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My daughter, Anneleise, is just like me. She loves to write. When I spoke to her grade four teacher in September, I told her that I wasn’t concerned with her writing at all. It is something that she loves to do and does it daily. She even wants to someday publish a children’s book.
As I was doing a check-in with her teacher today, she agreed with me about her love of writing. She keeps her teacher up to date on everything that she writes. Her teacher then told me that the only thing that she needs to work on is organizing her writing which is totally the inspiration for this post.
I knew that I would be able to help her organize her thoughts because I have created something for the readers of my blog called The Blog Post Creation Map.
I remember as a middle schooler, I had a creative writing class. It was my favourite class but I remember always having to create a web before I started writing a story. I do not remember what my teacher actually called it but this was the idea behind the blog post creation map.
WHAT IS THE BLOG POST CREATION MAP?
I know that there have been times that I have had my blog post topic all thought up but what I needed to write about was stuck. Most of the time it is because I have too much going on in my head and I just don’t know where to begin. I needed a way to break it all down.
I wanted to be able to give my readers a way to organize their thoughts before they began to write. Sometimes you can get stuck in what you need and want to write about that you don’t do it. This map allows you to break down all the pieces of your blog post in one document.
There are 6 important aspects to have in every blog post that you write and this map helps to break all of those down so that you can organize your thoughts in one place.
THE 6 ASPECTS IN THE BLOG POST CREATION MAP
I will break down each of those aspects here so that you can understand how to use this creation map.
THE BLOG TOPIC/TITLE
I say topic or title because sometimes when you begin your blog post process, all you have is the topic that you want to write about. Sometimes the title is the last piece of the puzzle. You will begin by putting the topic in the center of the map.
Your expertise is one of the four pillars you need for blogging. This will help you choose your blog post topics.
KEYWORD FOCUS
This is important to know because it will determine what it is that you are talking about and the language that you use. You want each of your blog posts to have a keyword focus. Whether that is a single keyword or a keyword phrase is up to you.
In this blog post creation map, you can list a few different keyword focuses. Remember this map is just to help you organize your thoughts. It is the beginning step so it helps to get everything down so you can narrow down exactly what you want to cover.
HEADLINE IDEAS
This is where you come up with what you are talking about in regard to your blog topic. A few questions to ask yourself when it comes to coming up with the headlines in your post…
What lessons are you teaching your reader?
Are you breaking it down into specific steps for your reader to take?
What parts of the process do you need to break down even more?
You want the headlines to break up your writing and showcase the different parts of your blog post. This allows your readers to go to the specific part of the blog post that they want to read. Most blog readers just skim the post so this allows them to know exactly what each section of your blog post is about.
INTRO STORY
You can write down a few ideas for your intro story in this part of the map. You may have a few different stories that you can use and by brainstorming them you can narrow it down later. By brainstorming these ideas, you may even come up with different ideas of what you can talk about in the blog post itself.
The intro paragraph to your blog is super important and I explain why in my post, the importance of your intro paragraph.
LINK TO OTHER BLOG POSTS
Which blog posts go well with the one you are brainstorming? By knowing this ahead of time, you can easily fit them into your writing without seeming awkward. You want to link back to old posts to keep readers on your site.
Remember, you can also link back to other websites as well. Write these ideas down as well so that you know how to fit them into your blog post.
If you need more clarification on different types of linking, I talk about that in my internal and external links blog post.
CALL TO ACTION IDEAS
What do you want your readers to do after they read your blog post? This area of the map is where you will brainstorm where you want to send them.
You want your call to action to be relevant to the topic of your blog post. So for example, my call to action in this blog post is for you to download the blog post creation map.
Be creative when it comes to your call to action. It can even be as simple as asking them to answer a question that is related to your blog post. Engage them. Readers love to talk about themselves. Well, everyone loves to talk about themselves.
Your call to action is a great way to connect with your reader on a more personal level.
The blog post creation map will help you to organize your thoughts when you feel overwhelmed and struggling to focus on what you need to cover. You can grab your copy through the form below. I would love to see photos of you using your blog post creation map. Print it out and tag me on IG as @fiercelycreate
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