7 tips to take your blogs from bleurgh to brilliant

Blogging’s easy right? You pick a topic from a list in your head and bash out a couple of hundred words. Upload it to your site. Job done. 

When you put it like that then yes it’s easy to blog…..badly. But to write brilliant blogs that rank and that your audience are interested in, well that’s a little bit harder.

Here are my top 7 tips to help you turn your average blogs into pretty flippin’ awesome ones.

Tip 1: Write about something people are actually interested in

It’s easy to pick something we want to write about. But if no one else cares about it, you’re wasting your time. You need to pick something that your audience want to read about. 

Stuck for ideas and no access to a keyword research tool? Think about any questions you get asked all the time and pen a response. Use tools like Answer the Public. Put your business area into Google, scroll down to the ‘People also ask’ and ‘Suggested search’ sections and see what’s in there. 

Tip 2: One idea = one blog

Our blogs need to focus on one thing. If you’ve got more than one idea, argument, or thing to promote then you need a blog for each one. Why? Because otherwise, our blogs become less streamlined, and easy-to-read and more welcome to the mess that is my brain.

We want to write about one idea really, really well. That way our audience is more likely to read the whole thing (hello dwell time!), it’s easier for them to understand and you come across in a far better light.

Tip 3: Break it down

We don’t read every word. We skim. We scan. That means we need to make our reading easy for people to gloss over. 

Use headings, use short sentences, short paragraphs, highlight key text in bold or a different colour. 

Yes, we need to make sure our content is brilliant but we also need to make sure it’s appealing to the eye so when the page loads our audience wants to read it. If they’re faced with a long wall of text they’ll move on and won’t be back. So break down your topic - intro, some subheadings and a conclusion with a call-to-action, if it’s appropriate. Don’t leave this bit until the end - make sure you’ve thought about the structure before you start typing.

Tip 4: Keep it simple, but not too simple

There are different opinions on this, but the average reading age of the UK population is between 9-12. That means unless your topic area is very technical, leave the jargon out of it. Think simplicity, think easy, think straight-forward. 

Don’t fall into technical jargon, buzzwords or acronyms. Keep things simple but don’t patronise your audience. They aren’t idiots. There’s a fine line that you need to walk between being simple and overbearing. 

We’ve all heard write how you talk and that’s true to a certain extent. You want a polished version of how you talk - think meeting someone new or interview-ready, rather than down the pub with your mates.

Tip 5: Show off your knowledge

We’re writing blogs because we know what we’re talking about. We’re in the field we are because we’re experts in it. So show that off to your audience. Just because we’re sticking to one idea and keeping things simple doesn’t mean we can’t show the breadth and depth of our knowledge.

Share something with your audience that lets them see how much you know. Share details of client work if it’s relevant. Share new developments in your field. Share stats and figures to demonstrate a point. Show off you knowledge. Your audience have come to your for a reason, so remind them of that.

Tip 6: When you’ve ran out of things to say, stop

It’s easy to get hung up on a word count. You need to hit 1200 words because that’s the optimum length. I disagree.

When you dig into Google’s SEO criteria it’s all about quality, useful content. That means stuffing a blog with irrelevant content just to hit a word count won’t do you any favours. What’s better is to focus on the right number of words for that topic.

My manta is when you run out of things to say, just stop. Don’t try and shoehorn in more words because the reader will be able to tell and it’ll ruin it. 

Tip 7: Share it with your audience

Not technically a writing tip but something we often forget to do. Once you’ve written your blog you need to share it. Not just post it on your website and move on.

You need to shout it from the rooftops that you’ve written this amazing blog and that they need to read it right now. Include it in e-newsletters, post it on your social channels, promote it on your homepage. Whatever channels you have available - use them. Don’t hide it under a rock and hope that people find it on their own.


Blogging can be simple, if you know what you’re doing. But it’s also really easy to get wrong. Following my 7 tips will genuinely help you to stop wasting your time creating blogs no one cares about, and instead to produce targeted, quality content that resonates with your audience.

Of course, if all else fails. Get in touch with me and I’ll write them for you.