How I Built a 4 Figure Monthly Blog in 3 Months – Part 3

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, I explained how I planned my blog, how I chose my domain name, how I set up my blog, how I created key pages, and how you can do the same.

This third post in this series will be focusing just on one thing; my process for writing key posts.

Here’s what this series covers:

• Part 1: How I Planned My Blog and Chose a Niche
• Part 2: How I Chose My Domain Name, Set Up My Blog, and Created Key Pages
• Part 3: My Process for Writing Key Posts that Drive Income
• Part 4: How I Market My Blog

My Process for Writing Key Posts

While the success of my blog is about more than just the posts I write, on the long run, especially when I’ve stopped actively marketing my blog, it is the fact that I have the right posts on my blog that results in consistent traffic and income for me.

There are 3 types of key posts I see as a must have for my blog. They are:

• An Ultimate Guide
• A Case Study Post
• A Resource Post/Page

This post will be analyzing them individually, their potential, and how you can go about creating one.

Key Post Type #1: The Ultimate Guide

An ultimate guide is a post that aims to cover everything, in a basic way, about a particular topic.

With an ultimate guide, if a total beginner to the topic of your blog visits your blog and reads your post, while she won’t necessarily be an expert on the topic by reading your post, because she read your ultimate guide, she will have a basic understanding of the topic; sometimes, no, most of the time, basic is just what your readers need.

Ultimate guides are usually in-depth, well-researched, and visual; most ultimate guides will contain screenshots of some of what you are explaining as well as examples.

Because of how in-depth they can be, ultimate guides will often exceed 3,000 – 4,000 words, and they can be much longer than that depending on the topic being discussed and the author discussing this topic.

Benefits of writing an ultimate guide

It isn’t easy to write an ultimate guide; they can take a lot of work and effort, especially if you are a new blogger. I remember my first one taking me over 10 hours to complete.

However, there are a lot of benefits to writing ultimate guides, because of how detailed and well-researched they are:

• They attract a lot of links from relevant sources.
• They are more likely to be shared on social media.
• They can improve how your readers perceive you; if you can go into that much depth in an article, then you know your stuff.
• They have great potential, especially due to their comprehensiveness, to rank well in the search engines. It’s also easier for them to rank because they attract a lot of links.
• If written and promoted well, they will eventually become some of your most popular posts.

Examples of Ultimate Guides

Ultimate guides have been written about numerous subjects; here are some examples of ultimate guides on the web:

• Keyword Research: The Ultimate Guide
• The Ultimate Guide to Making an Affiliate Income from Your Blog
• The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging for Backlinks

How to Write an Ultimate Guide

To write an ultimate guide, you should have just one aim; make sure a beginner in your niche can get by just by reading your post. Make readers feel informed, like they know everything about your topic, because they’ve read your post.

Of course, this isn’t about adding unnecessary details but about making your information practical and easy to understand. Here are a few tips:

• Prepare a list of various blog posts that could be written about a certain topic
• Look for a way to condense all this information into one post in an “ultimate guide”
• Back up points you make in your articles with references and examples
• Link to authoritative sources when discussing complex parts of your ultimate guide for readers who would love to dive deeper
• Reference tools that allow people to implement your suggestions

Key Post Type #2: The Case Study Post

Another kind of post I believe is essential for any blog is the case study post, especially if you want to make money.

If you want to make money from your blog, you are either selling a product or service, or promoting another person’s product. No matter your approach to making money, even if you’re selling ads on your blog, a case study that shows people that spending their money with you is the right decision will go a long way.

While case studies won’t necessarily get as much links, views, and shares as an ultimate guide, they are a key part of your blog because they demonstrate your expertise, the reason you qualify to do what you do on your blog, and as a result improve your reputation with the few people that read them.

You can also send your case studies to potential clients as a way to convince them of the effectiveness of your services; this will often lead to them taking you more seriously.

Examples of Case Studies

• Create a Blog – Case Study for Creating a Niche Blog
• Case Study: How I Used Guest Blogging to Grow a Site’s Search Traffic by 342.35% in One Year

How to Write a Case Study Post

Here are some keys to writing a case study post:

• Highlight a problem in your niche that you are going to solve.
• Highlight your approach for solving this problem.
• Outline your process towards solving this problem.
• Share before and after results, with screenshots if possible.
• Conclude your case study with a call to action suggesting what readers have to do to get similar results; it could be buying your products, using your services, etc.

Key Post Type #3: The Resource Post/Page

It is also important that you have a resource post/page on your blog; this type of post usually generate the most traffic, letting some of the other posts/pages on your blog benefiting from this traffic, and making you money if you optimize them to do that.

Resource posts are different from other types of posts because, instead of offering tips, or your process for doing something, resource posts share the actual resources that people can use to do that thing.

Because of their very nature, resource posts get bookmarked and shared a lot; some people will keep coming to your resource posts years after they discover it, and a lot of those who come across it will be advocates of it.

Out of the 3 posts on this list, resources posts have the most potential.

Examples of resource posts:

• The Ultimate List of Blogs that Accept Guest Posts
• 45+ More Websites that Pay You to Contribute an Article, Instantly
• 30 Websites that Pay You to Contribute an Article, Instantly

How to Write a Resource Post

• Look for a problem a lot of people experience in your niche.
• Research to confirm a lot of tutorials and tips articles have been written on how to solve this problem.
• See if, instead of offering tips, you can offer actual resources people use to get their problems solved right way.
• Make sure your resource post is specific; the more specific it is, the more potential it has.
• If it requires a lot of posts, create a main page that categorizes all of these posts so that people can follow them; also allow people to be able to get back to that page from any of the resource posts

Conclusion

When you blog, more quality traffic often means more money. If you can effectively leverage the above 3 posts on your blog, you are guaranteed to be consistently getting thousands of people to check out your blog every month.

My next post in this series will share how I market my blog; without effective marketing, your blog, with even the kind of posts explained in today’s post, won’t have as much potential. Don’t miss the next article!

Bamidele Onibalusi is a blogger, freelance writer, and the founder of Writers in Charge, a popular blog for writers. If you want a proven formula for getting writing clients by blogging.