A well-written blog post is the foundation of any good blog.
Whether you’ve started a blog to make money online or to create your own personal territory on the web, knowing how to make a good blog post is a trait that every newbie or veteran blogger must have. Gone are the days when blogs were considered as online diaries where your audience consisted of you and your friends. Today, the blog is seen as an evolving medium and a great way to reach thousands of people all over the world.
The web is chock full of blogging tips–from how to get your blog more optimized for search engines to building a community of loyal readers with your blog. Here, we narrow down these tips to what it takes to create the single most important foundation of a blog–a great blog post.
1. Write from the heart.
It may sound cheesy but it’s true. The first important rule in blogging is to write about things that interest you. Don’t choose a blog niche or topic just because it’s in demand. For instance, if celebrity gossip blogs are currently popular but you rarely watch TV and have never flipped through a celebrity tabloid or magazine then you might not be fit to write about this particular topic.
Remember that your best writing emerges when you are truly passionate about what you are writing about. Aside from that, writing about something that interests you also makes your job easier. Have you ever tried to write about something that you had little or no interest in? Didn’t it feel like you had to squeeze out each word or sentence just so you can have something to say? Didn’t you feel frustrated that you can’t reach the word count as fast as you’d like to? Not only did it take you a long time to write the post but you probably got tempted to resort to fluff just so you can reach your desired word count.
The opposite is true when you write about something you really care about. Words just flow out of your mind into the page and the only problem you come across with is trying to fit everything you have to say in a single blog post.
2. Develop your writing tone and style.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of blogs are debuting on the web every single day. This means that for an average blogger, it also gets more and more difficult to stand out. So if there are numerous other blogs that basically talk about the same topics that you do, how do you set your blog apart?
The answer can be found in the style of your writing.
If you’re basically writing for a living then you know all about writing style. If you’re a novice then style is basically that certain something that distinguishes you from other writers, that which gives readers the hint that you wrote the piece even before they see the author’s name. Writing styles can include dry humor, sarcasm, an ability to draw insight from seemingly mundane things and so forth.
If you don’t have a particular writing style yet, how do you develop one? One of the best ways to form your own voice is to learn from writers you admire. Simply put, if you want to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader as well. Read books, essays, journals and other blogs. Learn what you like and what you don’t as a reader. Learn how your favorite writers write. Basically, you should always be writing something that you can enjoy reading.
3. Give your post structure.
Internet readers are an impatient lot. Because of the large amount of information on the internet, people tend to browse an article to quickly determine if what they’re looking for is in it or not. If your blog post is more than a thousand words long and is written in such a way that it makes one or two uninterrupted paragraphs then you could be at risk of losing your reader.
Make your post easier on the eyes. Divide your posts into chunks, use bullets or numbers. These techniques will keep the information on your post organized and will make it easier for potential readers to know what to expect from the post.
Blogging master Darren Rowse also recommends this on his “Ten Tips for Writing a Blog Post”.
4. Come up with a clever title.
No matter how great and structured your blog post is, it won’t be read if it doesn’t attract the attention of readers in the first place. This is where putting a good title to your post comes in. Titles with phrases like “How to”, “10 tips” and “5 Ways” tend to grab reader’s attention because it quickly lets readers know what to expect.
These are the foundations of a great blog post. What other blogging tips can you recommend?
Photo credits: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net