Do you want to know how to create a WordPress blog post outline?
It relieves stress to not have to start your draught from scratch by creating a blog post outline. By using an outline, you can get past writer’s block and arrange your blog post in a sensible, readable order.
We’ll outline our step-by-step process for writing a blog post outline for your WordPress website in this article.
Why Do You Need a Blog Post Outline?
If you’re a content writer, blogger, or content manager, you might be debating whether writing an outline for a blog post is actually worthwhile.
The truth is that you must first create an outline if you truly want to write a fantastic blog post. This is why:
Outlines Beat Blank Page Syndrome
Every writer has experienced the feeling of staring at a blank page after opening their Google Doc or WordPress editor. You might feel stressed out, possibly begin to perspire, overthink the entire post, or even put off writing it altogether.
You won’t ever feel intimidated before writing a new blog post if you use outlines. To help you decide what to write about, you’ll divide your posts into topics, subheadings, and talking points.
Outlines Help You Write Faster
Another strategy for front-loading your research is to write an outline beforehand. In order to plan your content, you can examine competitors in search results. This keeps you from getting bogged down in research while you’re writing.
By keeping your research and writing separate, you can be sure that you will have all the tools you need when it comes time to write. Writing blog posts then becomes simple.
Outlines Get You and Your Editor On the Same Page
Before writing, you might want to run your outline by a content manager or editor if you have a close working relationship with them. It provides both parties with guidance on which sections to emphasise, which components to include or omit, and a general perspective from which to write the article.
The last thing you want to have to do is rewrite the entire essay because you didn’t understand what the article was supposed to be about.
Outlines Help You Answer the Most Important Questions
Answering the questions that people are asking most frequently is one of the best ways to rank your content.
The WPBeginner Keyword Generator Tool is available for use. It’s a totally free method of coming up with tonnes of keyword suggestions and popular Google queries. This guarantees that the content of your blog will be optimised to match user search intent.
To help you create high-quality content that search engines will love, here are the 8 steps to creating the best blog post outline.
If you’re already writing a blog post outline, you can use the links below to skip to any step you like.
1. Choose Your Topic
Knowing what you want to write about is the first step in creating a blog post outline. You will therefore need to select a topic.
Start by generating a list of potential blog topics. If you’re already familiar with the market, you might want to address a few pressing problems.
Otherwise, using All in One SEO’s Search Statistics feature is a good way to locate topics. The best content optimisation tool for WordPress sites is All in One SEO, which provides tips on how to enhance your SEO to improve rankings.
In essence, the Search Statistics feature offers a central location to view the performance of your content on Google.
This enables you to monitor the effectiveness of the content on your blog through the content ranking report. You can then spot opportunities for keywords that are related to the blog posts you already rank for.
Installing and activating the AIOSEO plugin is the first step. If you require guidance, refer to our tutorial on installing a WordPress plugin.
Visit the All in One SEO Search Statistics page in the WordPress dashboard once it has been activated.
You’ll see SEO Statistics, Keyword Positions, and Content Performance once you’re in the Search Statistics dashboard.
You can find the top pages, top losing keywords, and top winning keywords by scrolling down and clicking the Content Performance tab. Important information like Clicks, Impressions, Position, and the Difference in Ranking Position are provided in this report.
Reviewing your Top Pages will help you identify all the keywords that are working well for you.
Use comparable tools
To find blog post topics, you can also use a tool like Semrush. You’ll go to their Topic Research for Content Marketing page.
Select a subject and click “Get content ideas.” To find new keywords in this situation, we’ll use one of our best-performing keywords, “how to garden.”
Toggle the switch next to “Trending subtopics first” to find trending topics. There is a list of cards that each have a topic headline, followed by a subtopic.
Look through the headlines to see if there are any subjects that will interest your audience. When you locate one, select “Show more.”
An expanded list of the topic’s headlines, associated queries, and associated searches will be displayed.
You should have enough inspiration from this to fill a whole content calendar with blog post ideas.
Select a subject for your first article before moving on to the next phase.
2. Figure Out Your Content Format
There isn’t a secret recipe that works for all kinds of content. In some cases, the format is clear. If your topic is “how to start a garden,” you’ll probably be providing a step-by-step instruction manual. It might be a listicle if you’re writing about gardening advice.
But things aren’t always so simple. Is the subject “best gardening tool” a list of gardening implements, a critique of a specific piece of kit, or a discussion of the best tool?
The simplest way to decide is to look at Google’s ranking for that topic. You can see from a quick Google search that people looking for the “best gardening tools” are really looking for a list of gardening tools.
Now that you are aware, you can decide that a listicle is the better content format for this subject.
Following are some of the most common content formats and appropriate times to use them.
- How-to posts: when you need to step-by-step instruct readers on how to do something.
- List posts: Share a centralised collection of fantastic ideas.
- Beginner’s guide posts: when you want to make a technical subject understandable to a new audience.
- What is’ posts: when you have to explain something or respond to a query.
- X vs. Y posts: When contrasting what makes your product superior to a rival.
- Statistics post: when you need to give a detailed list of statistics about a specific industry.
- News posts: when you want to declare the release of a new product or feature.
- Case study posts: for in-depth examinations of topics supported by extensive research.
Although the outline for each of these post types may differ, the same steps are used to create each one.
3. Decide on Your Article’s Angle
Any topic allows you to choose the course you want to go in. You might need to choose between a flower garden and a vegetable garden if your topic is “how to plant a garden,” for instance.
Your article is interesting and distinctive to readers because of the angle. Looking at the top-ranking pages on Google is one of the simplest ways to think of an angle you should cover.
Our blog posts at WPBeginner are always written with small businesses like yours in mind. For example, consider our blog post on the “best email marketing services.”
Instead of providing a comprehensive list of everything, our experts have focused on services that are most beneficial to small businesses because that is what our audience is most interested in.
As you can see in the image above, we come in first place for the subject, and Brevo’s second result is also concerned with business email services.
In order to outrank the top search results, you should modify your own outline to reflect the way they are approaching the subject.
4. Analyze the Top-Ranking Pages and Figure Out What You Need to Cover
Once you have the angle, you can begin creating the outline’s actual structure and layout.
While you are able to use the ChatGPT prompts to generate an outline, we suggest manually examining the most popular posts in search to determine what actually ranks.
You can start by creating a new post on WordPress. Go to Posts Add New in your WordPress admin area to accomplish this.
A blank page will be opened for you to write your blog post on.
We advise writing the outline in WordPress’ block editor so that you can use the features of AIOSEO to optimise your blog post as you go.
You can scroll down to “AIOSEO Settings,” for instance. You can type your blog post title next to “Post Title” to check if it fits the character limit.
The next step is to examine the top-ranking Google content to decide what headings and details to include.
Enter your search term into the search bar, then select all of the top-ranking results.
Check out the People Also Ask section of the Google search results as well.
It compiles the most typical queries on a subject.
To make sure you fully address all of the inquiries searchers are looking for, you might want to include these questions as a heading or FAQ section.
Keep in mind that it’s crucial to group the headings and arrange them logically.
For instance, you must describe the issue before leading the reader to the solution.
Because of this, you ought to include headings like “What are garden pests?” and “Types of garden pests to look out for.” You would then delve into how to keep pests out of your garden. Finally, you might include the query, “What is the best treatment for garden pests?” to let users know the best course of action.
Additionally, you can include a table of contents in your blog post outline to enhance user experience.
If you’re using AIOSEO, adding a Table of Contents is as simple as typing “/toc” and choosing the “AIOSEO – Table of Contents” block in the block editor.
Your blog post will include a table of contents with links to each of the headings below the block.
Having one of these enables readers to quickly access any section of the blog post and avoid wasting time reading background material they may already be familiar with.
5. Add Bullets Under Each Heading
Once you’ve established your main headings, you can elaborate on each section to determine what you’ll write about and what details to include.
Simply list the main points for each section’s information to be covered, examples to be highlighted, and statistics to be cited.
Be sure to compile all of your research-related articles. So you can properly credit these sources or know when to use them in your writing. Your research can be based on anything, including other well-regarded content, social media, YouTube, or academic journals.
You should include internal links in each section after adding bullet points under each one. Every piece of content should contain internal links because they are a crucial component of SEO.
The Link Assistant feature in All in One SEO makes it simple to locate relevant links for your blog posts. Go to WordPress’s All in One SEO Link Assistant first.
Simply select the ‘Links Reports’ tab next. You can access all of your posts here, along with the internal and external links for each one.
You have the option of filtering this page by Orphaned Posts or Linking Opportunities.
The Orphaned Posts section displays all the articles without any internal links, while Linking Opportunities provides suggestions for where to place them in each post.
A table with columns for the number of links in each post, whether they are internal or external, and the number of suggestions AIOSEO has for new links you can use are also displayed in the Links Report.
Simply select the post you want to add internal links to from the Linking Opportunities section at the top. Choose the blog post outline you started in this situation.
There will be recommendations for adding internal links. To add the phrases to your blog outline, just go over them again and click “Add Link.”
If you don’t think a link suggestion is appropriate, you can also click “Dismiss Suggestion.”
Check to see if your outline structure makes sense before moving on to the next step. Query yourself on things like:
- Does the post address the key queries that the readership has?
- Does the article provide a quick response to the key query?
- Is the organisation of this post logical?
- Is every piece of information on this page required?
You’ll stay on the right path if you prioritise the reader’s experience. To make your post easier to read, make sure that your headings accurately summarise the most important points.
6. Create a Compelling Post Title
Your SEO rankings and traffic may be significantly impacted by your post title. Its main function is to describe to readers and search engines what they can anticipate from a blog post.
When someone searches for your blog post, they will see the title first, and first impressions count. This is your opportunity to leave a lasting impression.
We advise using the All in One SEO Headline Analyzer to improve your on-page SEO.
Navigate to the SEO Analysis section of All in One SEO in your WordPress dashboard. Then select the ‘Headline Analyzer’ tab.
Click “Analyse” after entering your title into the search bar.
Following that, it will offer you suggestions and inform you that your title is search-engine-friendly.
You might receive feedback claiming that your character or word count is insufficient or lacks the necessary emotional appeal to draw readers in.
In order to grade your title, All in One SEO Headline Analyzer considers the following main factors:
- Word Balance: This assists you in striking the ideal balance between frequent, rare, emotive, and powerful words. Emotional language encourages more clicks and gives your title more impact.
- Sentiment: The Headline Analyzer determines whether the sentiment of your title is neutral, positive, or negative. The majority of click-throughs are driven by positive emotions. A good example of this is our blog post, “Best Blogging Niche – 7 That Will Make Money (Easily)”.
- Character and word count: The number of characters and words in your title will determine how well it performs. Search results will display headlines up to 55 characters long in full, and titles should be longer than 5 words.
For additional assistance in creating catchy blog post titles, you can also use the free Headline Analyzer provided by WPBeginner.
Please refer to our tutorial on using a headline analyzer in WordPress to enhance SEO titles for more information.
7. Look for Related Keywords
It’s a good idea to use related keywords when writing blog posts so that search engines can better understand your content.
You’re looking for LSI keywords in particular (latent semantic indexing). Although not quite synonyms, these are words and expressions that have a close relationship to the target keyword.
If you write about “pest control for gardens,” for instance, Natural pest control and organic pest prevention techniques are examples of LSI keywords.
Because they aid search engines in comprehending the overall subject of the blog post, LSI keywords are significant.
To determine your article’s topic and its relevance to the query, search engines skim your content for words that are contextually related. Additionally, LSI keywords aid in your positioning in relevant searches and target the appropriate audience for your content.
You should make a short list of key LSI terms and try to incorporate them into your post where they make sense.
The WPBeginner Keyword Research Tool can be used to find LSI keywords. You can use it for nothing and get hundreds of keyword suggestions.
It’s a great way to find more subtopics for your blog post to organise keywords by different kinds of questions.
When you’ve identified the keywords you want to concentrate on, you can use keyword research tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to determine their volume and degree of difficulty.
To create related long-tail keyword phrases for this example, we’ll use the Semrush Keyword Magic tool.
Long-tail keywords frequently bring in website visitors who are further along in the purchasing process or seeking out specific information. They are more likely to become clients as a result.
Enter one seed keyword at a time into the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool and click “Search.”
The next step is to look through related topic’s suggested keywords to identify niche long-tail phrases.
Returning to our gardening example, you can see that there are many related keywords in the screenshot below:
You can also sort by Questions to find keywords that are based on questions. Even the way you want the outcomes to correspond to your initial search is selectable.
Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match, and Related are some match modifiers. Depending on your preferences, use these to either widen or narrow the keyword selection.
You can filter results based on search volume, keyword density (how difficult it is to rank for a particular keyword), intent, CPC, and other factors below that.
For LSI keywords, you can also use Google Autocomplete.
Enter your word or phrase, then look over the suggestions.
Examining the related searches listed at the bottom of the search results is an additional strategy.
They offer hints about words and phrases that are related and worth mentioning in your blog post, similar to the autocomplete suggestions.
8: Complete Your Outline
You should now have a fully developed draught that includes all of your headings, subheadings, and any significant bullet points. You have all the information necessary to create an excellent blog post in front of you, including any research articles and keywords.
Here is an example of a full WordPress blog outline. Remember that this procedure is very flexible, so you might need to modify the outline to suit your needs.
Sending your outline to an editor, colleague, or content manager is a good idea before you start writing. They can draw your attention to errors or things you may have missed.
You can start writing your draught as soon as everything appears to be in order.
This article should have taught you how to create a thorough outline for blog posts that actually generate traffic. Check out our articles on how to start a WordPress blog and how to get more traffic to your blog if you want to learn more about blogging.
