10 Important Questions To Ask Before You Write a Blog Post (Or Anything at All)

You plan to write a blog post.

After hours of keyword research and studying your audience, you’ve got a content writing idea. 

Great!

But what next?

Now the ultimate question is, how do you kill it? How to write a good blog post.

Or, a subtle one: what’s the first thing to do before writing a blog post?

As a business person,  you want to take this content writing seriously because many blogs waste people’s time.

And when that happens, such businesses get hurt financially. 

So, back to your question, what to do before writing a blog post? These are the questions you should ask before you start writing any content. 

10 Questions To Help You Write Awesome Blog Posts Even If You’re Using Artificial Intelligence

People go online to solve problems. Yes, they could be watching kids do what they do on Youtube or reading about how to start a business

Each person chooses what they need at that time, either watching the news or reading a blog post that teaches them something. 

So as a business owner, you must present yourself as the best place or person to provide what they want, whether that’s education, entertainment, information, or product. In other words, your fundamental goal is to be the best place or person to give people what they want.  

These 10 questions can help you in that regard.

#1. What is the takeaway in one sentence? 

You need to get clear about what you are writing. 

Create a specific topic. Then write about things that add value to the central idea of your post. 

Defining the key takeaway becomes the center of discussion, your guardian, the north star. As a result, it becomes easier to focus your post on an important topic. 

I like how an editor at The Hustle.co describes this step: 

Once you know what you want to accomplish with your writing, the quickest way to make it happen is to appeal to something your reader already wants or believes (which means, yet again, you better know your audience.)

Know what you want to accomplish with your writing.

If you have read my former post, storytelling in Marketing, the takeaway is that storytelling can help you connect with your ideal readers on a deeper and emotional level, but you have to learn to do it. First, you need direction.

What is your blog post about? In one sentence? That’s a start for anyone who wants to know how to write a good blog post.

#2. Who is it for? 

As sad as this might seem, your post isn’t for everyone. 

You’re a business owner, and your product is for certain people. Not everyone. Your specific audience is your target either during content creation or writing a blog post.

As a content writer myself, I usually imagine myself in an office. My ideal reader comes inside and tells me a question. We’re having a conversation. 

Using this post as an example, the reader is asking, what’s the first thing to do before writing a blog post? 

Then I start talking. This post is our conversation written in words. 

In content writing, you need to define who you’re writing to and be specific in your description.

It helps you understand them and write in a way that shows you can help them.

Read: Who Do You Want in Your Community

#3. What has been written about this? 

This is an important step, except you’re writing a personal story. 

It’s an exercise you must perform in SEO content writing

Why? 

You should know what people really want to read. 

You do that by browsing what they’re already reading or what’s ranking in search engines. This step is called understanding search intent in SEO writing. (It is why someone searches for a term.)

With that understanding, you can write a better blog post than what already exists. Find the weakness of what has been written, and let it inspire you to be different. 

Be unique. 

I don’t know about you, but I create something more unique when I do enough research about a topic. 

So, right now, ask yourself, what are the best posts on this topic? What’s missing? How can I create solve existing problems in a new way?

#4. What are the best places to find resources for this topic? 

There’s a common saying among editors of large publications. They always want something credible, valuable, and new. 

Which is right…

Why will you write a blog post that scraps or spins other people’s content? Why not link to them and call it a day?

Look at these excerpts from the submission requirements of 3 popular publications:

Trustworthy resources: Embed links to original sources of information (studies, stats, etc.). Ask your editor if you are unsure how to hyperlink text in our CMS

Entrepreneur.com 

Write from an objective viewpoint and convey valuable how-to information to the reader. Focus on practical advice, actionable tips, and useful know-how about a specific marketing topic

Marketingprofs.com 

IF YOUR POST IS NOT WELL-RESEARCHED, we won’t publish it.

Copyhackers

In short, you must understand the topic well and bring valuable details before writing and publishing a blog post.

So, how do you get the best resources to use in a post? 

Unless you want to rewrite what’s already ranked for that keyword, you need to find other ways to get valuable and credible sources of information. 

So, how? 

  • Read. Read everyday 
  • Subscribe to sources of valuable articles like email lists, Pocket, Flipboard, and Buzzsumo. 
  • Join communities of other writers. They will likely talk about how and where they get their resources. You can follow experts on social media.
  • Know the names of places to get valuable statistics or case studies. Check out these 7 places.

You learn how to write a good blog post first by reading a lot of quality stuff.

By the way, I just suggest what I do as a content writer. I usually read everywhere and have favorite email lists to which I’ve subscribed. I read on Medium a lot, and you can do the same. 

This question can help you create the best content with artificial intelligence. Instead of just giving it a simple prompt, go deeper. Use other sources or ask the tool for some resources on the topics. Then, use those resources as a guide to creating the best prompts.

#5. What will be different about my content? 

Writing is hard. It is even harder for beginners because there are pros who have been writing for 20, 30, or 40 years on big platforms.

So if you are not writing something different, unique, and helpful, you will be forgotten easily. 

Read: How to write great content.

Sometimes, a unique idea will just drop on your lap. You can’t explain it, but it’s because you have been reading consistently, doing keyword research, and talking to your audience. 

In addition to that, try these things: 

  • Every evening, scroll through a news curation app or website. See what comes out to you, especially on topics related to your niche. Then try to use a similar one for your next blog post. Of course, you don’t have to read the posts at all. 
  • Read your competitors 
  • Read. And read a little more 
  • Keep a book or app for collecting ideas
  • Write something different from what you normally do. For example, I wrote How to Build A Team: Lessons from Squid Game, Tug of War. It’s a post about a scene from a popular Netflix series. By writing that, I remind myself there are ideas everywhere if you’re looking or paying attention.

These activities will give you the creative edge you need as a full-time creator. Yes, many businesses want to write a blog post that ranks.

SEO is important. I agree. But don’t forget to be unique.

6. How will I create awareness about it? 

People need to find you if you’re a new business. 

So, how will you create awareness after you publish? 

Start thinking about sharing your content on social media. For example, include feature images that can invite readers and use intro or subheadings that make people continue reading. 

You can ignore this question when writing but don’t forget to ask when you’re ready to publish. It can remind you where you need to tidy things up or what you need to include.

If you have answered the question, who is this for and you have answered that, it is easier for these people to become your advocates.

But first, your content should be easy to share. 

So, what will you do to make it easy to share your content? Better headlines? Quotable paragraphs? Sharable images?

7. What are the three major external things I should consider when writing? 

Think “ranking, credibility, & returning audience.”

They are usually out of your control because you can try as hard as possible, but these things are hard to achieve. 

For instance, I have control over what I write and the ideas, but I can’t rank my website if Google doesn’t look at my website. (The sad thing is I don’t know anyone in Google’s office.)

So before I hit publish, I tried to think hard about these three things and see if I had done my best.

Usually, I look at things that can help with SEO, grammar, originality, and creativity.

THEN I try to check again to see if I have done my best. For instance, I upload a draft into Grammarly and check if I have applied the best practices for SEO content writing.

So, what do you struggle with? How do you plan to overcome these problems? What tools, activities, or tips will help you?

8. What tools will help me? 

Yeah, we’re almost done. 

Once you develop the ideas or write an outline, you naturally start thinking about tools to help you.

Tools will help you write a good blog post often.

So, the next step is to find the right tools to achieve your writing goals. 

Don’t know what tools to use? 

Check these 21 blogging tools for content writing and SEO.

#9. What personal touch, experience, quotes, anecdotes, or anything will bring trust? 

This question somehow ties in with question 5: how to be different 

But you need to build trust, something more personal. Instead of just writing something longer and more detailed, write something only you can write

Put something unique about you or your experience into the post: 

  • Anecdotes 
  • Personal experience 
  • Analogies, metaphors, similes 

Your focus here is trust and honesty (that comes from within). 

In one of my blog posts, I said when I was bored, I wrote about the Squid Game, Tug of War. That’s one example of honesty and anecdote.

Here’s another anecdote: 

When doing keyword research for this post, the first title I came up with was “How to write a blog post.” So I tried to use it but changed my mind at the end of the day. 

I want to experiment. I want to see what happens when the title is ‘readers or idea-oriented instead of search engine-oriented. 

Funny, right? 

But that’s the thing. It’s the truth, my experience. It makes this post a little more personal.

Edit: I finally decided to rank it for ‘How to write a good blog post.’

10. Have you applied your copywriting?

Copywriting will teach you how to convert readers to buyers. 

It will teach how to write a blog post that gets thousands of reads (just like Jon Morrow’s posts).

So, you need to learn copywriting if you want to sell products or anything. 

Yes, you want to learn how to write a good blog post. But then you run a business, and you need to understand how to make people pay for something.

Do you know why? 

Because back in the day, copywriters were hired to sell things with written content. These smart guys learn, through hard knocks and rejections, to master how to do that. 

These guys are David Ogilvy, Joe Sugarman, Barbara Collyer, and John Caples. You can search for these guys and read their books if you haven’t. 

Then collect like 10 of their advice that you can use in your blog posts. These are your great weapons now. Use them religiously. 

You can use artificial intelligence to rewrite your headlines or introduction many times until you feel it’s perfect. Ask it to use copywriting formulas. Describe the said formula.

Write A Blog Post for Your Reader Community

Bloggers, content writers, or business writers  —we’re building a community. Our job is to make people trust and come back because they feel a sense of belonging.

You need to write a good blog post that does more than scratch the surface. Give us more than regular. Connect to your readers in a way they will love, remember and tell the world about you. The 10 questions in this post will help you. 

If you need a content writing service, check here or use the contact form.