Writing is writing, right? Well, yes and no. It depends a lot on the intended reader. Writing a novel is clearly quite different to writing for a blog because the reader has different intentions.
With a novel, the reader knows they are going to be setting aside a good amount of time to sit down and read the story.
With a blog post, they want to get the maximum value in the minimum amount of time. Sometimes abandoning reading if either they get what they need or don’t get it fast enough.
With this in mind, writing for a blog has a number of key aspects to consider.
- Solving at least one specific problem or need (Topic).
- Getting the reader to actually start reading (Headline).
- Keeping the attention of the reader from start to finish (Format).
- Trying to keep the reader from leaving your site after reading (Quality, Options).
- Asking the reader to do something for you after reading (Call To Action – e.g. share on social media, subscribe, buy a product).
There are several smaller considerations and perhaps a lot of variation within the list, but if you can do all of those things then you will be well on your way to a successful blog.
Let’s have a look at each one so that you come away from this article having solved a few specific problems (and do something for me in return… it’s in the rules I just wrote!).
Solving Problems and Needs
Every time you write a blog post it needs to have a reason for existing. Gone are the days of writing a blog about you and what you get up to. Every post should have a problem that gets solved.
I don’t like to just solve a problem, I like to try and tell a story around it (if it fits) and make it entertaining. I’m not talking about laugh out loud hilarious, just a mild smirk will do as long as the reader isn’t struggling through the article, word by word hoping it will eventually give them something useful or…. just end for god’s sake!
If you have a blog then hopefully you have an overriding topic for that blog. Your posts are where you demonstrate your knowledge on the topic, your passion for it, your journey of learning more about it. It’s vital to know who your target audience is so that you can understand the problems they face, the emotions they encounter and the needs they have in the context of your topic.
There are tools to do this, such as an empathy map, which take you step-by-step through the thought processes of your target audience. Getting to know your audience through forums, groups and your own subscribers is easily the most valuable way of understanding what they need and what problems they have.
It’s not rocket science, you just find out what they need from you and you give it to them.
Don’t, ever, worry about giving too much away. Readers will always want more ways of explaining an idea and if you were the one who gave them more than anyone else, they will come back again and again to understand more.
“You can give a person knowledge, but you can’t make them think.”
Tony A Gaskins Jr.
Grabbing Attention
The headline will make or break your blog post. You can create the most incredible story, but if you want people to read it you need to first be noticed and there are usually a lot of other people out there competing for that attention. This is why it’s normally good to start small with your niche.
That being said, you don’t need to overthink a headline. Be honest, tell them what problem you solve and show them a little of your personality.
All of that in less than 15 words. Not hard is it!? OK, it’s a little hard, but there is a way to think about headlines that will help you throughout your blogging journey.
Practice your headlines.
For every post you write, try to write 10 headlines with different styles, wording and structure. Do this after you have written the post because you will have a better understanding of the headline it needs. Pick the one you like best, or test them out on subscribers, friends, forums.
The more you write headlines, the better you get. It’s as simple as that.
If you wanted me to tell you exactly how to write your headline, that’s not what I want to do here. If you really want to write authentically good headlines then you need to put the work in and get good at it naturally.
Keeping Attention From Start to Finish
I mentioned the difference between writing a novel and writing a blog post at the beginning. You could probably get away with a few boring sentences or paragraphs in a novel, but not in a blog post.
The job of every sentence is to make the reader want to read the next one.
Every sentence.
I got into writing when a friend told me I always wrote something great in a birthday card. I never really thought too much about what I was writing, I just wanted to avoid the generic “Mum, Happy Birthday! Lot’s of Love, James.”
I wanted to make it enjoyable to read. I wanted them to know I was really thinking about them.
Sometimes that involves giving a lot of detail, sometimes it means cutting out the fluff and telling exactly how it is.
The point from this is that every sentence you write must have a reason for being there. It goes back to thinking about your target audience. They want something from your post, whether it is solving a problem or to entertain them.
If every sentence has a reason to be there, then you have a great chance of ensuring every sentence makes the reader want to read the next one.
Now, before you go thinking about each sentence as you write, pondering whether it should be there or not, please don’t. Write, then edit. Don’t write, edit, write, edit, and so on. For one, the whole process will take twice as long and for another, your flow will be constantly interrupted.
As you write more, you will find the editing afterwards becomes shorter and shorter. I quite often write a post and try and edit it afterwards, but end up leaving it as it is.
Another tool to keep readers attention is to make the page visually appealing. Once again, this doesn’t matter in a novel, but on a blog post you need to be breaking up blocks of text. Use a combination of these elements:
- Paragraphs of no more than three sentences.
- Use subheadings where they naturally fit.
- Images that are relevant to the text, as well as beautiful (try unsplash.com).
- Bullet points, just like this one!
- Quotes. Use the quote format or make them stand out by using italics, larger text or bold text.
- Don’t over-do any of the above!
Finally, the biggest tool you can use to make sure you are keeping reader’s attention is you (did I just call you a tool? That’s not what I meant!). When you read blog posts, what kept your attention? What made you stop reading? Being the expert in your field, your target audience is often closely aligned to yourself and you can use your own, built-in audience feedback to make your writing better.
Encourage the Reader to Stay
The majority of the work in keeping your readers on your site is achieved with the quality of your posts. If you are providing the value they are after and they like the way you write then they’ll stay, or at least keep coming back.
Having said that, if they don’t have options given to them to stay on the site then they’re usually not going to go looking for them too hard.
So give them options.
One of the best content strategies for a blog is to pick a specific topic within your niche and write several posts about it from different angles until you have thoroughly covered it. Then you can link between all these posts within each of them. This gives the reader options to ‘choose their own adventure’. It is literally like reading one of those classic game books that children (and adult children) could get lost in for hours.
As well as this, you need to give them options at the end of your post. We’ll talk about calls to action later, but you should also suggest the next post that they should read. You can do this manually, or there are plug-ins that will do it for you. Sometimes your theme will automatically display ‘next’ and ‘previous’ posts which might be good enough if you are writing several posts in a row on one topic.
Make your menus super-clear and ultra user-friendly. Look at them through the eyes of your audience. If you just read a post on knitting a scarf and you wanted to see if there were more posts like that for jumpers, hats, etc, what would you expect to see in the menu?
Have you ever written a post and then wondered what category it should go under? These categories are what should be on your menus. Ask yourself what categories do you need on your menus to make it easy for people to move around your site?
Asking For Something in Return
You’ve just written a bloody good post on how to remove cookies from a VCR the right way (a little behind the times, but certainly a very specific niche!). The reader has just saved their VCR from being thrown away (why do they still have a VCR anyway??). They are feeling grateful, they want to do something for you in return.
You need to give them options.
Of course, you could get them to read more posts, but at some point, they need to do something tangible for you. Something that either gives you profit or that helps you grow.
I must admit, I’m at a loss as to how much further you can grow once the VCR is cleaned up, but let’s get creative! Perhaps you can solve other food and technology combination mishaps. Ice cream in a headphone jack, yoghurt in a bluetooth speaker, etc.
Anyway, that paragraph was erring on the side of not being there for a reason (or was it?).
Initially, your calls to action will be more about helping you grow, such as sharing on social media, commenting on the post and giving you their email address. But once you start growing your presence and becoming known for what you do it’ll become more about turning your success into profit.
This can come about in many ways, such as a product that dives deep into solving a problem (100 common food and technology combination mishaps and how to solve them) or perhaps a book (the stories I’ve heard from food and technology combination mishaps) maybe even a service (we’ll come and clean up your food and technology combination mishap).
Whatever it is you offer, you need to be letting people know it exists and directing people to the next stage in their journey from cold buyer to hot buyer.
Even if it is a simple sentence and a link at the end of a post.
Writing for a blog is a unique subset of writing in general. But at the end of the day, it is still writing. You still need to practice it to get better at it. You still need to think about why you are writing. You still need to enjoy the process.
As long as you are doing those three things, while adding in some of the tips from this article, you will get good at writing for a blog.
Just don’t start a blog on the various food and technology combination mishaps (I’m so going to rank on Google for this term in 6 months!).