Blogging seems simple enough. All you have to really do is write down your thoughts, proofread, and click the publish button. However, writing your thoughts down and clicking the publish button is easier said than done. Creating content that is engaging yet simple enough for your audience to read and understand quickly (because no one wants to read a fifteen paragraph blog post) can be a challenge.
- Understand your audience – most people don’t care much for reading a great big wall of text online. Blogs are mainly read for entertainment, usually with some informative aspect to it- such as a product review or a how-to. Think about what you would want to see from your blog post if you were a reader. This is also a good time to decide on the tone of your post.
- Do your research – especially if you’re writing for someone else, you may not know much about what you’re writing about so take the time to do some research beforehand. Read other blog posts with similar content to get a feel for how your own post should be structured, and what information would be the most relevant, and what information you thought other posts would benefit from having.
- Pick your main points – treat your blog post like a presentation, or any other article, really. You want to pick out the most relevant points and turn them into the main focus of each paragraph. After doing your research and writing down some ideas, the main points should be the first complete thoughts that you write down. Obviously, the number of main points will vary depending on how much you have to say, however, try to keep it between four and seven.
- Keep it short and sweet – how short or how long a blog post depends on what you want your main take away for the audience from the post to be. However, each paragraph shouldn’t exceed more than a few sentences in general. One or two sentences may be too short to get your point across. Any longer than seven per topic and you start to run the risk of losing focus.
- Avoid embellishments – this isn’t your high school English class where you have to relate the symbolism of blue curtains to the development of the main character. Your audience won’t care about your word count. They will care if your post is too technical, too complicated, or not cohesive. Unless you are focusing on a niche subject which assumes the audience will understand the jargon, it’s better to use simple language that is succinct and will get to the point.
- Write your title last – hopefully, after spending the last few hours agonizing over the body of your post, you will have a pretty good feel for what you want your title to be. Since titles are usually the first part of the post that your readers will see, it’s important to choose a title that will catch their eye and get them interested in what you have to say.
Written by Asli Ergincan.