An outline is an essential first step for any type of business writing: article, blog post or web page, and certainly for longer content like ebooks or white papers. I’ve broken the process down into five basic steps with some bonus tips for making your outline more complete.
Why You Need an Outline
If you’re wondering why you need an article outline, imagine the alternative: sitting and staring at a blank screen. That will get you nowhere fast. An outline gives you a starting point and a roadmap for the piece you are writing. It keeps you on track, ensures you cover all the key points, and helps you plan an article’s structure, subheadings, and links to other content.
- TIP: Include in your outline some notes on the conclusion so you have a clear idea of where you are taking your audience–perhaps a call to action or further reading.
Step 1: Choose Your System
This might sound like a strange place to start but it’s important to have a system for your outlines. You need consistency and a medium that works for you so you can hit the ground running every time you need to create content. You might only need to think about this once, but it is important so I’m including it as Step 1.
I come from the days of pen and paper and that old-school approach still works best for me. I have notebooks for roughing out longer articles but I also use index cards–one per post–to scratch down the heading and key points for a post. I can then shuffle the cards around, put due dates on them, and slash a very satisfying checkmark across them when the articles are done.
You can also use a writing app, like Word or Google Docs, a spreadsheet, or an app like Notion or Evernote. Another option? Dictating into the notes app on your phone.
- TIP: You might find that a combination of methods is preferable. Just be sure you have a workable option that keeps relevant notes together and accessible.
Step 2: Define Your Topic
Start with a clear purpose for your content.
In school they would call this step a thesis statement. Keep your audience in mind and be clear about exactly what you want to tell them. You are not writing a dissertation so you don’t have to go into full academic mode but you have to know where you are headed before you start writing.
Think too about how you want to present your topic: are you answering a common question, creating a list of resources, or educating your readers about a product or service? Are you aiming for a short blog post, a series of connected posts, or even an ebook? Knowing the depth of your approach is essential for planning the entire piece.
- TIP: As you write out the purpose or thesis, think of it in terms of a title. Draft a couple of possible titles and use keywords if you are writing with SEO in mind.
Step 3: Conduct Research
Once you know what you want to write about, you can do the research you need to support your main point, as needed. If you are sharing your own thoughts on a topic in a short post, as I did in my Five Blog Writing Mistakes post, this step might not be necessary. But for longer content some degree of research will likely be necessary.
For example, one of my posts had a “thesis” about the importance of scannable content in our age of shrinking attention spans. Before getting started, I had to verify that attention spans were, in fact, getting shorter. I found some research I could link to and included that in my article outline.
Similarly, when I was planning a post on the benefits of long-form copy, I had to do some background reading on current search engine optimization (SEO) practices and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on web searches. This research supported two points of discussion in the post: long-form copy helps build authority and draws traffic.
Bookmark links to your research in your browser or in the app you are using for your outline.
Think about any images or video clips you might want to include as well. Source these media files and track them in a folder with the article name and credit information so you can find everything easily when needed.
- TIP: While researching you might find additional information you want to include or, conversely, a lack of support for a point you wanted to make. You can adjust your thesis at this point to broaden or narrow it.
Step 4: Jot Down Key Points
Write down the main points that will support your topic. Reference any of the research you uncovered, perhaps incorporating a quote that you found insightful or some relevant statistics.
Include everything that comes to mind. Don’t be afraid to do a total brain dump here. You can organize all of this material in the next step.
In the outline for the long-form copy post mentioned above, I noted the following key points: builds authority, creates a compelling narrative, draws traffic, builds trust, and how to use it effectively. These points became subheadings in the final post.
- TIP: You can also make note of any links you might want to include in your article. For that same post about long-form content, my outline included links to external articles on AI search and to my own posts about article structure and cornerstone content.
Step 5: Organize and Build Structure
Once you have your main topic and key points, you can organize your content.
Start by using the key points you wrote previously as subheadings and then group related supporting points under each subheading. Move things around as needed to ensure things flow in a logical order. If a subtopic is long, feel free to use another level of subheading as I did in my post about scannable content:
- TIP: You might find you have points that don’t fit or that need far more detail than you can provide in your post. If so, cut and paste them into another document for use in other articles or posts. For example, I spun off ideas from my long-form copy post into posts about article structure and how to use headings and subheadings.
Now You Are Ready to Write
With these five steps completed, you can begin the process of writing and filling in the details.
- TIP: Do your introduction last. As you write you might head in a direction you didn’t expect; saving the introduction for the end ensures it includes everything you covered in your article.
If you want some tips on making your final product the best it can be, check out my posts on improving your blog writing and proofreading.
Photo of notebooks by Olya P on Unsplash.