"Content is king" — have you heard that before? It's not without reason. High-quality, high-value content is vital to the success of your business online. There's one problem, though. Many brands don't even know where to start. Let's dive a little deeper into blogging for beginners, and what you can be doing to see progress with your own content.

Blogging for Beginners: 6 Tips to Keep in Mind When You Write

1. Prioritize Quality Over Quantity, Always

More isn't necessarily better. Producing one amazing blog a week is far better than producing five low-quality ones. Google isn't going to care that you churned out five new pieces of content in one week. Your website visitors aren't going to care, either. In fact, creating content in this matter will only hurt you.

Yes, you need to be producing fresh content on a regular basis. But you should make quality a priority. This is what Google is looking for, and this is what will keep your website visitors coming back for more.

2. State the Main Topic in the First Paragraph

We'd say that people have the attention span of a goldfish, but we wouldn't want to offend the goldfish. You have seconds — literally, a few seconds — to grab readers' attention and convince them that they've come to the right place.

For this reason, you need to get to the point in the first paragraph and no later. Your readers should know almost immediately exactly what they will learn if they stick around and read the rest of your blog. Don't make them guess. Don't make them wait. Don't play hard to get. They don't have the patience for that.

If you need an example, check out the first paragraph of this blog. You learn pretty quickly that if you keep reading, you're going to pick up some new tips about blogging for beginners. Simple.

3. Break Your Text Up

Nobody likes reading huge paragraphs. Actually, they won't read huge paragraphs, period. Nothing is a turn-off quite like giant blocks of text. You want plenty of white space in your blog content. It's more reader-friendly and also helps them read faster. You want people to feel like they can fly through your content with ease.

There are several ways to break up text:

• Use bullet points and numbered lists, just like this.
• Insert plenty of attractive images.
• Write short paragraphs.
• Use headings.

And speaking of headings...

4. Use Headings to Convey Your Main Points

Many people, if not most, aren't going to read your content word for word. Rather, they skim. This means you need to make your content "skimmable."

People should be able to read just the headings of your blog and still gather a fairly good idea of what you're talking about. Again, let's use this blog as an example. In the first paragraph, you know you're going to get tips for blogging for beginners.

If you continue to read just the headings, you'll know what those tips are:

• Prioritize quality over quantity.
• State the main topic in the first paragraph.
• Break your text up.
• Use headings to convey your main points.

And so on.

5. Aim for 1,000 Words or More

Google uses a number of factors to determine how to rank you. One of them is the kind of experience they believe you'll provide for readers. If they think your blog is awesome, they'll rank you higher. If they don't, say hello to page 10 of Google, because that's where you're going to end up. Womp womp womp.

So, you need your blogs to provide a flawless experience. This is hard to do in 300 words. How much value, how much information and education and entertainment, can you provide in 300 words? Not much.

Plus, 300 words won't keep people on your page very long. Google doesn't like this. Don't upset Google.

While there's no magic word count (that we know of) that Google absolutely loves, a widely accepted rule of thumb is to aim for 1,000 words. For even better results, go for roughly 1,600.

Now, here's an important question: Is longer better? If you have the time, knowledge, and resources, should you produce something longer? You certainly can. Neil Patel says that his blogs are always a minimum of 4,000 words. He's even produced content closer to 10,000 words — with great results.

Should you always do this? No. It won't always be appropriate or necessary. Also, don't assume it's the best move, even though it is for Neil Patel. The point is this: 300-word blogs won't cut it. Invest the time and resources into producing content with a little more meat on its bones.

6. Include a Few Internal and External Links

Wait, what?

Let's back up.

An internal link is a link that points to your own website. For instance, when we link to any page on LSM — like this blog on the benefits of YouTube — that's an internal link.

An external link is a link that goes to an outside source — like when we link to Neil Patel's website. Be sure to set these to open in a new window. Otherwise, you're sending people away from your website, and we don't want to do that.

Google likes to see these links. Internal links help direct people to other pages on your website that they might be interested in. External links help back up the claims that you make and also provide additional resources for the reader to explore.

Just be sure that your external links are high-quality. Spammy or otherwise low-quality links are a no-no. Forbes is great. Wikipedia is not. You feel us?

Don't go crazy with links, either. Once again, more isn't always better. In fact, too many links can hurt you, because it makes each individual link less powerful. Quality over quantity, people. Quality over quantity.

Content creation is a full-time job. Need help? Contact LSM, and let's chat more.