Publishing

Writing Great Blog Posts

May 2, 2015

When writing and publishing a fine blog post you need. to publish it.  When you want a great blog post, you need more.

write a blog post
Write out a good blog post on paper

What do I need to publish something great? First, define your idea of great. A blog post can be as long or as short as you need it to be, based on your audience.  It must capture what you need to say in a way that will eventually help another writer.  There is not a hard and fast word count, although most Internet writers agree that anything less than 500 words is not a good blog post and should not be considered complete.

Writing great blog posts isn’t as easy is it may seem because there is always someone who might know more than you do. There is a challenge to be the best, but be humble about your writing and your blog.  You created the blog and it is your chance to share it with a network of like minded readers.

The great blog post is as unique as you are, it stands out from the crowd of millions of blogs out there. However, it’s not about what you say, but why you are saying it on this particular post. If it’s not about breaking news, you have the advantage to write the post, and walk away before coming back to edit it.

You can come back to it and look it over. It seems a lot of bloggers write and post a lot of blogs, but if they are considering making money with blogging, or becoming more professional in their blogging work, they

There are benefits to walking away and waiting for a while before it’s posted.

If I wait, what other benefits will I get?

A blog post is, by its nature, a self-published piece of writing, and it needs some attention, and you can’t do this if you hit publish right away. The are many benefits of taking a while before posting something.
1) You will find mistakes.  You can fix them before someone else notices them.  It’s not going to be prefect, but it will be closer. Editing is a second set of eyes, and you will find mistakes after leaving a post alone.
2) You will have more time to learn about your writing style from a more neutral point of view.  Social networking is very unforgiving to the writer who is not willing to change their style or their mistakes.  Editing and social networking forces you to stop making excuses, and edit and become the brand you need to be as a writer.
3) The respect of your peers. Another writer can tell if there is a mistake, especially one which is about editing, and you have an actual misspelling, and not a misused word (heard and herd) Learning to build a more professional leads to more readers.  Learning to build on your knowledge of Search Engine Optimization will lead to even more readers.  If your post is truly great people will want to read more of it.
4) You can create a routine that works best for you.  It’s not about others, it’s about you. Write a blog based on both the needs of your readers and your own needs as a writer.
5) By scheduling a post, you create the idea that people will know you will publish each day, or twice a day and will come at this point.
6) Helps you develop your writing outside of a blog. When you know a post will be written, edited and published and you have little to worry about, you can focus on writing and publishing a book.
Darren Rowse quote
Quote on Blogging

What is a great blog post?

1) It has something for more than a small network of people.  The more valuable it is the more likely your writing will be seen by others, and they will use word of mouth.  You have to lay the foundation first and then create a post.
2) It can be a series, but it can also be standalone.  The choice is up to you.  Many bloggers (myself included) have tried both, and then have stuck with a theme or a series because it allows you to grow on posts, and build on the readership.
3) It is longer, and generally is more about the content than it is about ‘news’ posts.  I might not recall what Perez Hilton tells me in his blog post, but I can use information to help write a better post.  This is known as ‘evergreen content’ and it is important to have a good deal of it for the long term survival of the website.
4) It’s for the right people. Know whom you are writing for, then write it.
5) It’s followed, and people have mentioned it on social media.  Not only that but it makes a difference to the readers.  They can use it and improve their own blogs following examples.
6) It is useful to more than a few people. It’s not about just helping one person but more than one. What you write on a blog can help another blogger.  A great blog post does this, and it’s full of points people can use either now or later.

 

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