Facebook Pixel
Join our Facebook Community

5 Critical Elements You Need to Check Off for Every Blog Post

Posted By Ali Luke 25th of April 2024 Writing Content 0 Comments

5 Critical Elements You Need to Check Off for Every Blog Post

This post is by ProBlogger subject matter expert Ali Luke

Over the past few years, I’ve conducted a lot of blog reviews for fellow writers. It’s always great fun to read other people’s posts … especially when they’re on topics that are totally new to me!

Along the way, though, I’ve noticed that there are five critical elements that far too many bloggers miss out of their posts.

Could your posts be missing any of these too?

They are:

1.       The Hook

2.       Subheadings

3.       Transitions

4.       Links

5.       The Conclusion

#1: The Hook

I’ve never seen a blog post that didn’t have an introduction. I’ve seen plenty of posts, though, that had over-long introductions without a hook: a compelling reason for the reader to keep going.

Here’s an example of a good hook, from Laney Galligan’s post 5 Ways You Can Use Facebook Groups to Benefit Your Blog:

That’s right, more than 1 billion people are using Facebook groups. That’s where the conversation and community is happening and it’s something you can easily create for your blog.

Laney makes the benefits clear (Facebook is where “the conversation and community is happening”) and also makes an implicit promise that this post will teach the reader how to “easily create [that] for your blog”.

The first few sentences of your post, too, need to convince the reader that your post is worth their time.

#2: Subheadings

Very short blog posts (say, under 400 words) don’t need subheadings. Anything longer, though, can normally benefit from being broken into sections.

If your post is missing subheadings, it’s easy for the reader to get lost midway.  When that happens, chances are, they’ll stop reading. Subheadings help because they act like signposts: they tell the reader where they are and what’s coming next.

For more help with subheadings, check out my podcast for ProBlogger, How to Use Subheadings to Add Structure to Your Blog Posts.

#3: Transitions

A transition is like a little bridge from one thought to another. Sometimes, you don’t need a transition at all (a subheading can essentially serve the same purpose). If your post feels disjointed or abrupt in places, though, you may need to add in a quick transition.

Often, a transition is helpful before any major new section of your post. They can also be used to introduce lists.

Here are some examples, from Nicole Avery’s post How to Reduce Your Time on Social Media to Increase Your Blogging Productivity – you might want to read the whole post to see how these work in context:

There are two different ways that I see social media impact bloggers’ productivity negatively.

 

How does this behaviour on social media impact their productivity? It impacts it in three key ways:

 

It doesn’t mean that you can’t be on social media, it just means you need to take a more planned and proactive approach to how you go about it. Here are two actions you can take to help you:

#4: Links

While it’s not absolutely essential for your post to contain links, it’s almost always a good idea to include at least one. Both internal links (to your own blog) and external links (to other websites) matter.

  • Links to past posts on your blog help readers dig in … and stick around.
  • Links to posts on other people’s blogs position you as someone helpful and knowledgeable.
  • Links to your products or services help you make more sales.
  •  Links to books on Amazon can bring in affiliate income – and also make you look helpful and well informed.

It’s often appropriate to include links throughout your post, usually to give more information about a particular point. If you quote someone or give an example, you should provide a link too.

Sometimes, you might not have many opportunities to link within a post (or you may not want to distract readers – e.g. in a how-to post): if that’s the case, you could include some “further reading” or “where next?” suggestions at the end.

#5: The Conclusion

Of all the missing elements, this is probably the one that seems to get left off the most! If you finish your post too suddenly, though, it not only seems weirdly abrupt to readers … it robs you of a great chance to direct their next actions.

There are several ways to tackle the conclusion: personally, I think it’s good to sum up briefly (if only in a sentence), and to give a “call to action”. You can find out more about those in the ProBlogger podcast episode How to Write a Post That Contains a Call to Action.

Here’s an example of a conclusion that encourages the reader to take action based on the content – this is from Colin Gray’s post How to Get Your First Podcast Sponsorship:

If you’re looking to dip your toe in the waters, but sponsoring your blog is a step too far, then try your podcast. Build a relationship there and who knows, it might lead to your blog, your video channel, your social media.

If that gives you the time and the space to spend time on the content you love, offering more and more value to your readers, then it’s worth an ad spot or two. Give it a shot!

 

When you’re busy writing a blog post, it can be difficult to think about everything you need to include … you’re probably hurrying just to get all your ideas down.

As you edit, though, use these five critical elements as a checklist: make sure you’ve included each one – or that you’ve got a very good reason not to!

Which of these five elements do you find yourself inadvertently missing out? How could you include it in your next post? Share your thoughts or tips with us in the comments!

About Ali Luke
Ali Luke blogs about the art, craft and business of writing at Aliventures. She has two free ebooks on blogging, Ten Powerful Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Stronger and Ten Easy Ways to Attract Readers to Your Blog … And Keep Them There: to get your copies of those, just sign up for her weekly e-newsletter (also free!) here.
Comments
  1. Great post! Thanks for sharing. Very in depth and broken down so the reader can easily identify the issues with their own blogs.

  2. Hi Ali,

    I have to admit, I can always improve the hooks on my blog post. I always write an introduction, the truth is that sometimes it sounds a little corny.

    I’ve visited blogs where their hook just draws me in like a good novel. Hopefully with time and more practice I’ll get better with my hooks.

    Seems like I do everything else for my blogs on your list.

    Thanks for taking the time to share these tips, have a great day :)

    Susan

  3. Great post for bloggers! Thanks

  4. Perfect! Thanks Ali!

  5. Priscilla Davis says: 08/03/2017 at 10:21 am

    This is great information for a new blogger like myself. I’m going through it now section by section for my post. Thanks Ali!

  6. deeksha patel says: 08/03/2017 at 4:30 pm

    Here we are refrigerator service center providing the Samsung Fridge Service Center Hyderabad

  7. Manish Kumar says: 08/04/2017 at 1:20 am

    I use almost every thing but still there is something that i am missing, because i am not getting ranked in google. i must have to figure it out.

  8. Ali, great blog! I’ve bookmarked it for reference.

  9. Health N Fitness Tips says: 08/04/2017 at 2:28 am

    Great! I never knew these crucial things! Wow thanks for excellent post

  10. This is a really helpful checklist for content creation! I enjoy the process of learning to hit all of these points a little better as I go. It was just this year that I started my blog, but I have worked in the realm of book writing and editing for a long time. This checklist is similar in some ways to principles applied to some books, but I find writing for a blog to be quite different from “book writing.” The challenge is fun and rewarding! Thanks for sharing your great post!

  11. Well Informed!!
    Useful checklist for all Bloggers – Thanks

  12. Rajesh Chandra Pandey says: 08/06/2017 at 1:43 pm

    @Ali luke
    A simple but must-read post for every blogger. Even a seasoned blogger may book mark this post to not let the quintessentials missed out.
    Thanks for sharing

  13. As a new blogger I’m really enjoying all the tips you guys share here. Thanks Ali and all.

  14. Great post Ali! This checklist will help bloggers create an outstanding blog post.

  15. The best guide for beginners!! I would appreciate moving towards the advanced level!!

  16. Great post and very useful for new bloggers.

  17. Lucas Smith says: 08/23/2017 at 4:51 pm

    Awesome post Ali,

    I can say that #1 is really effective, newspapers, news sites, and journalists use this too, to pique the interest of their readers. New bloggers will definitely step up their writing skills with these.

    Cheers,
    Lucas

  18. The wind behind me says: 09/04/2017 at 12:22 am

    Great tips. I know I’m weak on point 5 but I’m going to fix it.

  19. Fantastic Tips!

    I want to add one more that the blog should have a magnetic headline that attracts one and all. At the same time, it will also help to get good CTRs

  20. Nice one. I’ll admit I don’t usually take the time to “outline” a blog post (it’s a blog, not a magazine article) so needed to be prodded to do that in posts people are paying for.

    Facebook demands and publishes far too much personal information from users; I’m not sure Facebook users realize that Facebook *also* makes posts difficult for non-users to read. It’s a real lose/lose site! Twitter and Google + are more user-friendly; they can eat up time but can also attract the right kind of readers. (Plus, if unable to afford newspaper subscriptions, you can find the headlines and most of the full articles on Twitter.)

  21. I want to add one more that the blog should have a magnetic headline that attracts one and all. At the same time, it will also help to get good CTRs

  22. This is extremely useful for beginner blogger like myself. The Hook seems like a hit or miss sometimes. How do you figure out what’s the right hook to use?

A Practical Podcast… to Help You Build a Better Blog

The ProBlogger Podcast

A Practical Podcast…

Close
Open