How to Write Outstanding Blog Posts?

How to write the perfect blog that delivers customers? How do you get 45 new, extremely enthusiastic LinkedIn connections in 2 months? How do you make your list grow 200% in the same period? How do you make people see you as an expert? How do you make your blog go viral and how do you inspire people to call you to work with you?

The secret key is: blogging.

Regularly writing an inspirational recruiting blog post does wonder for your business. How? Before I go to the tips about writing the perfect blog post, first a few sage thoughts about blogging.

A blog is never a covert advertising leaflet for your service or your company.
It is not a promo talk of your product or your new event. You are not going to write a whole story and then tell in that story how fantastic your product is. That is allowed (everything is allowed, except with your remote control the TV of the neighbors harder, that is faint), but it does not work. People will not share advertising brochures.

But, is it that simple to just write? No. Write an inspiring blog so that you can lift people out of their lives. Making people say:

• “Good story, haha!”
• “This is really inspiring!”
• ‘Wow, this is exactly what I need now, thank you!’
• “How beautiful this, I’ll immediately share it with my family.”

These are the types of reactions that you want to hear, and these precisely the kind of response that eventually provide fans and followers.

Claim a topic

The blog you write is about those issues that you have a (good) solution for. For example… Leadership. Lose weight. Finding love faster. Eating healthy.
Because you give people something (advice, idea, inspiration) – for free, – where they suddenly have a lot of valuable information, they become fans of your blog or followers of your social media accounts… And they want to like your story. And a few will also opt-in for your mailing list. And quite a few times people also immediately call you to work with you, but that does not happen frequently. And that is often not about the size of your blog, but the fact that gaining trust just takes time.

Now to the tips that ensure that you also write blogs that deliver customers.

Tip 1. Know who you are writing for

The ultimate tip for every online written text, including your blog: know exactly who you are writing for, i.e., your target audience, your readers.

I have spoken about this many times before and will probably do it more often, because it remains challenging, yet such an important thing. Before you start writing you need to know WHO you are writing for and also which exact problem you solve.

Name? Age? Man or woman? Highly educated, low educated? Put it in a row, paste a picture of her on your laptop and go. Make sure you make your blog posts tailored for the audience, for the best possible effect. If you write a blog post aimed at Harward graduates, an ordinary worker from India will not dig it, and visa versa.

Tip 2. Choose a definite problem and make it small

Your blog must be about one clear problem or a clear situation. Dare to choose.
Brightness is key. Your reader has to understand every sentence right away. How do you deal with an employee who calls out all the time ‘Yes, but …’ is another problem than an employee who is insecure and asks every hour whether she is doing well. Make it specific and small.

Tip 3. First the problem and then the solution

I already have spoken a lot about what goes wrong with LinkedIn updates, and you probably all know it by now. Write in details about the actual exact problem of your customer. Start with that, because that is what is now “inside” of your customer.

Let me explain in greater details: the problem of a malfunctioning team, for example, may be that the manager who wants to inspire you does not listen.
The problem he experiences is that his employees never really tell what is going on. And this is where you can start worrying.

Do not start your blog with the sentence “Do you really listen to your employees?” or with: “Do you feel that everything is going on in your team, but that you never hear of it? Can’t you put your finger on it?”
The advantage is that you are on their side in this way. You are with your services and solutions. Their buddy.

Another example:
About myself. It is a very personal, but utterly fabricated example. All right? Yes? Good.
When I’m talking to a woman in the cafe, it always happens that she goes to the toilet after three minutes and never comes back. That is – but I am not aware of that! – because I complain about my life very quickly. I take it very hard and but it was not a stabbing pain, but more say a nagging, yes, what I told you: what a story, eh).

Let’s say that I am your target audience and I am not aware of the cause of those fleeing women. What I do know is that all those women then ‘just go to the toilet’ and then do not come back. And I get a stomach ache from that, because I feel like a weekend with romantic entertainment, like eating croissants in bed together.

So if you want to seduce me as a customer and I offer me a blog post that is titled “Do you talk too much about yourself during a date?” or even worse “Are you really interested in your conversation partner” I would not recognize that (this topic will not resonate with me) and I click away from that blog.

But how about: “You don’t manage to date properly and feeling bad about it?” or “You can’t have a date without scaring your partner away?”
Then it will resonate with me. And the words ‘scaring your partner’ that you have chosen very deliberately because it fits so well with the situation, will do the trick.

This is how important it is, therefore again, to know very well who your customers are and what they already know about their problem.

Tip 4. Working in a row

To make your blog posts easy to read, it helps tremendously to use bullets. Or, you make a list of tips and follow them by numbers. Some people note that is way too standard, yet it works. Nice and clear. People today (on the internet) don’t really read word by word (rarely so), so for the visual scanning of the text, bullets, and a clear structure, helps to make the content easy to understand, read and remember.

Tip 5. Do not forget the most important word

Do you already know what word is that? I’ve written about it in many previous blog posts. I used it in the previous two sentences again!
The word is ‘you‘ or ‘your.’

An excellent blog post is a beautiful, inspiring or hilarious letter to that one favorite customer. You say as it were: ‘Hey psst, I have something nice.’ Or whatever if that’s your style.

What I still see a lot, however, are general descriptions. For example: “Many singles struggle with..”. “What many singles are not aware of is …” This is very broad, general and not personal.
A much better version would be: “Do you struggle with…”. Do you find the enormous search for that first opening sentence and are you tempted to rattle about yourself?’ This way you are directed to the reader!

A good blog post must be intimate, fun, helpful and also funny. Your story must be accurate regarding content but above all touch the heart of your reader.

This way you can conquer hearts, make your customers loyal to you, you will not always have to keep your price low, and you make the life of your customer more fun and lighter, and earn yourself a pile of cash.

Bonus tip: always write a bonus tip on your blog post, that’s helpful and makes your reader even more grateful. 😉