Want to become a top blogger? Then no surprise – you are going to need to learn how to blog.
Essentially, this means you need to know how to write blog posts, which in turn are just like any other type of article but arguably a little more personal and less formal.
But what does a great blog post look like? Let’s find out.
What is Good Writing?
A good blog post is well written. But what does that mean?
Well, good writing essentially means that you are efficiently conveying the message that you set out to convey. If you can tell people what you want to tell them in the fewest steps, then you have done well.
Thus, a good starting point is to apply ‘Occam’s razor’ to your writing by removing superfluous words and ‘filler’. Get to the point quickly and the reader will extract value with less time and effort.
But that doesn’t mean there is no space for flowery language or a large vocabulary. In fact, a great vocabulary is what is going to allow you to convey more meaning in fewer words. One word can have the same meaning as several if you choose it well and it can convey matters of tone and emotion in a subtle way.
The best way to extend your vocabulary?
Read more.
How to Engage
People are in a hurry these days and are used to getting what they want nearly instantly. That is to say that most people don’t want to wait around in order to get to the point and will instead want to leave if they aren’t instantly captivated.
So how do you get your audience to take notice? How do you stop them from moving on?
One answer is to engage them by choosing a narrative structure. I’ve heard storytelling be called ‘SEO for the human brain’ and the simple fact of the matter is that humans have evolved to enjoy listening to stories. We find stories naturally engaging and will always want to finish them once we read the start.
So instead of talking about the merits of X techn
ique, talk about how you used that technique or how your friend failed to use that technique and suffered as a result.
This is inherently more interesting and more emotive, which also makes it more persuasive.
Length and Presentation
While we’re at it, it’s worth considering the best length for your posts and the best way to make sure that people read them. Don’t undersell your great writing by presenting it in a way that’s unappealing!
The first tip then is to try and get the length of your content right. Many experts suggest that long-form content currently does very well on Google and this is certainly true. However, this will limit the amount of content that you can write and thus you might want to write shorter posts of around 800 words from time to time as well.
The other tip is to always space your content out, to use lots of headings and to create distinct paragraphs.