Great blog posts don’t just happen. Even the best bloggers need a rough idea to keep them on-track. This is where outlines come in.
An outline doesn’t need to be lengthy, or even detailed – it’s just a rough guide to make sure you don’t ramble on and on about something tangential to your topic.
For example, this is the outline for this post that I sent to my editor before getting to work:
Introduction
[Quick summary explaining what the blog post will cover]
Section 1 – Planning a Blog Post
- Things bloggers should do before putting pen to paper – outlining, research etc.
Section 2 – Writing a Blog Post
- Tips on how to focus on writing, productivity tips for bloggers
Section 3 – Rewriting/Editing a Blog Post
- Self-editing techniques, things to watch out for, common blogging mistakes
Section 4 – Optimizing a Blog Post
- How to optimize a blog post for on-page SEO, social shares/engagement, etc.
Section 5 – Conclusion
- Wrap-up
The purpose of this outline is to make sure I know what I plan to cover, in what order the various sections will appear, and some bare-bones details of what each section will include.
Outlines keep you honest. They stop you from indulging in poorly thought-out metaphors about driving and keep you focused on the overall structure of your post. Sometimes I’ll write a more thorough outline (and sometimes I won’t bother with one at all), but most of the time, something like the outline above is perfectly acceptable.
Whether you write your outline in your word processor, on a piece of paper, or even scribbled on a bar napkin, do whatever works for you to keep you focused.
Do Your Research
One of the biggest secrets professional bloggers (myself included) don’t want you to know is that we don’t actually know everything. Truth be told, sometimes we don’t know anything about a topic before we sit down to write about it.
