When I sat to pen them down, I cam across several of them from the depths of my mind, but most of them can be generally known to most of you readers and I do not need to emphasize on them much. Contrary to the age old techniques, the following are followed by one and all those famous bloggers around like Darren Rowse and others.
1. Bifurcate the blog topic - Yes, I wish to let you know that never CRAM every known thing to you in a single post. First, prepare a rough sketch on what you are going to post about. And then try to break the post into multiple posts, so that, you can be more precise on what you are going to blog about. Easy to follow and you can dwell deeper into the topic by informing the readers from the scratch.
2. Maintain consistent tone throughout the post - You start with a serious tone which reflects as if a teacher is teaching to the students, later in the middle of the post, you move on and take a very casual tone wich is like a friend informing other friends about the cool tips and tricks and sharing the information. That’s not advisable enough, if you are writing on your blog, stay to a very informal tone and continue the same throughout the post. You can see this method to be most effective on CopyBlogger. They teach you how to write and they say the same in a very informal tone with humor and titbits to make the reading and learning a fun, not a chore.
3. No grammatical errors – You is know to how can you always wish so to is make all your was readers to be good well-informed. Yes, there is no meaning to the before line when read it full(Read only the odd numbered words). Thats the power of a grammatically incorrect statement. It drives your readers crazy and makes them wish to hunt you down and perform a massacre on you. But, as they do not have the time to hunt you down, they just close your webpage and move on to the greener pastures. check, before you hit the dreaded ‘Publish’ button for any grammatical mistakes.
4. No spelling mistakes - Many a time readers can mostly make out the word if there is a spelling mistake. But, if the spelling mistakes are throughout the post, they will definitely say good-bye no matter what the content is. Or else they will stick only if the content is more important and life saving. So, take care of the spelling mistakes. If your browser places a red line below any word, do pay attention to it. But, at times, browsers prefer US English to UK English. So, you may have the need to add the word to the dictionary if you are posting theinformation specifically for UK English preferred readers.
5. Rephrase complex sentences - As blogging is easy and the information is meant to be shared to one and all, make sure that you do not use any obfuscated(read, Complex, Unreadable, not easily understandable) sentences that drive the readers crazy. The readers, no matter where they arrive from, wish to go light on reading and they just scan the words to understand the meaning. So, try to rephrase the sentences in such a way that, if you have to use 3 sentences in the place of one complex one, do it. Take that initiative and break down the complex sentence to 3 simple ones. Your readers will love it.
6. Point to relevant resources - It’s a good practise to point at the relevant resources to provide breivity to the post being written. Rather than clarifying the point that you are posting from it’s ABCs, you can tell the reader to read the initial stretch at one point and you can continue from the point where the source has stopped. This source can either be your other post or your friend’s post or any post from where you have learnt the ABCs. And, if you have posted the process over how to get to the required point, then you can point the reader to get to know the advanced concepts from the other post of yours or any other blog which has informed you over how to do it the best.
7. Do a thorough research - Contrary to the belief and #6, never ever leave the post in between hanging in the mid-air. Let the reader be informed that, the post had been done after a thorough research and there is no stone unturned.
8. Place apt images - Whoever told that a Picture is worth thousand words, it stands true to its core. Search for relevant images which gel well with your posts. An images wisely chosen and used in a post will be pleasant to look at and people generally bind your post with the image they have seen and find the relevancy which leaves a lasting impact and gets imprinted in their memory. You can find a lot of free stock images from Free Pixels, Image After, Stock Vault and there are hundreds of similar kinds of sites. Other source would be Flickr where you can search for the relevant image and use it, as long as You abide by the rules and regulations and provide relevantinformation where you have taken the image from.
9. Keep it simple and upto the mark – No beating around the bush and do not beat the dead horse. Keep the post simple and explain each point in detail. Never try to re-instigate the earlier said point again and again making the readers get bored to death.
10. Length of the post – There had always been a debate over the length of the post, as this post has crossed the 1500 word mark, I could have just posted the bullet points and left it. But, keeping the importance and the requirement ofthe post, the length of the post does vary from 250 – thousands of words pointing to relevant sources and links. So, do not worry as long as the length of the post is relevant.
11. A very good title – Would you read the length of the article in the newspaper if the headline does not make an impact on you? You wouldn’t, right? Similarly, a good post with a good title brings in a very good response as it evokes interest in the readers and they wish to read more of whatthe post holds.
12. Be controversial, upto a point. Not always – Being controversial is one of the few tricks under the hood which can bring in readers and provoke interest and make the readers get involved in the article posted. State your view, if it contradicts the general point, back your view with strong hold on your views. Do not contradict just because you need visitors to come to your blog. Be honest and get involved in the heated argument. And do get ready to bear the comments too.
13. Keep the post in a conversational style – Talk with your readers in a friendly conversational style rather than a monotonous, i-posted-you-read style. Be a part of the conversation by replying to the comments and mentioning the releavnt points in between. Ask the readers opinions and count them in. If you find any comment more intriguing, do quote the comment and the name of the person and their website URL in the next post where you deal with the point.
I hope I have provided the general input required to make a good blog post. Even though you might be aware of most of these, getting to know these points again would be more beneficial while you are posting next time.
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