Outline a post that gives the direct answer early and uses headings that tell the reader what comes next.
Priya is a maths tutor writing a blog post for parents (she and all her details are invented for this example). Her title is a question parents ask her often, "Tuition or more practice at home? How to tell which your child needs", and the first paragraph of her post answers it.
Most posts don't work that way. A reader clicks a search result and the post opens with some history, then why the question matters, then a personal story, and the answer turns up in something like the eighth paragraph. Readers in that situation scroll looking for it, find it late, or give up and go back to the results. This happens so often that most readers now skim every post for the answer and leave quickly if they can't see it.
The fix is to write answer first: open the post with a short, direct answer to the question in the title, and use the rest of the post to explain that answer, show examples and cover exceptions. It is simple to state and takes discipline to do.
Priya's first paragraph says that if the child understands the topic when it is explained and just needs speed or accuracy, more home practice is usually enough. If the child is stuck on the method, repeats the same kind of mistake after correction, or gets upset whenever maths comes up, outside help will likely save time. The paragraph ends by saying the rest of the post shows how to tell which is happening.
A parent who reads only that paragraph already has something useful. A parent who wants more knows from it exactly what the rest of the post will do. Both kinds of reader are more likely to trust Priya because of it.
Answering first can feel like giving everything away. In practice it keeps readers, because the post has already proved useful and the depth that follows gives them a reason to keep reading.
Many readers scan the headings before they decide whether to read at all, so each heading should state what the section says, and naming what it is about is not enough. A label heading names a topic, such as "Signs to look for". A point heading states the section's conclusion, such as "Signs your child needs a different explanation, not more practice", so a reader who skips the paragraph underneath still gets the point.
A reader who reads only your headings should come away with a rough version of the whole answer. Priya wrote her five headings as points:
Understanding the method and getting it right are different skills Signs your child needs a different explanation, not more practice When practice at home is enough What tuition can do that practice cannot A five-minute check you can do tonight
A parent who reads only those five lines has a rough version of her answer, in order.
To test your own headings, copy them into a list and read them alone. If they tell the story of the post in order, keep them. If they read like a textbook table of contents, rewrite them. Keep the levels simple as well: one level of heading is enough for most blog posts.
A post that repeats what every other post says gives the reader no reason to remember who wrote it. What makes a post worth reading is what only you can add: material from your own work that a general article would not include. That can be your own examples, photos of the real thing, numbers from your own work, or a mistake you have seen many times. Photos of student work need names removed and permission given. Label your own numbers clearly, and use them only if you have actually counted.
Priya has two such examples. One is a P5 student she taught last year who could do every fraction question at home but lost marks on the same kind of question in every test. The other is something she sees with parents again and again: the most common mistake is checking the final answer and not the working.
Before you write each section, ask yourself what you have seen or done that a general article would not include, and note that example under the heading in your outline. If a section has no example of your own, consider whether it needs to be there at all.
End with one next step that suits the reader you chose in lesson 6.1. For a reader early in the journey, that can be a simple check to do at home this week, or a link to a related post. It does not have to be "book a trial lesson"; for many early readers that would feel like a jump. A sales pitch can appear, but keep it small and put it after the reader has been helped.
Priya ends with her five-minute check. The parent asks the child to explain one question from their last test out loud, step by step. If the child can explain the method but slipped, practice will help. If they can't explain the method, they need it taught differently. Below the check is a single line offering a second opinion through her free trial lessons on Saturdays.
Write the whole outline on one page before you write the post. Start with the title, which is the question in your reader's words. Next comes the first paragraph, the short answer, written out in full. Then come five or so headings, each one a complete point, with a note under each of the example or detail only you can add. Last is the ending: one next step for this reader. Priya's outline, with her five headings, fitted on one screen.
Now outline one post from the list you made in lesson 6.1. Write the first paragraph out fully, because getting the answer down in a few sentences is the hardest part of the outline, and everything else in it follows from that paragraph.
Outline one post: a one-paragraph answer, five headings that say what each section covers, and under each heading a note on the example you will use.
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