How to Write a Successful Blog
March 12th, 2009 Posted in BloggingSuccessful bloggers don’t have one main ingredient for writing a blog. Instead they have a whole bag full of creative tips and tricks of the trade they use to get people interested in their message.
“Successful bloggers have a whole bag full of creative tips.”
For more details:
1. Crafted Content
The main pull of any blog is content. Content is what draws people into viewing a particular blog. How you find these idea gems can vary from blogger to blogger.
This doesn’t mean you should leap to your feet and get that idea out there as soon as possible. This will not get you anywhere. Like many successful things, blogs should take time to create. They should be crafted.
Having a brilliant idea for a blog entry does not make it a good article – there are essential elements that must be woven into a blog to make it successful.
Like a story, you want your blog to be engaging and captivating, and this takes an attention to language.
Darren Rowse in his article “How to Craft a Blog Post” selects a few pointers that might help you to hone your blogging diction:
2. Defined Topic
First, he suggests taking a few extra minutes to define your topic. Doing this can make your blog more specific, while allowing your blog to flow more easily and invite your readers to be engaged in the material.
Rowse goes on to say that first impressions on the web do matter. So, he emphasizes the importance of having an interesting:
- Title
- Sentence
In these two areas, it’s important to take the most time in your writing. You want something appealing right off the bat.
Titles and the first sentence set the tone for the remainder of the blog – so reel the reader in with something special.
“Reel your reader in with something special.”
After you’ve finished your article, ask yourself, “What could I add to make this more in depth?”
You want your article to have as much useful information in it for your readers. This will make your blog more valuable and worth reading.
BUT don’t get off topic! No one wants to hear a long rant. Stay on topic. Since the average reader does not have the time or the patience to sift through long-winded posts, blogs need to be short and punchy, yet also give a clear picture of what the author wants to get across. Pack blogs full of useful information.
A good tool for packing in information and keeping the interest of your readers is to focus on using small and common words. This allows you to get across ideas without alienating some people. It’s also just easier to read.
To improve readability further, it is crucial to proofread and remove all misspellings and repeated ideas. This prevents jarring the reader and invites them to read, while allowing the reader to gain more information. Sloppy writing is not engaging writing. It makes you look unprofessional and unreliable.
“Proofread your work and remove all misspellings.”
3. Add Some Personality
Along with first impressions being important on the web, personality also does wonders for making your blog more successful. I don’t mean to get all after-school special on everyone, but your personality shows your personal interest in the topic. If it seems like you don’t care, then no one will. So, throw in some of your own personal style into your writing.
Personality hooks the reader to your personal and specific blog rather than someone else’s – it’s a way to brand your blog. You have something unique to give other people, and that something is your personality.
Try, as best you can, to keep a consistent tone in your writing. Familiarity in the blog’s writing will ease the mind of the reader and will allow them to ingest the information more easily instead of them saying, “Geez, this blog is all over the place. It sounds like there are two different writers.”
Keeping an even tone, removes the distractions from your writing, so that people can focus on the content while also being engaged.
4. Scannability
Readability is important, but possibly more important is scannability.
By adding some simple devices into your writing you can easily make your posts more scannable:
- Create headings and subheadings in a bigger font, bolded, or a different color than the rest of the text, so they stand out.
- Add lists and bullet points to your writing to make your writing easier to scan.
Scanning can give people a clue of what’s in the article and tell them if this article is what they are looking for; so, make these headings and lists important things. Take time to craft the language in these moments, because this will tell your reader what the rest of the article holds.
“It’s necessary to fill your blog with keywords and terms.”
5. Keywords
While keeping your reader interested is important, it’s only effective if they come to your blog in the first place. That is why it’s necessary to fill your blog with keywords and terms.
Keywords attract people to your blog and also get your page as a result on Google and other search engines. These keywords must not disrupt the flow and personality of the writing. They work best when they are woven into the writing. Keywords should be seamless within the blog. Pictures can be very effective in painting a picture, but even Google Images uses the text around the picture, so keywords are essential.
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