this post by The Writing Genie.

Balancing Storytelling with Informative or Educational Aspects

Remember that you need to strike a balance between your engaging story and providing informative or educational content. Your audience still needs to be able to understand the core message of your blog post.

You can strike a balance between your story and your blog post by aligning the story with the main topic. That is, you need to ensure that the story is relevant to the topic and that you are using examples strategically to supplement the informative aspect of the post.

Also, try to maintain clarity and coherence. Make sure your story still flows and is structured in a way that guides readers through the narrative. It should keep them engaged while they understand the core message of the post.

Editing and Polishing Your Blog Posts

Every first draft needs thorough editing. It is the crucial last step that cannot be ignored. If you are afraid to edit and cut off the part of your first draft that messes up the rest of your content, then you cannot expect to arrive at a great article.

You must be willing to cut out all the fluff in your content, even if it reduces your word count.

Editing: Best Practices

• Cut-out fluff words – These are words that, when cut off, the sentence still maintains its meaning. Words such as really, very, actually, that, etc.

• Proofreading for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors – One of the things that put most readers off is the sight of grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. This is why you need to proofread your work repeatedly to ensure it is free of such errors.

You can choose to use tools like Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, and Pro Writing Aid to help with grammatical corrections and spelling errors. You can also give your post to a colleague or friend to proofread to be sure you aren’t missing anything.

• Streamlining sentences and paragraphs for clarity and conciseness – Go through your sentences and paragraphs to verify they are short and clear. Divide sentences that are too long to read.

• Seeking feedback and revising as necessary – When you are done editing, submit for your client’s review and be willing to accept feedback and make changes.

For 25 quick self-editing tips, check out this post.

Conclusion

Crafting a compelling blog post begins with understanding the target audience for the post you are writing. In addition, the purpose of the post will give you better insight into the tone of voice and choice of words to use.

The headline of your blog post is important and determines whether readers will click on it. However, a great blog post needs more than just a compelling headline; it also needs relevant content that has been structured for easy readability and scannability.

The editing stage is the stage that polishes your content and gets it ready for your audience, and it is a stage that needs extra focus so you don’t miss anything.

Keep in mind that being able to craft compelling blog posts isn’t something that happens overnight. It takes a lot of practice and experimenting with different techniques to find your unique voice and writing style. So keep writing and experimenting until you find what works for you.

About the Author

Hi, I’m Elfrida, a freelance content writer for hire.

When it comes to my work, I am passionate about two

things – crafting compelling blog posts and helping my clients rank their websites for relevant keywords with decent search volumes. When I'm not working, I enjoy taking long walks and spending time with loved ones.

Connect with me on LinkedIn, where I share my experiences as a freelance content writer.