7-Step Outlining Formula to Write Better Blog Posts That Rank Higher ⬆

Save Hours of Editing Time

PHOTO BY RACHEL CLAIRE

Without a doubt, the most time-consuming part of writing blog posts is researching and editing.

And even after spending hours researching, writing, and editing your blog post, it often turns out to be a total disaster.

The leading cause of this is the lack of clarity and structure in your blog post.

And to solve this problem, the best solution every experienced blogger will give you is to create an outline. But that too isn’t a simple task. So, I’m going to take you through all the steps necessary to create a perfect blog post outline. Read on.

Table of Contents
1. Choose a Topic
2. Choose Blog Post Format

3. Write the Headline
 
4. Write Section Headings
 
5. Build Subheadings & Blog Content
 
6. Outline the Intro and Conclusion
7. Edit Your Outline
Conclusion

Choose Your Blog Post Topic

The first step to writing an awesome outline is choosing a well-defined topic.

To find a topic, you can:

• Go to Quora or Reddit and search for anything related to your niche.
• Google anything related to your niche and look at the people also ask box.
• You can also surf social media or look at comments on blog posts in your niche.

You should have a list of potential topics after doing all those above. Now, choose one of those by doing keyword research:

A keyword is an SEO term for anything people search on Google. Keywords can be words, phrases, or sentences. (And so, keywords are topics).

With that aside, after you choose your topic/keyword, type that topic on SEMrush.

SEMrush

You should find something like this. 👆

Now, look at the search volume and the keyword difficulty. Only pick a topic that has a search volume of more than 1k and a keyword difficulty of less than 50. Otherwise, it will be extremely difficult for you to rank your blog post on Google.

Choose Your Blog Post Format

After you choose your blog post topic and assess it, it’s time for you to pick a blog post format.

Here are the 3 most popular blog post formats:

How-To Blog Format

These types of blog posts are step-by-step guides made with the intent of teaching readers different things to do.

Most bloggers gain the bulk of their authority and credibility with these types of blog posts. And all of my blog posts are how-to blog posts.

Examples of How-to blog posts:

• How To Write an Effective Newsletter
• How to Buy a Car | Edmunds
• wikiHow: How-to instructions you can trust (website)

What-Is Blog Format

These blog posts are made for eager readers looking to satisfy their curiosity.

Blog posts like these don’t just answer simple or complex questions but also include a lot of additional material to read.

Examples:

• dog | History, Domestication, Physical Traits, Breeds, & Facts
• What is a Headline? Definition, Examples, and Resources
• What is a Blog? — Definition of Blog, Blogging & Blogger

List-Post Format

Any type of blog post, whether it be news, story, how-to, or what-is type blog post, can be written in a list format.

It’s one of the most viral blog post formats. And for good reason. People like list posts because lists are easier to read and digest.

Almost all of BuzzFeed’s viral posts are list posts. Just take a look at their home page:

BuzzFeed

Three Parts of A Blog Post

No matter what your blog post type may be, every blog post has:

• An Introduction
• Body
• And a conclusion

Now that you know about the 3 most popular types of blog posts and the 3 parts of a blog post, you should choose your blog post structure.

Write Your Blog Post Headline

After you’ve chosen your blog post topic and structure, it’s time for you to write a click-worthy headline.

“Five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” — David Ogilvy.

Here are 5 tips to help you write click-worthy headlines:

Add Numbers to Your Headline

“Our brains are attracted to numbers because they automatically organize information into a logical order… like candy for your organizational mind.” — Mike Hamer

Numbers give us specificity. If your headline is for a list post and you add numbers to it like, 6 things… people will be inclined to read it because they know exactly how much time they’d need to invest.

If you write without numbers, though, your headlines won’t be as clear.

Many great headlines have numbers in them. You should add them too.

Use the Right Words

While numbers might be necessary, words are unavoidable. You have to use words to write a headline. But not all words are made equal. Some words are dull, boring, and apathetic, others are evocative, vibrant, and empathetic.

Most words in your headline should be the latter type. Use strong and emotion-inducing words: 212 Power Words to Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines

Make Your Headline Skimmable

People on the web don’t read anything word for word. And your headline is no exception to that. People will scroll past your headline without any respect or acknowledgment. Unless you add the topic of your headline at the beginning of your headline. This way, web scrollers would know at a glance what your blog post is about and might even read it.

Don’t write — Write Better Blog Posts at 2x Speed🐱‍🏍 Using This 7-Step Outlining Formula

Do write — 7-Step Outlining Formula to Write Better Blog Posts at 2x Speed🐱‍🏍

Consider this by CoSchedule:

A Headline I Wrote on CoSchedule

Use CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

It’s a headline analyzer that rates your headline based on 8 psycholinguistic factors.

You can write any headline you want, and it will give you a rating and feedback.

I’ve been using this for almost 8 months. The headline writing principles I learned from this tool are no fluff.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The best copywriters spend 50% of their time writing headlines.

You should put in equal effort to see equal results. But you can get decent results if you just jot down 10–20 variations of headlines for each one of your blog posts.

Write the Section Headings of Your Blog Post

If you’re writing a 1500-word blog post, the body of your blog post shouldn’t contain more than 1300 words; leaving out the introduction and the conclusion.

And for a blog post of that length, you shouldn’t write more than 9 sections. Unless it’s a list post.

The following 4 tricks will help you find sections for your blog post:

1. Do a Competitor Analysis

It sounds difficult but it’s not.

All you need to do is search your topic keyword on Google and read the first 3–5 blog posts for that keyword. While you’re reading, note down all the sections those blog posts cover.

You’d often see all of the top-ranking pages have similar sections. It’s because those pages usually contain sections about what people search for around that topic.

2. Do a Brain Dump

After you read all those blog posts, you should have a good idea about the topic you’re about to cover.

Now, write down all the questions and section ideas that come to your mind about your blog post topic.

3. Scroll Online Forums

Online forums like Quora and Reddit are great places for finding section ideas.

Moreover, you’d also have a pretty good understanding of the type of people you’ll be writing for after you read all their questions and threads.

You’ll also find a lot of unfiltered problems, worries, and opinions of your target audience.

4. Google’s People Also Ask

GOOGE’S PEOPLE ALSO ASK

This is a great place to see what people in your niche are searching for.

You can add a few questions from here to your section list as well.

After you do all of the above, you should have a huge list of sections to cover.

Now, decide how long your blog post is going to be and pick enough sections to cover your blog post.

Usually, 3–9 sections are enough. And there’s no limit to how long each section should be. Use your better judgment.

After you choose your sections, organize those sections in a logical order.

Build Your Subheadings & Blog Content

Now that you wrote the sections of your blog post, it’s time for you to cover your sections with subsections and subsection content.

Keep in mind that some of the sections in your blog post won’t need any subsections and others might need quite a few.

Research Your Blog Post

Search each of your sections on Google and read the blog posts that show up. You can add your subsections from there.

You should additionally research for:

• Stats & research papers to increase the authority of your blog post
• Metaphors, analogies, or anecdotes to explain concepts better
• Quotes or images. (I suggest adding 1 image for every 300 words).

Put Your Research Together

Outlines are usually written in paragraph blurbs, and looks something like this:

MY POST OUTLINE

This is an outline of a section of my story. The bolded texts are subheadings and each bullet below them represents a paragraph.

You can write your outline like this.

Outline Your Introduction and Conclusion

After you’re done outlining the body of your blog post, it’s time to outline your introduction and conclusion.

The Introduction

It has 4 parts:

• The hook: It’s the most important sentence of your blog post after your headline. You can include a stat, quote, anecdote or anything that grabs your reader’s attention.
• The transition: This is the part where you convince your readers why they should read your blog post. You can include anecdotes or background information into how you made your blog post. You can also agitate your reader’s pain points and how your blog post can solve their problems.
• Thesis statement: This is where you tell your readers exactly what your blog is about and your stance on it.
• Table of contents: Most people don’t include a table of content. But adding a table of contents will help you rank better.

The Conclusion

It has 3 parts:

• The summary or the takeaway.
• The CTA or call to action: is where you can ask your readers to follow, subscribe, or buy anything legal and ethical.
• The reference section: This is where you include all the sources you’ve collected your data from. It’s optional for blog posts because we can embed links to our sources in the text.

Edit Your Outline

This will save you a lot of time in the draft editing phase because moving bullet points around is a lot easier than moving whole paragraphs and sections.

So, the first thing you need to edit is the names of your sections and subsections. If you’re writing for SEO purposes, this is paramount. Make your sections and subsections as clear as possible. Write down the topic of the section or subsection in plain words. If you write something vague, Google won’t be able to rank you for your sections or subsections.

But if you’re not writing for SEO, then do whatever you want but make your sections and subsections as interesting as possible. One or two-word sections won’t cut it.

After you’re done with that, start rearranging your outline in perfect order. Make sure your reader is not lost while reading your blog post. The flow of your article should be absolute.

Lastly,

Make an outlining routine and checklist according to your preference. Making a routine and checklist will help you repeat your outlining journey with ease.

Your routine could look something like this:

• List potential topic ideas
• Do keyword research
• Choose a topic
• Make a headline
• List potential sections
• Decide how many words my article will be
• Choose sections
• Research and find evidence, explanations, and examples for each of my sections and subsections.
• Edit my outline: Reorder, cut, or add.

Thanks for reading. Comment down below if you’d like to clarify any part of this blog post.