Every man and his dog has a blog these days, and in truth some of the dogs are better bloggers than their owners. If you want to get your posts noticed, commented on, tweeted, shared and +1’d, then here it is, the best way to write a blog post.
1. Bring Something New To The Table
There are probably hundreds of posts similar to the one you are thinking about writing, so before you put pen to paper, find some unique angles on your subject matter. Don’t just write stuff that has been said a million times before. Be a little controversial and daring. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and certainly more than one way to make an average subject appear interesting or funny.
2. Devise An Alluring Title
The title is everything, quite simply because it is the first thing people will see in the search engine listings, on Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Digg, etc. Make the title jump off the page and get smack people in the face. Don’t be offensive though, instead be witty, clever or humorous, like this…ahem!
3. Bring Your Personality To The Post
If you are a witty fellow then bring that to your post. If you have a dry sense of humour, or perhaps a way with puns, then do your thing. Blogs should reflect the personality of the writer. The writing on a blog should be identifiable as the owner and unique to that particular blog. It is this trait that will keep readers coming back for more. Let your personality spill onto the page and you can guarantee there will be a large majority of readers that warm to you, eventually. Don’t try and be someone you’re not, and don’t try and imitate. Write unapologetically as you, and gradually you will hone your style as a potential blog award winning writer.
4. Keyword Target Your Content
Unfortunately this forms an essential part of every post you write. Use the Google keyword tool (use the “exact match” setting) to research commonly searched keyword phrases relating to your post. Choose low-medium competition phrases where possible, and make sure you include your main keyword phrase in the title.
5. Break Up Your Paragraphs
There is nothing worse than huge blocks of text all tangled together with no breathing space for new avenues of the subject matter. Try to break your text up into paragraphs of no more than 7-10 sentences. This will make your text easily digestible.
6. Use Subheadings
As well as those nicely broken down paragraphs make use of subheadings to introduce new areas of your topic. Use H2/H3 header tags to indicate to search engines where your new topic starts, and work your keyword phrases strategically into the headings.
7. Don’t Waffle Off On Tangents
No one likes a waffle merchant, so don’t waffle off on tangents irrelevant to your post. Stick to the pathway and lead the reader in a merry dance of concise sentencing and relevant points. As a rule of thumb, a blog post should be over 300 words but less than 1000.
8. Use Lists To Summarise & Engage
Some people are lazy buggers and tend to only skim read blog posts, thus the reason this post is nicely broken down into bite-sized sections. A great way to engage these naughty people is to use bulleted and numbered lists to summarise benefits, points and to make conclusions. Lists also provide a welcome break from familiar paragraphing.
9. Use A Cool Picture
Pictures are cool. They make your post look cool and engage those people that only look at pictures when reading magazines. Search for pictures in Google images, but make sure you only use ones flagged for reuse!
10. Spell Check and Grammar Check Your Post
This tip is last for a very good and obvious reason. Before you press the magic “publish” button you need to spell check and grammar check your post. Why? Because you don’t want to look like an eight year old blogger, unless you are eight, of course. If you are a complete muppet when it comes to grammar, sentence construction and spelling, invest in a piece of kit like Whitesmoke to ensure you look at least halfway towards competent.