You know what you want to talk about. You’ve gone through your post a hundred times in your head. But when you finally sit down to write it, you don’t know how to start! So you start doing something else “for a couple of minutes” before you realize that the whole morning you had reserved for writing is gone! Has it ever happened to you?

When I was in high school, I was taught to follow the following pattern to write an essay:

1. Describe what you wanna prove.
2. Give arguments that prove it.
3. Compare your arguments with some counterarguments, and make it clear why your arguments are better.
4. Rephrase the following: See? I told you I was right. 😆

My apologies for translating them into real language… but you get the drill, right? I think that one of the most common errors is trying to start from the beginning. Yep. You read it right. When we try to start with the wittiest and smartest intro of all time, we can get overwhelmed! Especially, when we are not feeling at our most creative. Maybe you didn’t sleep enough, your mind is somewhere else or you just have a bad day! For me, it’s as easy as trying to write on a cloudy day. It never works. 🤪

So these are my tricks to get a blog post done, no matter what:

Step 1. Brain dump everything you would like to say about the topic you want to write about.

• Bullet points will do the work.
• If it’s a “how-to” kind of post, write all the steps that come to mind. Never mind the order.
• If it’s a “pro/contra” kind of post, make a list with all pros, and another list with all contras.

Step 2. Check whether your topic has become too complex to keep it simple. Pun intended!

• In that case, try to make two posts out of one!
• Is there anything you could get rid of? Then do it! However, do not delete them completely. Just paste them somewhere else. They might come in handy for other topics!

Step 3. Connect the dots between the bullet points.

• Rearrange the order of the steps needed for your “how-to” kind of post.
• Combine the pros with their related contras. You can either write them side-by-side, or list all pros first, and all contras below. It’s your call. Just make sure that the structure is clear.
• Write full sentences out of your bullet points, and link them with linking words so that you don’t sound like a robot!

Step 4. Write the ending of the post.

• Write a summary of all steps in “how-to” posts.
• For “pro/contra” posts:
  • Explain your preference, or
  • Tell your readers what they have to take into account to come up with their own conclusion, or
  • Suggest a third option!

>>> Examples:

• In this post on whether freelancers work harder than employees, I decided to list all factors I wanted to write about, and then give my opinion about what each factor meant for both freelancers and employees. As for the ending of the post, I make it clear that I prefer freelancing. Who would have thought? 🤫
• In this post about stay-at-home moms vs. working moms, I chose to talk first about the pros and cons of being a stay-at-home mom, and then about the pros and cons of being a working mom. At the end of the post, I offer a third solution: working from home, which can combine the best of both options!

Step 5. Write your intro to the post.

If you haven’t written your beginning yet, now is the moment to read it all through, and write an introduction for your post. You have a couple of options:

• Say what you’re going to talk about.
• Start with an interesting example related to your topic.
• Connect the readers with your post asking them whether they’ve ever felt the same as you. This is what I did with this very post!

Don’t be scared of using this kind of bait to hook your audience into reading something they might not care about. It’s quite the opposite, actually. If your readers keep reading your post is because they felt identified with your story, but you need an interesting intro to catch their attention. Just think of it as the greatest book ever with a poor beginning. Who’s going to read that?

So I hope I could help you with these tricks of mine to write blog posts on a weekly basis. This is the easiest way to go for me. Sometimes, it flows from beginning to end, and nobody could stop me from writing a 3-book saga if I set out my mind to. But those many other times when I get stuck, this is my strategy. So if you also struggle with putting your ideas to paper in a clear and structured way, feel free to copy it!

Do you have any other strategies for writing blog posts? Please share them in the comments!

PS. Feel free to download this content brainstorming sheet if you struggle with coming up with ideas for your blog posts. I hope you find it useful!

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