HOW TO: OUTLINE A BLOG POST

Hey guys, welcome back to my blog! Today I’m coming at you with a new How To post and today I’m talking about how I outline my blog posts because you guys know that I schedule and outline my blog post pretty far in advance.

I usually outline my posts far in advance because I outline my blog posts as I schedule them, so right now I have all of my blog posts scheduled up to around February/March next year. So, at least 90%, if not all of them have been outlined and just need me to write them and add in images and breakers with my usual add ons for any posts I write.

*Note – I schedule my blog posts on WordPress so they go up on a specific time & date. Just because they’ve been scheduled does not mean I’ve written them all yet. 

GENERAL TIPS & ADVICE

• Outline your blog posts in advance of writing them. When you get the idea for your blog post write it down and write exactly what you want it to be, I usually use bullet points and give an example I want to use when I write the full blog post.
• Outlining in advance also lessens the chance of you forgetting why you wanted to write the blog post & what you wanted to say.
• Don’t worry about your title until you’ve written the blog post (try and think of something snazzy and to the point, but don’t worry about it).
• Write down all of your ideas, and don’t worry if you can’t fit them all into one post, you can always write another.

EXAMPLES

This is what my outlines/notes you usually look like:

• intro
• divider
• spiel
• main guts
• conclusion/ summary
• chat bubble
• questions
• medias

This is pretty much what my outlining usually looks like – I’ll try and write a rough intro, and then I’ll have the word “divider” underneath to give my post some kind of structure when I go to write it. Then I usually bullet point what I want the post to be about and any ideas & examples I have and then I put the words “Chat Bubble”, “questions” & “medias” at the bottom to work as reminders to finish my post off.

If I’m writing a list type of post I usually make the list while I’m outlining because that makes the writing process a lot easier when I get around to the post. They usually look like this:

• intro
• divider
• 1 (I will elaborate for lists here because it always makes it easier when I go to write the blog post)
• 2 (Hey guys, did you see that new Frozen 2 trailer? I cried, it was beautiful.)
• 3 (Do you outline your blog posts in advance or am I just weird?)
• 4 (Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?)
• 5 (Aaaand now it’s raining…)
• chat bubble
• qs
• medias

You can find an example of one of my finished lists here.

So, I outline my posts as I schedule them. While I do try to outline every single posts I schedule to go up, they don’t always look the same. They can go from super detailed and a half-written blog post, to a few sentences and a picture – I’m usually not too picky, as long as I leave some kind of information behind to make it easier for me in the future. Because I schedule my blog posts so far ahead ( I have all f 2019 scheduled and I’m adding to 2020 every now and again), I find it really helpful to leave these posts behind because in some cases I am literally writing blog posts a year after the idea has been written down and scheduled.

DO YOU OUTLINE & SCHEDULE YOUR POSTS OR WRITE THEM AS YOU THINK OF THEM?

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