The corporate blog continues to be a fundamental element in our Content Marketing strategy. Possibly, you have read or heard more than once that you no longer need it. However, I still defend it.
Not only does it help us position ourselves as experts in our sector, but Google and its SEO are especially liked. Most of the visits I receive on my website come from organic search.
Users search for a topic that interests them, find some of my articles, read it and most subscribe to my newsletter through my forms, where I offer them more valuable content.
My tricks for writing the perfect WordPress article
My Storytelling Online Course students and other entrepreneurs I’ve worked with through mentoring and consulting frequently ask me how to write the perfect WordPress article.
There is no mathematical formula that makes us write better, but there are some tricks that we can apply to improve the format of our articles, gain fluency when writing them and contribute to our SEO. Let’s see them:
What should we do before we start writing?
When we decide to use our blog strategically to achieve the objectives that we set ourselves, we must carry out some preliminary steps before starting to write.
The first of them is to define what role the blog plays in our marketing plan. What is the profile of our ideal reader? What do we want to achieve with our blog?
For example, you can help us earn visits through organic Google rankings. It is also helpful in helping us establish ourselves as an authority in our industry. Perhaps your goal is to attract new subscribers.
Define our Content Strategy
Once you know how you want to integrate the blog into the marketing plan, my recommendation is that you carry out a content strategy. You should always keep in mind what the final goal you want to achieve (for example, increase sales of my online course).
My advice is to first think about what is the main theme (in the case of my course, Storytelling). Divide it into subtopics and include within each one the main articles you want to write.
Within these articles, write one or two that are essential. An essential article offers a lot of valuable content within a blog, is longer than usual and the rest of the related articles should point to it through a hyperlink. This article you are reading would be a good example.
This would be the outline of a content strategy for the blog:
Once you are clear on what strategic articles you want to write on your blog, and before you start writing the perfect article on WordPress, it’s time for you to work on your editorial calendar.
The editorial calendar
An editorial calendar is a tool that allows you to organize the contents of your blog. Therefore, it must include all those elements that help you better arrange your content:
- Provisional title: indicate the title that your article will carry. It doesn’t have to be the definitive title, but I do recommend that it be descriptive enough so that you can easily identify it.
- Author: In case you are several authors on the blog, it is important to specify who will write each post.
- Publication date: essential to have the prepared article scheduled in advance.
- Status: here you can indicate if the article is planned, scheduled, published, rejected or postponed.
- Objective: specify what you want to achieve with the article (positioning, authority, subscribers, etc.).
- Description: briefly explain what the article will consist of, so it will be easier for you to pick it up again when, after a while, you start writing it.
Also, you can include another section for sources, to include articles that inspire you or from which you can obtain information.
My advice is to leave this information ready at least a month in advance. However, I usually work with three months of planning. If something unforeseen arises, I make changes on the fly.
When developing your editorial calendar, you can do it with a tool like Trello or use a spreadsheet in Google Drive, Excel or Numbers.
How to write the perfect WordPress article
Once we have prepared our content strategy and our editorial calendar, it is time to write the perfect article in WordPress. We can write to them in advance or a few days before their publication.
You may have committed to your readers to post, for example, every week. In that case, I recommend having some evergreen tickets prepared in your fridge. These are timeless articles that can get us out of a hurry in case a week is too complicated and we do not have time to write a new entry.
The goal and main idea
Each article must have its objective and main idea. Sometimes it will coincide with other articles since the goal is common, but it does not always have to be this way. If you have followed the previous steps, you will have already indicated them in your editorial calendar. If not, the time is now, when the page is still blank.
In one way or another, you should keep in mind that:
- The objective is what you want to achieve (authority as an expert in your sector, positioning in Google, etc.).
- The main idea is the topic that the article will be about, what you want to convince or educate your readers about.
Because they are important? Because thanks to them we are going to give meaning to our articles, we provide them with a reason for being and we will stop writing filler texts that do not contribute to our objectives. In other words, we will be using our blog strategically to write the perfect WordPress article.
Overcome fear of blank page
Many times it will happen to you that, when you start writing a new article, you feel that inspiration is not on your side. It is perfectly normal, especially when you plan the texts a few months before. When writing day comes, you may not be clear on how to approach it or you may not find the right words.
To overcome the fear of a blank page, it is best to stop being blank as soon as possible. How easy is it to say, right? Well, it is also doing it if you follow these tips:
- Write nonstop until you’re done. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong, just write. When you are done, then yes, correct the expressions you have to modify and change the order of the ideas if necessary.
- Create an outline with the titles and subtitles. In this way, your entry will already be organized and you will only have to fill in small pieces of text.
- Write the introduction and conclusions. This way you will be clear about the main idea that you must argue in the development.
- To write the article you are reading (which, at this point, exceeds 1200 words), I used the second option. My goal with this entry is to provide valuable content to my readers that also complements the lessons of my books and courses.
- Knowing what the most frequent doubts that my students and clients usually ask me, I created a scheme that I have subsequently filled in.
I hope this content was useful for you to start writing the perfect WordPress article. Please note that many themes include formatting options that are not common to all WordPress editors. Therefore, it is likely that in your editor you will find other options that I have not mentioned.
