Thu 29 Jul 2010 |
|
 I recently took a short hiatus from writing my personal daily blog. I wanted to use this time to rest, refocus and reenergize for the next season and topic. But in the midst of my little break, I found that the more time that passed the harder it was, for me, to get back into the swing of things. I found that it was much easier to sleep in, instead of rising with the sun to write. I frequently pulled the covers over my head while talking myself out of starting because I was afraid I'd forgotten how to write. Had my break been too long? Did starting this process again mirror the original difficulty of starting my blog? After all, how does one write a blog?
Talking to others, I know that I am not alone in feeling this way when it comes to the arduous task of writing a daily blog. Whether it is for personal use or writing for work, some posts come very easily and some are challenging and tedious. As I reflected on my inner struggle, I decided to write this post on the ‘5 steps to writing a blog' to remind myself of the process and then jump in again with both feet! How to write a blog postThe first thing you need to do when writing a blog post is problem solve. In other words, write answers for the web. Solve your own niche market problem and then write about it. This information will be valuable to others and you come across as the expert. Secondly, keep headlines punchy. Studies show that 75% of readers will make a decision on the headline alone. Be creative, give benefit statements and use action verbs to entice your readers to scan your post. Make sure you put keywords in the headline and keep the title to 65 characters long for best SEO practices (65 characters is the magic number, less is OK, but never more than 65). Next, write short, Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and don't use big words. I struggle with this one as I am a woman of many words, but studies show that people don't read on the web, they scan. Benefit from this by cutting down and condensing your content into manageable bites. Fourth, put the points in the right place. Put your most important ideas, suggestions and tips at the very top. Use bold text, images, subheadings and short paragraphs to emphasis your ideas. Don't try to build your case, hoping people will read the whole thing, let them have it right away and then support your main points. Finally, make sure you cash in on time and effort spent writing. Make them an offer. Conversion rate is always the goal of a website. You want visitors to commit. So make your goal clear and give them an offer they can't refuse at the end of each post. There doesn't always have to have a dollar amount attached to it, but give them the option to do something with your blog, whether it is signing up for your RSS feed or purchasing your services. There it is... the 5 Steps Easy, Simple Steps to writing a blog post. It doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to take a long time. I guess tomorrow I will set my alarm early, make my coffee, and review these steps to start writing again! This will work for you also, just follow these tips and you will be blogging in no time! |
