Writing a blog can feel daunting if you’re not used to doing it. It’s hard to imagine being able to come up with over 1,000 words one thing. If you do the research, choose a good topic, and most importantly, write about something you care about, the words will flow.

Anyone can write a blog. The problem is that not everyone can write a good blog. Additionally, not everyone can write a mental health blog that people what to read. You want something that captivates your audience. You need to get them to stick around to read.

I’ve thought about my process. In doing so, I realized there are 7 steps to writing a good blog. I’m going to share them with you now so you can learn how to write an awesome blog. You’ll have a better understanding of the process your copywriter goes through, too.

1. Choose a topic

This may seem like the easy part. It isn’t always. Sometimes you think for days about what you want to write. I suggest keeping a small notebook or using the notes app on your phone to jot down any ideas as they come to you. That’s what I do.

I have a notebook specifically for blog ideas. I write down a whole bunch and then I go through and assign a date for each one.

When I’m working with clients, it’s a bit different. Often clients will already have ideas. We then work together to craft the rough idea into a complete thought. We brainstorm what exactly the blog will be. We’re focused on how to write an awesome mental health blog. 

2. Choose a Headline

For some people, picking a headline first before they write is helpful. For others, this step may come after you’ve written the body of your blog. For the purposes of sharing my process, I’m going to leave it where it is, because it’s how I work.

Once I have my topic, I come up with a list of headlines. I use a headline analyzer website to help me craft my headlines. The tricky part is coming up with something that’s eyecatching but not click-bait.

Because I write for mental health professionals, the headlines are usually not as catchy as if I were writing for someone in e-commerce, for example. Many therapists and other mental health professionals want headlines that are straightforward. They want to tell the reader exactly what the mental health blog is about. Which is the ultimate goal. But as a copywriter, I want to make sure it’s still catchy. I’m constantly focused on how to write an awesome blog for you. 

3. Choose Keywords

Just as it may seem strange to choose a headline before you write the blog, it might also seem weird to write out your keywords before you start writing. If you don’t, you risk not using them organically. You want to be clear with your keywords.

Keywords are important to a blog that is well SEO-optimized. When you do a Google search, you’re typing in keywords. Those keywords better show up in your blog, or no one will find it.

For example, the keywords I’m using for this blog are “how to write an awesome blog,” “7 steps to writing a good blog,” and “mental health blog.”

You’ll notice that my keywords are phrases. These are called long-tail keywords. They’re what people tend to type into Google when doing a search. To learn how to write an awesome mental health blog using these 7 steps, you need to understand keywords. That’s why you hire a mental health copywriter.

4. Outline and Research

I’ve put these two steps together because that’s how I work, but you may do things differently. Typically what I do is make an outline of everything my client and I talked about for this particular mental health blog. 

Once I’ve written out everything we’ve discussed, I bullet point the things I’m going to elaborate on. That’s when I start researching.

The researching process can take a while depending on the topic, so make sure you give yourself plenty of time when writing your mental health blog. To write an awesome blog, you must make sure it’s backed by research. This means finding reputable sources that were written within the last three years.

I like to grab quotes and definitions from my sources and plug them into my outline. When I write I either use the quote or paraphrase, always giving credit to the source. When citing sources in your mental health blog, you want to make sure that you use numbers and superscripts and link your sources at the end. If you link the source in the body of the text, people might click away from your post.

5. Write

If you’ll notice, within the 7 steps to writing a good blog, writing comes pretty far down the list. It takes a lot of work to get to the writing stage. Once you’re there, you’re going to want to make sure you give yourself a couple of days if you can.

What I do is I write the shitty first draft. I sit down and bang out as much as I can, hopefully writing the full thing, although not always. Then I walk away.

I try to sleep on it, but if I have to I come back to it later that day, time depending. Let’s say I’ve slept on it. The next day I’ll read it, edit it, and then walk away.

6. Edit

I don’t edit until the second day. This is because I want time to let it sit. I need to come back to it with fresh eyes.

I edit the piece as best I can, looking for keywords, playing with phrases, formatting headlines and subheaders. This is usually when I bold and italicize words and phrases that I want the audience to pay attention to. 

I also use a website that “grades” my work on how readable it is. It’s easy when writing a mental health blog to use jargon and long sentences. When I first started, this website kept telling me I was writing at a 12th grade reading level. The ideal level is about 6th-8th grade, but Hemingway App will settle for 9th grade.

This isn’t because your readers are dumb. It’s because your audience doesn’t want to read anything too complicated. If you’re going to write an awesome mental health blog that people want to read, you need to keep it simple. You’ll notice that my sentences are short, I rarely use passive voice, and I’m limiting the number of adverbs I’m using. All these things matter.

7. Select an Image and Post!

The last part is the easiest of the 7 steps to writing a good blog. If you’re using images, you always want to make sure they’re royalty-free. I like Unsplash, but there are a bunch of sites to choose from.

Once you’ve settled on your image and you’ve got everything formatted and edited, you’re ready to post! 

This is actually the scariest part for some people. Once you get into practice and feel confident that you know how to write an awesome blog, it will get less scary.

Time to Start Writing

Now that you’ve got the 7 steps to writing an awesome mental health blog, it’s time to get to work. Here’s where I come in because no one expects you to have the time to do all of this yourself. This is why you hire a mental health copywriter.

Let’s work together to write an awesome mental health blog for you. Contact me today to get started. Happy blogging!