Alan DraperA good blog should increase traffic to your website and create a devoted fan base of people who want to read more about your views, your business, and plans. Some people have a special touch when it comes to writing blogs. Even if you feel completely talentless, you can use these five tips to write epic blog articles.
Tip #1: Do Your Research
Image via Flickr by USACE Europe District
You can’t write a great post until you know what to write about. Do good research so you can write about your topic intelligently. The Internet makes it easy for anyone to double-check your facts. If you get something wrong, a member of the “gotcha club” will point out your mistake.
Tip #2: Free Write Before You Write
Image via Flickr by Crafty Dogma
Your blog articles need unique perspectives. If you can’t write with your own voice and personality, then why would anyone bother reading your words?
Spend some time free writing before you even think about publishing your article. This gives you time to sort your ideas so that you can develop a fresh take on your research. If you have a great sense of humor, make sure that comes across. If you’re a very logical person, use that to your advantage.
Knowing the difference between strengths and weaknesses is what separates professional bloggers from hackers.
Tip #3: Make an Outline
Image via Flickr by tnarik
Free writing will leave you with a mess of scribbled notes and half-finished paragraphs. That’s exactly what you want at that stage. However, you have to shape those ideas into something that other people can understand.
Use your notes to find the most important ideas. Use those as the foundation for your outline. The outline will keep you focused while you write your article.
Tip #4: Revise What You Just Wrote
Image via Flickr by izzie_whizzie
You thought you were done? Not even close. Every good writer knows that revision is the key to compelling sentences.
Hunt for things that you can take out of your article. At this point, it’s not about adding things. It’s about removing them. You want to sweep away the trash so that your real points come through clearly.
For most people, this is the hardest part. Don’t feel discouraged. You’ll get better at it with practice.
As an additional tip: use bullet points and short paragraphs. No one wants to read dense words on a computer screen. If a paragraph has more than 100 words, it’s too long.
Tip #5: Add Images and Video
Image via Flickr by meddygarnet
Great words can only do so much for a blog article. Let’s face it, you’re not the world’s greatest prose stylist. Even if you were, 99.9 percent of people wouldn’t care. (Don’t research that statistic.)
That means you need something that will add a little pizzazz to your page. In other words, you need pretty pictures and engaging videos that haven’t been copyrighted. Internet users love that stuff. Plus, people are much more likely to share content with pictures and videos.
When it comes down to basics, you’re trying to improve your articles to reach a larger audience, right? Use every trick you can.
Have you found other tricks that make blog articles totally epic?
Read more:
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Alan Draper.
Learn how to publish your content on B2C
Join our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage
Add B2C to your Google News Feed
Comments on this article are closed.