Trust Me, You Can Learn How to Write Great Blog Posts!

When I first started blogging, people were still asking what a blog was, so it's hard for me to remember exactly how I got my ideas, or even what they were. Suffice to say, I managed to learn a thing or two along the way and if I can, so can you.

Blogging doesn't really have any rules, but there are some things to keep in mind if you want an audience bigger than your mother and your three best friends in the world.

Keep it simple, stupid

Known as the “kiss” principle, this little gem has been guiding writers, public speakers and salesmen for generations. Even complex ideas are made up of simpler concepts and being able to boil a topic down to its essence is a good skill to have.

One exercise I did a few years back with a group of company blogs I was writing for, was found in an article on Yahoo News.  Basically, the article said to explain your service, or product to a nine year old. IT worked, a lot of people liked it, and it helped to clarify some things. 

Here's one example from one of those blogs http://warddesigngroup.com/what-we-do-as-described-to-a-9-year-old/

You probably don't want to write every post as if it were for nine year olds, but the general idea is solid. You might use it as an exercise when writing something you feel may be confusing. Strip it down to its basic elements, write in short sentences, and build small paragraphs.

Once you get the hang of it, you will find that you have more people spending more time on your pages, and leaving more comments.

Keywords are important

I won't go into detail here, there are a lot of great places to find keyword research tips. Here is what you need to know: the web is a big place. Google uses “keywords” to sort search possibilities and give you what they think are the best results. Knowing some popular search terms in your topic can help.

You want words that a lot of people are looking for, but not too many. Why? You need readers, but you don't need every reader online. You want a group that will like and agree with most of what you write, so a narrower category is more powerful.

Google Adwords is a free account,and you can learn some basics on Youtube, or just through Google searches. Here is one place to start.

Stay on topic

Yeah, I know you have a lot of interests. So does everybody, but they probably only look for information on one topic at a time. Your blog cannot appeal to everyone, and if you try, it will appeal to no one.

So, write whatever you want, and write a lot of it, but only post one topic to each blog (individual blog website, not just each post) you decide to publish. Trust me, you will thank me for this one.

Audiences are built around themes. If you doubt me, look at who has the biggest crowd every Sunday. It is the preacher who tells people what they want to hear, and sticks to his topic, come hell or high water. 

You may think you and your fans have individual rapport, but they are more likely to act as a herd, agreeing with each other, where they disagree with you.