How a Professional Copywriter Writes Blog Posts

The Go Fish Digital copywriting team works hard to create a variety of high-quality, SEO-friendly deliverables for our clients. Among these deliverables are long-form blog posts that align with both the overarching goals of the client’s marketing initiatives and the goals of the project they commissioned with GFD. 

We wanted to get insight into how our copywriting team actually goes about creating blog posts for our clients. We sat down with LaRhonda Sparrow, Associate Copywriter, and asked her 5 quick questions to learn more.

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What is your writing process?

When I sit down to write a blog, I begin by finding out all of the specifications of the client, including their overall goals and how they write to their audience. Then, I just start writing to get all of my initial ideas down on paper. I then go back through the copy to refine the overall message. Lastly, I continue editing the copy to ensure that it’s exactly what the client is looking for.

So, generally, my written process includes getting any requirements from the client, putting my ideas down on paper, refining my message, and then copy editing the piece to make sure it fits in with the client’s goals.

How do you come up with blog ideas?

When brainstorming topics for client blogs, I like to lean on my experience as a consumer to take a step back and think about what type of content would make my interaction with a website better. So, I spend some time on the client’s website to find questions that I would want answers to if I were interested in buying their products. 

For instance, I was writing a blog for my furniture retail client one day, and I looked through their products for inspiration. I found a sofa that I was personally interested in and I immediately asked myself how this sofa would look in my home, how I could style it for different times of the year, and how I could keep it clean. Those are all questions the average consumer is asking themselves as well, so it’s completely worth it to develop them out into blogs. When I look at brainstorming in that way, the ideas start flooding in.

What is the ideal blog length?

In my opinion, there is no ideal blog length. The only requirement is that you get your point across in a clear, concise way so you won’t lose your reader. One blog I wrote had less than 300 words, but it ended up being really successful because it relied on graphical components to convey its message. On the other end of the spectrum, I recently wrote a post that was around 2,000 words, but it faired well because it was written for a highly-technical audience who generally expects to read more robust pieces.

My advice is to research your audience to know what they want out of a blog post and to use your discretion when coming up with a word count. 

Why should a writer use formatting in their blog posts?

Proper formatting really can be the difference between your blog looking intimidating, and not getting any traction, and it going viral. If you open a blog and there’s a huge block of text, there’s a very low chance that someone is going to read through it.

I recommend breaking up your copy with headings, bullet points, and images throughout so it looks as user-friendly as possible. An example of a perfectly formatted blog is a piece by my colleague, Ally Mickler, who wrote an article detailing how to set up an A/B test on the Go Fish website. Even though the subject matter is relatively specialized, it’s broken up nicely with different headings, helpful images, and numerical lists, which makes it much more approachable visually.

With good formatting, a reader won’t be intimidated by your content and they’ll be much more inclined to read it, which is exactly what we want!

What word processor would you recommend using when writing blogs?

I prefer to use Google Docs when I’m writing for clients. Google Docs is a great tool because it allows you to share and collaborate easily with both your project team and your client. Through a single link, you can see each version of a document, comment on things you want more clarity on, and even get quick answers through the built-in chat function. You really can’t go wrong with it.

To learn more about our Copywriting service and how it can help your company, reach out to us today!