How to Draft a Blog Post in Twenty Minutes or Less

Whenever I sat down to write a story, there were very few days where the words would just pour out of me in a perfect form into something that is well-structured, engaging, and exciting. For me, it only happened less than one percent of the time so on an average day, it could get pretty frustrating.

The majority of the time either two things would happen. Either I would sit in my office chair, write out a headline and then wonder where it's going to go from there hoping that what I would write actually made sense to others, OR I would get an idea, get excited, and start writing haphazardly only to look at it afterward and see it was just a repetitive rant or a casual journal entry. Not something the average Joe would probably get excited to read.

So after taking some time off from writing and doing a little bit of sulking, I found out the best way to help me get a blog post written rather quickly would be to follow an outline I created for myself so none of the above would ever occur again.

Structuring your blog post beforehand will give you the confidence, strength and ability to be able to complete it quickly but also knowing in your mind and heart it will be something that other people will want to read which is basically the goal for all writers.

When I write on Vocal, I actually write within the draft feature because I find it really easy to use and it also helps me to format it the way I desire to have it formatted using the outline structure I have already created for myself giving me a true idea on how my blog post is going to look.

In this article, I'm going to show you how to outline a blog post in twenty minutes or less so you don't have to struggle every time you sit down in front of your laptop.

First of all, don't worry if your title isn't perfect in the very beginning. All good writers focus on the meat of the blog post first before they attempt to perfect the title. Once you've fully written your blog post, you're going to have an idea of what you're going to say, what your points are, and how you're going to formulate them. It's going to make it much easier for you to write your blog post saving you a lot of time in the process.

Also, don't worry about your subtitle here at this point. Allow that to come after you've written your blog post. The very first thing you want to focus on is your introduction. THIS is the section that is the most important to your blog post because it will be what will either make or break your reader to stay and read your entire blog post or leave because the introduction just doesn't connect with them.

When I outline the introduction, I list three things that I want to address inside of it. The first one is 'the issue'. The very first sentence of the introduction has to contain a 'hook.' This is where you can draw in the reader in order to keep them engaged so they will read the rest of your post excitedly. The second one is 'the symptoms of the issue'. It's the section where you're going to explain why you made that hook statement. The third one is 'the solution to the issue.' I know a lot of people argue with me on this one because they believe the solution written in the introduction will only give away the answer thus giving readers the desire to no longer want to read the post but the opposite is true. You want to make sure that the solution is so good, that they will even be more interested to take that tidbit and read the rest of the blog post all the way to the end where the conclusion lies because it was so interesting. If you wait and save it for the very end, you may lose your reader in the very beginning. The goal here is to keep them engaged all the way through.

Your introduction should contain all three bullet points and each point should basically be one line or two at the very most. The introduction's job is to pull your readers in so they will read all of the post. The rest of your blog post is where you will be adding more information.

After your introduction is written, the next thing you need to formulate is your first main idea. This section should easily complement your introduction. So, you will be writing out the issue as your main idea by elaborating on it. You can write about who agrees there's an issue, when did you first notice it and why you think the issue persists.

The next section will be your second main idea and that will be elaborating on the symptoms of the issue. You can talk about the problems that the issue causes and what that looks like to not only you but the reader as well.

Your third main idea you will be writing about is the solution to the issue. This section will help you share what it would be like if the issue didn't exist and what benefits there will be when the issue has disappeared. This is where you will be helping the reader solve the problem by leaving them with a short 'how-to.'

The final part of your blog post should be your conclusion. This is the part where you will not only be repeating your main points but also drawing the reader into asking themselves how things will be much different once there's no longer an issue by giving them some visualization as they read. This is the reader's a-ha moment and also where you will be bringing your blog post to a solid close.

So now that your blog post is finished, that's when you can go back and perfect your title and write out your subtitle too. To recap, your blog post should look like this:

Title

Subtitle

IMAGE(make sure you give photo credits)

Introduction: issue, symptoms, and solution(one to two lines each at best)

Main Idea: Issue

2nd Main Idea: Symptoms

3rd Main Idea: Solution

Conclusion

Now all you have to do is go back through, do some editing and you are done ready to finish out your day or evening doing other stuff you like to do.