Create an Outline
You probably don't want to hear this.
But, assuming you want your content to be valuable to whoever reads it, you need to create a detailed outline before you write.
Like a Hollywood blockbuster whose slick action sequences start with detailed storyboards, your smooth, seamless content should begin with a proven framework.
What Is an Outline, and Why Is It Important?
For some people, the chance to pound out their thoughts in print can be a rare opportunity to roll up their sleeves and be creative.
It can also be a disaster.
That's why you need to start with an outline, a detailed framework that organizes and connects your ideas in the order of their importance.
An outline helps you:
- Establish a logical flow for your content
- See the weak points in your knowledge so you can bolster them with better research
- View your topic as a coherent whole before you delve into details
- Stay on track so you don't waste your readers' time with self-centered tangents
The result? Readable content that delivers a powerful, sharply honed message.
Even better, your content will be far easier to write.
What Are the Basic Types of Outlines?
Whether you're a bedroom blogger or an award-winning journalist, you'll find no shortage of proven outlines.
But don't worry about learning them all—you'd never get any writing done. Since you're writing for the web, you'll get plenty of mileage from proven structures for:
Marketing Copy
Writing marketing copy is a science. And as with any science, there's no sense in experimenting with something new until you learn what's worked in the past.
To create basic marketing content, organize your copy according to a proven framework like the four Ps (pain, promise, proof, push):
- Empathize with their pain. Outline your prospects' problems to show that you understand how they feel. If you can articulate their problem better than they can, they'll automatically assume you have the solution.
- Make a promise. Once they're convinced you can help, explain how your product or service will set them free.
- Prove yourself. Demonstrate your authority or expertise by explaining your experience. One of the best ways is to tell a personal story of how you went from facing the same problem to overcoming it.
- Push your product. Once they trust you, tell them what action you'd like them to take.
Another basic model is summed up by the initialism AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action):
- Grab their attention. Use a headline that shakes up their reality and makes them take note (but for web's sake, keep it literal).
- Hold their interest. Keep them listening by talking about them: their problems, their fears and their dreams.
- Arouse desire. Once you've listed their problems, explain how what you're promoting can help.
- Obtain action. Break down the steps you want them to take, and simplify the process.
Sales Letters
Like writing marketing copy, constructing the perfect sales letter is as much science as art.
So unless you have a preternatural gift for selling (and another for copywriting), you'll want to stand on the shoulders of giants and use a framework that's made them millions:
- Write a benefit-laden headline. Usually, a sales letter's headline will be far longer than other headers on the web.
- Complement your headline with a subhead. Use your subhead to reinforce the benefits you've introduced.
- Ask questions that showcase your understanding. For example, "Are you tired of constantly worrying about …?" (You can also find other ways to relate in your opening paragraph. The key is to build rapport.)
- Tell your story. Let your readers know that you've faced the same problem, but you found the solution.
- Give your readers a free taste. Demonstrate your authority by giving prospects some of your best content. The more you give, the more likely they'll buy.
- Describe your product or service. Use bullet points to tell your readers the full spectrum of what they'll be getting. Focus on benefits—and the benefits within the benefits.
- Set yourself apart. Tell them what makes your product or service different. And if price is on your side, include a comparison.
- Give them a guarantee. A 100 percent guarantee shows confidence in what you're selling. Do your best to reverse the risk.
- Close the deal. Spell out what your readers' lives will be like both with and without your product, and tell them it's their choice. Remember: choosing to not buy can be painful, as the scarcity principle makes people loathe to lose out.
- Include testimonials. Use social proof by letting your other customers do the selling.
- Sign off. Keep it personal and encourage liking and trust by adding your signature.
- Add a PS. It's not always necessary. But a good PS might just catch readers who skip everything else—and lock up others who are still undecided.
Yes, this is a longer-than-usual framework, and it'll give you longer-than-usual copy.
But sales letters are one area of web writing where brief isn't always better. As a rule of thumb, the more you're asking a reader to invest, the more content you'll need to convince them.
Blog Posts
You can use your blog to publish content covered by any of the outlines here. But all too often people use their blog as a dumping ground for half-baked thoughts and personal diatribes.
If that sounds like you, buy a diary and tuck it under your mattress. No one cares.
Because unless you're a celebrity, every blog post you write needs to be well structured and chock full of useful content if you expect anyone to read it.
And to structure your useful copy in an easy-to-digest package that will eliminate reader friction, try this technique:
- Condense your subject into four or five simple statements. And if you can't tell the whole story that succinctly—from introducing your topic to wrapping it up with a pithy conclusion—break it up. It's clearly too big for your blog.
- Turn each statement into a heading. Then space them apart on your page.
- Expand on each heading's theme. Explain each statement by filling the spaces between your headings to create your body text. Add subheads if necessary.
The end product will be a post that's properly structured, easy to scan and not too long.
Editorials
Expressing an idea or opinion about a problem? Or maybe you're answering a question. Either way, you'll end up writing some form of an editorial.
To nail down your structure, follow these steps:
- Start with a problem and offer a solution or opinion. For example, "Video game players are demanding that their virtual pastime become an Olympic event. But the Olympics honor human physical excellence and perseverance through sport—not couch-anchored thumb-tapping virtuosity."
- Support your claim. In this case you might mention the lack of physical skill required, the long list of actual sports that await recognition or the failure of past demonstration events to catch on.
- Evaluate your evidence and consider counterarguments. An imaginary opponent might suggest that excelling at some video games takes just as much skill and dedication. Or that maintaining ratings calls for new events that cater to a young audience.
- Settle on a solution (or explain why there isn't one). If you've structured your article appropriately, you should arrive at the same conclusion you offered in your introduction—now with a list of valid reasons behind it.
Imagine you're having a high school debate with yourself, and you get the picture.
News Articles
For over a century, journalists have sworn by a single shape: the inverted pyramid.
And for newspapers in particular, the first paragraph of a news article should tell readers who, where, what, when and how, so busy readers who dash between articles during their morning toast and coffee can keep pace with the world.
Here's how to build it:
- Frontload the big facts. Take all of your juiciest, most captivating information, and cram it at the top of your page where scanning eyes will see it.
- Back up your claim. List the evidence that supports what you're saying.
- Contextualize the story. You've listed the specifics. Now zoom out to tell readers how they fit into the bigger picture.
And remember, on the web the inverted pyramid assumes a new kind of urgency.
Instead of breaking down the details of an event so readers can dart away without missing a beat, the inverted pyramid lets web readers immediately know that they're in the right place—so they stick around long enough to absorb your message.
Because web readers won't scroll for your message. You have to seat if front-row center and under a spotlight.
Feature Articles
Whereas a news article starts with something important and breaks down the details, a feature article starts with something interesting and hooks readers with a story.
So instead of reeling off events, it shapes events—and the ideas they evoke—into a meaningful narrative.
And forget objectivity. Always write features with your personal voice. In fact, when writing for the web, you should always be using a personal voice—it's a great way to establish trust and foster a relationship with your readers.
To frame an online feature, follow these steps:
- Grab attention with your headline. But to ensure searchability (and to tell readers where they are), always make your headline literal. Don't be clever or abstract: If you're writing about an albino elephant that was rescued from a circus, your headline should contain the words "albino," "elephant," "rescued" and "circus."
- Set up a story to sink your hooks. Discuss the daring rescue or the squalid conditions of captivity. In other words, slice your readers a thick, juicy cut of the action.
- Dig deeper to keep your audience glued. Why was the elephant there in the first place? Is there a cultural history of albino animals in entertainment? If your story's catchy, your readers will want the dirt.
- Relate the story to your message. No one writes without an agenda. And no one reads web content that's void of personality. Tell your readers what sticks in your craw.
- Share a lesson or moral. A story is pointless if no one learns anything. Remember Aesop's fables? So do people in nearly every culture on the planet—all because the characters learned valuable lessons.
In magazines and newspapers, journalists often use a "block structure" to create feature articles. Online, you can also try this feature structure:
- Grab attention with your headline. Offline, you can make it cute. Online, it's usually better to make it literal yet punchy.
- Provide context and generate curiosity with a subhead. In magazines and newspapers, the subhead usually balances a headline by providing further information once people are paying attention.
- Lead with a compelling scene. Almost always, what works best for a feature lead is a dramatic scene or story. Draw people into your article. Imagine you're a movie director and you're trying to suck audiences into your movie's universe.
- Pull back and provide context. Once you draw readers in, tell them how the lead relates to the bigger picture. If you lead with a scene of a polar bear on a melting iceberg, for example, now's a good time to talk about how arctic winters are warming up.
- Hit home with your theme. What's your angle? What's your argument? You've drawn readers in and discussed the bigger picture. Now argue for what they should think about it.
- Provide essential background. If readers make it this far, they need some education. So tell them what they need to know—but resist the urge to tell them everything. Remember: on the web, you can link.
- Deliver your analysis. After educating readers, continue arguing for your position. Now that you've given them the background, they want to know what it all means. Explain it.
- Present and rebut counterpoints. If you don't present counterarguments, people will find them online anyway. So introduce them here—and then destroy them.
- Tie your end to your beginning. To satisfy readers' need for resolution, return to the beginning in some way. For example, if you were writing about polar bears in the arctic, return to the iceberg—where, perhaps, in a hopeful scene, our polar bear friend has found a new and colder place to call home.
How Can You Create a Custom Outline?
If the above templates don't offer the structure you're after, you can create a custom outline that caters to your specific topic by following these steps:
- Determine your content's purpose or subject.
- Assess your target audience.
- Brainstorm and list the ideas you want to cover.
- Organize your ideas in the order of their importance, and group related ideas together.
- Establish headings and subheadings (depending on the complexity of your subject).
And here's a tip: As you write your headings and subheadings, be sure to keep the principles of parallelism and coordination in mind. In other words, each heading should have the same grammatical structure (notice that every heading in this article takes the form of a question), and each should hold the same significance or level of importance (don't create a new heading for a minor topic that can be subsumed by a previous section). By incorporating these factors, you'll create professional-looking, sharply structured content.
Let's say you're writing a beginner's guide to archery, for example. Your custom outline might look something like this:
- Getting Started
- Basic Techniques
- Mistakes to Avoid
- Tools and Equipment for the Beginner
- Where to Buy for the Best Deals
- Finding an Instructor
- Questions to Ask Before Signing Up
- Valid Certification
- Basic Techniques
- Sharpening Your Skills
- Advanced Techniques
- Mistakes to Avoid
- Tools for the Advanced Archer
- Novelties and Gimmicks to Avoid
- Keeping Score
- Types of Scoring Systems
- Scoring Strategies
- Tips from the Pros
- Pro Rankings
- Advanced Techniques
- Competing in Archery
- The Competition Circuit
- Sanctioning Bodies
- Registering for an Event
- Preparation Checklist
- The Competition Circuit
Once you've ordered your headings and subheadings, your content will have a skeleton. And you can now flesh it out by simply filling in the blanks.
What's Next?
Now that your content has an outline, you're ready to write. Watch for our next entry on writing, coming soon!
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Hi Simon
Many thanks. Another fantastic post exactly what I needed to tackle our now long overdue re-write.
Hope you don't mind my pointing out a typo in the Editorials para. reads from (not form?) Yes I'm a better proof reader than web writer!
Best wishes, always.
David
Thanks David--for the feedback and catching the typo! With an eye for detail like that, I'm sure you'll write a sparkling site.