Blogging is a great way to connect with your current families and provide prospective parents with snackable content that demonstrates your center’s authority online. Learn how to reach more parents with an effective blog post using our step-by-step guide!
Step 1: Choose a topic.
Before you put pen to paper, it’s important that you have a strong topic and a clear plan. Start with a Google search and take a look at other child care blogs to get some inspiration. Free tools like Keywords Explorer and Answer the Public will return content ideas and keywords that people are searching for. Use these keywords and ideas to make your blog posts more relevant and searchable!
Be sure to consider topics that support and engage millennial parents with young children. How-to posts, listicles, step-by-step instructionals and curated collections make easy-to-read content for moms and dads on the go. As long as your post is valuable to your audience, it will receive engagement.
Tip: Check out these child care blog post ideas!
Step 2: Research your topic.
Research is one of the most important parts of writing. While you may be the child care expert, there are still plenty of other experts, resources and information online to gain from and incorporate into your blog posts. Research gives you the ability to write authoritatively about any subject so that your blog becomes a go-to resource for young parents.
For example, if you’re writing a winter activity guide for families, it’s a good idea to browse competitors’ blogs, articles and local events online to help you expand your list!
Step 3: Outline your content.
With so much information, it’s easy for writing a post to feel overwhelming. Creating an outline will help you focus on your main points in the right order so you just have to fill in the blanks when you begin writing! Organizing your content into sections, lists, tips or steps will also make it more digestible for your readers.
Step 4: Write your blog post!
Now that you have a topic and outline, you can actually write your post. Use your outline to guide you and expand on all of your points with both your prior knowledge and research! Be sure to write bite-size paragraphs for parents using small screens.
Step 5: Edit your post.
You’re not finished with your blog post until you proofread it! The editing process can be tedious, but it’s an extremely important part of writing a strong blog post. Look at grammar, spelling, structure, formatting and wording to see if anything needs correcting. This would be a good time to add in any photos you want to include in your post!
Step 6: Insert a call to action at the end.
Add a call to action at the end of every blog post that encourages parents to take the next step. This may be to share the post with friends, register for an event at your facility, download your center’s monthly calendar or read a related post. A strong call to action invites parents to further engage with you and learn more about your center!
Step 5: Write a strong headline.
After finishing your masterpiece, it’s time to come up with an engaging headline that encourages parents to read your post! Remember that the title is the first thing people will see when your post is displayed in Google search results or a social media share. A good headline should summarize your post and invite parents to click to read more.
