The Only Blog Writing Checklist Beginners Need in 2025

Blogs are boring. Blogging is dead. Our attention span is declining.

Believe it or not – this is true. But not entirely.

Blogs still produce the best results compared to email and social media. 44% of marketers believe that. You just need to craft a compelling piece, and you’ll see the results.

Here’s a quick blog writing checklist for beginners to follow in 2025 (and beyond) to create a post that’s as captivating as a natural landscape.

1. Get to the Point ASAP

Nobody cares how you discovered a problem. People only care about how you solved it.

So it’s always better to get straight to the point as soon as possible to grab their attention.

In fact, almost two-third of the readers stay only for 15 seconds on your web page. Thus, you should stop beating around the bush and get to the crux of your post before they close the tab. I always try to keep my blog intros as brief as possible (look at this post’s introduction only), and start talking about the sh*t they clicked my headline for.

However, I’m not rejecting the storytelling approach outright. If you’ve an interesting story to tell, you can add it into the body of your blog. This won’t stretch the introduction and keep the readers hooked.

Just look at this example from Ahrefs latest blog on AI Overviews. It has a succinct introduction that compel readers to scroll down and read more:

2. One Stat in Every Section (if possible and relevant)

This content writing checklist will increase your website traffic.

75 brands 4xed their traffic with this content writing checklist.

Which statement feels more convincing? The second one, right.

Why?

Because it’s not committing something out of thin air. There’s solid proof behind the claim. You should also back your commitments with numbers and data. The best way to do that is by citing a report in each section (if it makes sense) of your blog. This will give your readers a reason to trust you.

The most optimal example for this is Backlinko blog. Just click on any of their blogs and you’ll see how they’ve linked to a report to support their claims.

3. Let Others Contribute to Your Piece

Being a lone ranger is a graving content writing mistake you must avoid. Ask others to contribute to your content piece. You don’t know how many meaningful insights you’ll unveil by talking to other experts.

While writing a blog, you can ask others for their opinion on your topic. And include it in your content piece.

Databox aces this game:

But how do you do that? Quite simple. You can use platforms like LinkedIn or Help a B2B Writer. I personally prefer HAB2BW or LinkedIn. Or if you have an audience who loves to engage, you can also create a Google form to collect insights.

Adding others’ quotes in your post makes it more credible and insightful. Plus, it will give those contributors a reason to share your content as they feature in it. Eventually, you’ll get shout-outs while the contributors get more exposure. A win-win game!

4. More Use of Media

Text is boring. You cannot engage readers with text only (unless it is a Harry Potter novel).

So while blogging, you need to fill your content with media files in your content to ensure your readers don’t yawn while reading it.

Here’s an example how HubSpot does this in its blogs:

While you can add several media types like images, videos, embeds, images stand out as a go-to choice. They make your content gripping, are easy to add, and you can create them on your own.

And it’s not just about making your content interesting. Reports show that blogs with 7 or more images get 55% more backlinks than those that don’t have any visuals. So more images can lead to higher rankings as well.

Let’s move further in this blog writing checklist and discuss the next point that’s equally important as media.

5. Proofreading (No Exceptions)

No blog writing checklist will be completed without this point.

While writing content, there’s always a scope for improvement. And you often figure it out when you proofread it.

Errors often go unnoticed while writing a blog post. But if you proofread it once done, you may find typo, grammatical, punctuation errors.

So always make sure you DO NOT PUBLISH your piece without a thorough scan. What I do is, I finish my copy and switch to another task or take a break. When I return to the content later with a fresh mind, I find multiple edits to improve my content.

Many writers also suggest you to read your content backwards or read it twice or thrice for perfection. But that’s something I won’t recommend. Just one careful read is enough to improve your copy.

6. Examples Are Your Friends

If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.

– Albert Einstein

You don’t want your readers to leave your blog with a doubt. And nothing’s better than examples to eliminate any sort of confusion in their mind.

That’s why, most of the points in this post itself contain some type of examples. Examples make it easy to absorb the information. And if readers get your point thoroughly, they’re more likely to share it with others.

Here’s one example of the power of examples from Harry Dry’s LinkedIn post:

As soon as I saw this post, I liked it, followed him (highly recommended) and shared this post with my team. That’s the power of examples. They compel you to act. And that’s why I love using them in my content and would ask you to do the same.

7. Cite Great Personalities

You’re not the greatest. There are other fishes in the sea. And you can credit their work to make your content shine.

I always prefer using someone’s quote in my content to make it look great. I did it in the previous point as well as in my previous blog on how not to become an average writer.

This doesn’t have a great impact on the performance of your blog. But it presents you as a learned and authoritative source. Adding popular quotes and phrases also break the monotony and grab reader’s interest.

8. Build (Quality) Links to Your Content

Last but a super-important point of this blog writing checklist.

Content without backlinks is like a ship stuck in the dockyard. It won’t move anywhere, resulting in no reach, no traffic, and no conversions. Google prioritizes pages that have more quality backlinks than others. In fact, the #1 ranking page on Google has 3.8 times more backlinks than the rest on the pages.

Simply put, pages that garner more backlinks, top the search engine chart.

So the challenge starts after publishing a post. You need to build backlinks to it to get it on top of search results. And one of the best methods for that is email outreach.

What you can do is:

• Search for some websites relevant to your niche
• Create a list of a few that are more likely to link to you
• Analyze their content and find out the best spot for your anchor
• Reach out to them with an engaging email and ask them to link to your blog

Note: Don’t be an annoying salesman. Tell them why they should link to you and what value they’ll get from it.

Ending Note

Following this blog writing checklist will surely help you craft a killer blog post people would love to read.

If you’re someone who skimmed the content and scrolled down here to get a gist of the post, here it is. To craft a captivating blog that doesn’t bore but captivate readers, you must:

• Avoid long introductions and get to the point ASAP
• Use stats adequately (if possible 1 in each section) to back your claims
• Ask others to share insights and add it to your content
• Make ample use of visuals to keep readers hooked
• Proofread thoroughly to find and fix errors
• Make your content easy-to-understand with examples
• Include popular quotes of popular personalities (optional)
• Build quality links through email outreach

In a TikTok-dominated world, engaging readers in a 2000+ word blog is challenging. You must evolve with changing times to retain your audience. And these content writing tips will help you there.

So go ahead, try them out, and create engaging blogs. If I’ve missed something or you have your own blog writing checklist and want to share it, you can comment below.