blogging tips

One of the questions on top of every successful blogger or rising blogger’s mind is, “How do I write better content?”

The truth about blogging is that blogging is an art. There is a certain way to structure the blog posts and write what needs to be written.

You don’t want to write a blog post for the sake of writing it. You want it to be compelling and attention-grabbing. It’s easy to write a blog post. It is more challenging to write a memorable one.

A large percentage of writing more blog posts is simply practice. If you want to walk down memory lane with this blog, you will discover that my oldest blog posts are skeletons compared to the blog posts I write now.

I wasn’t the best of writers when I started. I just got better and better at my craft. In fact, I continue to get better. It is possible that 10 years from now this exact blog post looks like a skeleton compared to what I write in the future.

So how exactly do we write better blog posts that our readers will love? Here are some tips:

#1: Craft An Appealing Title

The title of your blog post lets your readers know what will be discussed in the blog post. Be too vague and readers will get confused. Their time is too precious, so most readers will choose to ignore those blog posts.

You want to craft a title that gets the main point across (what the blog post is actually about) and use pull-words in the process.

The next time you are reading other people’s blog, pay closer attention to the titles of the blog posts. Which titles grabbed your attention the most? Which words did those titles use? What were the blog posts about?

Asking yourself these questions now will help you to craft better titles for your own blog posts later.

#2: Have A Strong Introduction

Once people start reading your blog post, they are committing some of their valuable time to reading the blog post.

But since their time is valuable and these people are busy, you need to compel them right away. You do that with a strong introduction.

A strong introduction creates a more vivid picture of what the blog post will discuss. At the same time, it is engaging because it speaks to the people reading it.

When you write a blog post title, you need to consider what type of person would read the blog post from start to finish. If I write a blog post called “3 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers,” I know a few things about the readers of that blog post:

1. They have their own Twitter accounts
2. They want more followers
3. They want a big audience
4. They may want to use Twitter to grow the audience

Now that I know these four characteristics make up the people who read that particular blog post, I can speak to them.

In the introduction, I would touch upon their desire to grow a large Twitter audience, how I did it after a lot of hard work, and how they can get the same results. Then I would discuss the methods.

You aren’t writing blog posts for every person in your audience. Even if your audience is targeted. You are specifically writing for that reader who will read your blog post from start to finish.

I know that if I write the blog post “3 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers” and published it tomorrow that not everyone in my audience will read it.

Some will look at that title and think, “This isn’t what I need right now. I want to read something else.”

If someone does not have a Twitter account, then that person won’t care much for that blog post.

So even when you have a targeted audience, you are still not writing each of your blog posts for everyone. When you write a blog post, you have to get hyper targeted.

You have to look at your targeted audience and ask yourself these questions:

1. Which level of expertise do they have (are you writing for a beginner or someone more advanced)
2. For the purposes of this blog post, what area(s) within my niche should these people have a strong interest in?

My niche is digital marketing. This blog post is aimed at people who have blogs and have been writing blog posts for a while.

People who don’t fit that criteria may skip or skim through this blog post. People with the criteria may read most or all of this blog post.

#3: Spend More Time Writing Blog Posts

The more time you spend improving your writing, the better your writing will become. I make it a point to either craft an outline or write a blog post every day.

The reason is that performing the same action every day allows you to get better. That action also becomes an effortless habit.

Writing a blog post like this used to take up a large portion of my time. I struggled to think about the next sentence and how the blog post would advance.

Now I type away and barely think about what I am typing. The thoughts and idea come more natural to me than they did a few years ago.

Find some time every day to improve upon your craft. Once you commit that much time to blogging, then it is only a matter of time before you become an excellent blogger.

#4: Make Your Blog Posts Easy For Readers To Consume

Every time a reader reads through your blog post, they are consuming content. At the same time, these consumers have small attention spans (nothing personal. It applies to everyone. The average person’s attention span is smaller than that of a goldfish).

If it is difficult for your readers to consume your content, then they won’t stick around.

Making your content compelling makes the consumption process easier. However, there is another element in play. It is the same critical element that got you to reach this point of the blog post.

The truth about my blog posts is that to some degree I think of each of them as a Thanksgiving dinner.

Lots of content (food) for people to consume. I’m talking about the Thanksgiving dinner with eight or more guests.

For the sake of this particular Thanksgiving dinner, let’s say you had to eat all of the food. You could eat it within any time allocation.

Would you rather have all of that food put on one plate and eat all of the food in one bite, or would you rather eat the food more gradually and have it split amongst 30 plates.

Once you split up the food, it no longer looks intimidating. In the same way, once you split up the content within your blog post, it no longer looks hard to read.

I could have organized all of this content into one big paragraph. The only problem is that no one would stick around.

Instead, you need to break your blog post into numerous paragraphs. I’m not talking about the 4-5 liners. Those are too long nowadays.

I am talking about 1-2 line paragraphs must like this one.

This strategy just makes it easier for anyone to read your blog posts, even the skimmer. Skimmers will read small portions of each paragraph and absorb the best stuff.

If you make your paragraphs short like this, then any reader, even the skimmer, will absorb more from the blog post than if you made the blog post one massive paragraph.

#5: Learn More About Your Niche

No matter how much you know about your niche, you can always learn more about it. I often find myself reading books and blog posts about my niche and watch YouTube videos about my niche when I’m not reading about it.

Learning more about your niche gives you more expertise that you can provide to your readers. You get to diversify your blog posts while staying within your niche.

In my opinion, the best way to learn more about your niche is to read other blogs within your niche. Not only do you get to learn more about your niche, but you also get exposed to new writing styles.

Other blogs I read have influenced the way I write and structure my blog posts. Expose yourself to different styles of writing, and then you will choose the style that appeals to you the most.

Then add your own flair to it.

In Conclusion

The most successful bloggers aren’t the ones who focus on getting traffic. The most successful bloggers are the ones who focus on writing valuable content.

Once they master valuable content creation and then go after the traffic, visitors will come and stick around.

You can’t focus on getting traffic in the beginning because no matter how much traffic a bad blog post gets, the traffic will not stick around.

You don’t have to be the best writer among us before you focus on getting traffic. However, you need to have enough confidence in your style of writing that you can firmly declare that every blog post you write is going to be epic.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other methods for writing better blog posts? Do you think bloggers should first focus on traffic or writing epic content? Sound off in the comments section below.

The definition of a blog has rapidly changed. What was once nothing more than an online diary is now the must-have platform for any business. Blogging has transformed from a cocoon to a butterfly and then to an eagle.

Blogging has defied many limits that had a stronghold just a few decades ago.

Our view of blogging is constantly changing with every new day. My view of blogging is always changing based on what I do and what I observe. Out of everything that has impacted my view of blogging, these five facts changed my view of blogging the most.

I am sure they will change the way you view blogging too. You won’t want to miss this list.

#1: Your Blog Is A Novel

That means two things. The first thing is that your blog is going to have a boatload of content. Right now, if I took all of the content on this blog and turn it into a book, it would be over 1,000 pages long.

Part of the reason is that bloggers think of a variety of ideas and turn them into blog posts. The way most bloggers approach blogging is to write about a common topic without structure from one blog post to the next.

What makes people reading today’s blog post then want to read yesterday’s blog post and eagerly wait for the next blog post?

And more specifically, what allows this interest to remain the same regardless of which page your visitor starts on?

When optimized properly, a blog can be more attention grabbing than a novel. That’s because regardless of whether a visitor is reading your first blog post or your 100th blog post, that visitor can still find interesting content that provides a proper transition.

If you start reading a novel at Chapter 10, the novel won’t be as attention grabbing since you missed some of the important stuff. The first blog post a visitor reads on your blog, regardless of when it was published, is (for that person) the first page of your novel.

So how do you transition from one blog post to the next. The answer is to briefly mention the previous blog post and then end with a teaser to the upcoming blog post. No one does this better than Bryan Harris:

And now for the teaser to the next blog post.

I am immediately (but non-aggressively) presented with another option and am then told what will come next.

All of his blog posts follow this structure, so it’s easy to get stuck on his blog and lose track of the time. In 2016, you may see something similar on my blog.

#2: Popular Blogs Are Starting To Turn Into Picture Books

When I first wrote blog posts for this blog, I didn’t want to include any pictures. It’s a good thing I changed my mind.

For a while now, I have been posting a picture at the top of all of my blog posts. The picture presents a lead-in that gives people an idea of what they can expect from the blog post. The pictures also generate more social shares for my blog posts.

In light of a common pattern and a 2016 resolution, I am trying something different. I am making it a point to include more pictures throughout my blog posts. I

The human mind processes an images 60,000 times faster than text. That’s powerful.

I like to read several social media blogs to enhance my knowledge. Over the years, these blog posts continue providing valuable content. What I also noticed is that over time, these blog posts also turned into mini picture books.

Some of these blog posts now have over 10 pictures within the blog post. But social media experts aren’t the only ones with picture book style blog posts.

BuzzFeed was built on those types of blog posts. Most of their blog posts are only a few hundred words and stuffed with pictures and GIFs. And it’s been working quite nicely for them.

I recently wrote a guest post for BlueLog. I heard about BlueLog after I wrote a guest post for Jeff Bullas. For both Jeff Bullas and BlueLog, I had to write guest posts that included several pictures throughout the post.

If I didn’t have those extra pictures, my guest posts wouldn’t have been published.

The top people in the game understand the value of pictures. They are providing value in a picture book style. If you are not writing blog posts with multiple pictures per blog post, then you are missing out on engaging with your readers in a more powerful way.

#3: A Successful Blog Is A Team Effort

This is true about so many areas of life, and especially blogging. You need a team around you to grow. Part of the reason is that your team can increase your blog traffic.

When my guest post got published on BlueLog, the people who worked for BlueLog tweeted my guest post several times throughout the day. All of these people have thousands of followers which meant the blog post got a nice pinch of traffic on the day it got published.

When I wrote my guest post for Jeff Bullas, I learned about who helps make his blog a success. He has an editor who proofreads the content, and guest bloggers like me provide him with free content.

If Jeff managed his blog without any help, it would be a very different experience. With Jeff in mind, I decided to ask for help. More specifically, I outsourced parts of the process.

Now I never create the picture that goes on the top of my blog posts. Someone else does that for me. Someone else is growing my Twitter audience by implementing my tactics. Someone else is scheduling my tweets and promoting my content.

If I didn’t have all of this help, I wouldn’t have enough time to explore the opportunities that I am exploring now.

#4: Blog Readers Are Busy Skimmers

Let’s face reality.

When a blogger writes a 1,000+ word blog post (much like this one), readers skim through and look for the most important stuff.

So is it a waste to write these long blog posts? The answer is no. Some people do read through the entire blog post, but most readers are skimmers.

What you have to do is write a blog post for skimmers. Make it easy for your readers to find the key points. For example, using the bold font makes it easy for some of your content to stand out.

Using shorter paragraphs will also make it easier for people to read your blog posts. People don’t want the giant block of text. They want tiny paragraphs.

I once had a policy of no more than five lines per paragraph. Now I’m looking at a maximum of three lines per paragraph. These ridiculously short paragraphs, although numerous, are easier to read than a block of text.

What else works? Using pictures. It’s the main reason more blog posts are turning into picture books. Even if you were just skimming through this blog post and didn’t bother reading this paragraph, I bet my lucky horseshoe that this got your attention.

That’s what pictures do. They are much easier for the human mind to process than text. As a result, you get to keep the attention of your readers for a longer period of time.

#5: The Competition Is Thick

Nothing new. But the way you interpret old information can lead to new discoveries.

There are thousands of bloggers doing the same thing as you. You need differentiating factors that give your content a unique voice. That way, your readers will recognize you within the crowd. They’ll remember to return to your blog.

Thick competition also provides more opportunities. Most people think of competitors as bitter enemies. However, you can team up with your competition so you pull each other upward. Writing blog posts about each other will result in more awareness for both of you.

In thick competition, you need to learn how to stand out. However, you also have to learn how your competition can help you and why they would want to help you. That way, you can both work towards a common goal.

In Conclusion

The blogging world changes as the days go by. New possibilities are created and more methods get discovered. The way you view blogging impacts the way you write and structure your blog posts.

It is important to view blogging in light of some of the most important changes that have taken place in blogging. Changing the way you view blogging based on new things you come across will allow you to create a strong view that helps you propel your blog forward.

What are your thoughts about these blogging facts? Which one changed your view of blogging the most? Do you have any nuggets of information that would change the way we view blogging? Sound off in the comments section below.

I have written a few blog posts discussing the length of blog posts. It is a very interesting topic with experts taking different sides. Each time I read different blog posts about blog post length, my opinions sometimes change.

The ideal blog post length could very possibly be one of the biggest enigmas the blogging world knows of.

There Are Two Blog Post Lengths

Super long and super short. The super long blog posts are thousands of words long. These blog posts typically outperform the shorter blog posts on search engines. In the eyes of many SEO experts, longer blog posts equate to more traffic.

From a content standpoint, writing longer blog posts makes it possible to use examples to strengthen your claims. If a blogger claims that Facebook advertising is a great way to get more blog traffic, then I’m sure you would want more information. You may also want a case study which shows a brand using Facebook advertising to get more blog traffic at a low price.

Shorter blog posts solve problems that longer blog posts either create or ignore. Shorter blog posts prevent information overload. Imagine reading the 5,000 word blog post versus reading the 250 word blog post. The 250 word blog post can be read much quicker.

Shorter blog posts are designed for a high retention rate. Visitors are more likely to read a 250 word blog post word for word than a 5,000 word blog post. Longer blog posts are designed for more minutes per visitor. Even if a visitor reads 20% of a 5,000 word blog post, that person spends more time on the blog post than the person who read all of the 250 word blog post.

What Should You Do?

You can either choose writing short blog posts or long blog posts. There’s no in between. What you should do depends on four things:

1. What you are trying to accomplish? Do you want more blog traffic from the search engines? Do you want to construct your blog like a restaurant (when people come, they stay longer) or a fast food restaurant (people come more frequently but don’t stay as long)? There is nothing wrong with constructing your blog like a restaurant or constructing your blog like a fast food restaurant. And unlike the case with traditional restaurants VS McDonald’s, it is possible for both types of blogs to provide value.
2. What stage of the writing journey are you in? Writing a 250 word blog post is less time consuming than writing a 1,000 word blog post. If you are a new blogger, writing the shorter blog posts every day will allow you to build a strong commitment towards blogging. If you have been blogging for a few years, then you most likely have enough commitment to write 1,000 word blog posts.
3. What is your writing style? If you find it too tedious to write 1,000 word blog posts, then that’s not your writing style. At the same time, if you believe 250 words isn’t enough to convey your message, then go for the longer blog posts. In the end, blog visitors will only stick around if your blog posts are valuable.
4. How much time do you have? If you are a blogger who can only find 15 minutes per day to write blog posts, then shorter blog posts would be your cup of tea. If you are a blogger who can commit an hour per day to writing blog posts, then you have enough time to write 1,000+ word blog posts. At that point, it’s a question of whether you would want to write blog posts of that length or not.

The One Thing All Bloggers Need To Do

Regardless of which writing style you choose, there is one thing that you must do. You must make your blog posts easy for your readers to properly digest. That means smaller walls of text, shorter sentences, and tiny paragraphs.

Imagine how different this blog post would be if it were one massive paragraph. If it were, I bet you wouldn’t have reached this point.

When I write my blog posts, I make sure no paragraph is more than five lines long. Most of my paragraphs stop at the 2-3 lines range. If I make them longer, it becomes more difficult for people to read them on their computer screens.

That’s one of the reasons I create small breaks of text like this.

But the way you organize the text of the blog post is just one part of making a blog post more easily digestible.

The second method is just as valuable, and it is something I often forget to do. You must include relevant pictures throughout your blog posts that strengthen the meaning of your content. I don’t always do that on my blog. Some bloggers go as far as adding 10 different pictures per blog post. You can see how I used pictures to strengthen my content in a blog post that got published on Jeff Bullas’ Blog.

The pictures provide value and illustrate my points more effectively. My brother refers to these types of pictures as food for the eyes.

Not only are pictures food for the eyes, but they are also food for the brain. Pictures (especially infographics) have received more attention over the years because of staggering facts such as the human mind being able to comprehend an image 60,000 times faster than text. We like to see pictures, so give us food for the eyes (and brain) whenever you can.

In Conclusion

The length of your blog posts depends on your writing style and ability to provide value. The ultimate goal of every blog post is to provide value. Some bloggers achieve this goal with 250 words while other bloggers achieve this goal with 5,000 words.

Some blog posts provide more value than others, but word count isn’t the only factor that determines the amount of value that gets provided.

This topic on the ideal blog post length will rage on for many decades to come. Some data will suggest writing 2,000 word blog posts while other data may suggest shortening your blog posts.

In the end, if you can enjoy blogging while providing value, you’ve hit the right blog post length. What is your ideal blog post length? What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you have any tips for writing better blog posts? Sound off in the comments section below.