10 Tips for Writing Better Posts

A blog is only as good as its content. Increasing the quality of our blog posts can bring traffic, inbound links, social bookmarks, subscribers, comments, and other rewards every blogger works hard to achieve. This post lists ten simple things you can do to produce better posts, every time.

1. Write headlines that promise value. The reason numbered headlines are so in vogue is that they’re incredibly specific about what the reader will get by reading the article. You can be both specific and gripping without numbers, however, as long as you use your headlines to give readers an enticing preview not of what your article is about, but what it has to offer. A good strategy is to think of your headline as the sign on a door you want readers to open: what kind of sign would make the reader want to peek inside?

2. Begin with a gripping lead. A great headline will get your readers to open the door, but the strength of your first paragraph will determine whether they step inside. The first few sentences of your posts should expand on the headline and get more specific about what the content has to offer, whether it be entertainment, humor, information, or important facts.

3. Signpost your logic with sub-headings. I tend to go against the grain in my reasoning for using sub-headings. As far as I’m concerned, sub-headings help your visitors read, not simply scan. Good sub-headings give readers an angle to approach the following paragraph, help interlink your ideas, and break up complicated thoughts into manageable chunks.

4. Utilize whitespace and images. Whitespace is the empty space in your blog layout (whether it’s white or not). Whitespace around your text makes it much easier to read, and a simple way to introduce more whitespace into your posts is to use frequent paragraph breaks. Another strategy to make your posts more readable is to break up your posts with relevant and illustrative images.

5. Weave appropriate links into your words. A good rule of thumb: whenever you write a string of words specifically relevant to content you’ve seen elsewhere, or a previous post you’ve written, turn those words into a link. There are a great number of benefits to doing this. You may be noticed by those you’re linking to, you can get traffic from trackbacks, it can encourage readers to explore your blog, and it adds another layer of depth and detail to what you write.

6. Suggest further reading. When appropriate, direct readers to other content you’ve written on the topic at the end of your post. Some bloggers do this with the ‘Related Posts’ widget, but you’re more likely to capitalize on reader attention of you suggest the links within the body of your post, while they’re still in ‘reading mode’.

7. Engage the reader. A simple strategy for increasing your comments is to ask readers what they think. Opinions are much more freely given than experiences, so asking for opinions is likely to produce better results.

8. Rigorously edit what you’ve written. Check for typos, make sure your links work, check that your logic is clear and your formatting is displaying correctly. Fixing up your posts at a later date may cause the post to re-appear in feed readers, which won’t be appreciated by those who’ve already seen it.

9. Make it shorter. Delete unnecessary words, sentences, and paragraphs. Retain only the minimum amount of information needed to make your point. Readers are more likely to commit to reading something they know they will finish. You don’t need to make every post you write short, but you will always benefit from making it shorter.

10. If you have the time, let your posts marinate. When you’ve been working on a piece of writing for an hour or two it can be hard to look at it with fresh eyes. You’ve probably noticed how different a piece of writing can seem when you re-read it a few days later, once you’ve had time to forget the thoughts behind each sentence. Letting your posts sit for a time will allow you to better look at your work from the perspective of a reader, and work out what needs to be improved.

Article From Daily Blog Tips

10 Tips for Writing Bookmarkable Content

Why should we write bookmarkable content?

There are several benefits to writing bookmarkable content. It has the potential to become popular on social bookmarking services like del.icio.us, and it brings in repeat traffic from readers who’ve bookmarked it for future use. Bookmarkable content is also a form of vital content: content readers can’t do without. This kind of content has been the foundation of some of the world’s best blogs.

Elements of bookmarkable content

It’s not necessary that you try to include all these elements at once, but each on their own (or in a sensible combination) will increase the likeliness of your content being bookmarked.

1. Length. One common reason why readers bookmark is that they want to read the content from start to finish but don’t have the time at the moment. Writing a good quality article which is longer than your average blog post is a good way to get bookmarked.

2. Introduce a new idea. Seth Godin’s blog posts seem almost contradictory to the above point, in that they are frequently bookmarked but tend to be quite short. What makes them bookmarkable is that they contain thought-provoking ideas readers don’t want to risk forgetting. You can encourage bookmarks by innovating.

3. Write a useful tutorial, how to, or guide. Tutorials tend to contain too many steps to memorize in one sitting. If a reader thinks what you are teaching is worthwhile, they’ll bookmark it. The most successful tutorials and guides are written about something a lot of readers want to do but haven’t been shown how elsewhere. Uniqueness and demand are the key factors in deciding whether a tutorial is bookmarkable.

4. Create a one-stop reference. This requires more hard-work than creativity, and as such anyone can do it. Pick a topic and assemble all the useful information and resources you can find on that topic in one place. Readers are likely to bookmark this because you’ve done all the hard-work for them.

5. Create a recommended list. If you’ve developed a sense of trust with your readers then they’re likely to respect your opinion. Create a list of your favorite blogs, or favorite websites, or favorite posts, or favorite albums, etc. Readers will appreciate the recommendation from someone they trust. The longer the list, the more likely it is to be bookmarked and returned to later.

6. Create a cheat sheet for your topic. A cheat sheet is any single-page reference guide for a topic. A web-designer’s cheat sheet might contain definitions of every CSS term, a beginner chess player’s cheat sheet might outline how the pieces are set-up on the board, and how they move, a traveler going to Japan might create a cheat sheet with key Japanese phrases, tourist attractions, notes on local customs, and so on.

Cheat sheets encourage bookmarking because they’re a quick reference for information that can’t easily be remembered. I’ve written in detail on creating cheat sheets here.

7. Make a convincing argument on a controversial topic. Readers who share your opinion will often bookmark the post if they feel you’ve stated their case more eloquently than they themselves could. When the argument comes up elsewhere, that reader is likely to point others to your article as a means of stating their case. There is even a chance that your post could go viral — though you have to be prepared for a little controversy in the comments section!

8. Compile great videos on a topic. Search for the best ten (or whatever number) videos on your topic and compile them in a post. If each video is 5 minutes long then it might take half-an-hour to watch them all. Readers will be more likely to bookmark the post and watch a new video when they have the time.

9. Remedy a problem. If the remedy is not a simple process readers are likely to bookmark it so they can implement the points over time. Even readers who are not yet suffering the problem might bookmark the post just in case they suffer it in future. I myself have bookmarked a post which lists dozens of content ideas — even though I’m nowhere near running out of ideas yet.

10. Compile a directory of links. These links are usually grouped under one broad topic and divided into sub-headings. There might be a sentence or two of evaluative or descriptive text next to the link. The more links, the more bookmarkable the content.

Over to you

• Do you have any other ideas for bookmarkable content?
• Have you written any content that has been frequently bookmarked? Why do you think it was bookmarkable?
• What kind of content do you yourself tend to bookmark?

Article From Daily Blog Tips

Are You Prepared for a Blogging Emergency ?

Real life emergencies, blogger’s block, vacations and work or study commitments all have the potential to interrupt our blogging flow from days to weeks at a time. These periods of inactivity can result in a steady drop in traffic, plummeting subscriber levels, and loyal readers jumping ship.

These events are all blogging emergencies: periods of inactivity which threaten the well-being of your blog. In this post, I want to outline a solid plan to deal with a blogging emergency. If you execute it right, your readers won’t even be aware there’s a problem.

Build a cushion

Writing a number of posts in advance is the most important step in preparing for a blogging emergency.

A good emergency cushion consists of enough blog posts to fill up a week of regular blogging. If you usually post once a day, your cushion should be around seven posts, for example.

Attempting to write all these posts at once will burn you out. I’d recommend writing one or two extra posts per week until you build your cushion, or more when you’re particularly inspired.

Work these posts to final draft quality and save them in your ‘Drafts’ folder.

Adapting your cushion to future events

If you’ve planned a two-week vacation in a month, try to write two-week’s worth of posts in advance to build up your cushion, in addition to the one-week emergency reserve of posts you’ve accumulated for unforeseen events.

Using up your emergency cushion on a predictable event will leave you vulnerable when you return, forcing you to rebuild your cushion from scratch.

Dealing with severe time-limitations

If you’re traveling overseas and using the net at airport terminals or internet cafes you’ll have little time to complete blogging tasks. Many types of blogging emergencies will involve these severe time-limitations, where you’re only able to work on your blog for a short period each day.

Having a cushion built up is an important part of surviving these periods. If you suspect your blogging emergency will last longer than a week, try to pace the release of your posts so they’re spread evenly across the period you expect to be kept from proper blogging.

You can also save time by allowing comments to appear directly on the site rather than going into moderation. Another time-saving strategy is to set up an email Auto Responder to let those who contact you know you’re unable to respond just yet.

Low-intensity posting

If your cushion runs out, or looks like it will be spread too thin, you can support it with some low intensity posting. These posts generally take ten minutes or less to complete. They’re useful for showing visitors that you’re still active at the blog.

Some suggestions for low-intensity posts:

• Short posts (under 200 words).
• Link posts.
• “Best of” posts (most popular posts on this blog in September, etc.)

Invite guest bloggers

Guest bloggers can be an efficient solution for periods when you know that you will not be able to blog for yourself. Apart from keeping the fresh content coming, this method will also improve the interaction between you, the guest bloggers, your readers and their readers. It is a situation where everyone wins.

Darren Rowse uses this technique whenever he has a long travel scheduled.

The first place to look for potential guest bloggers is your own blog. Announce that you will not be able to blog for some time and invite the readers to submit their posts. Getting some of the readers to participate with the content might also increase the sense of community.

Running a blog without access to a computer

Certain real-life situations may mean that you’re prevented from using a computer at all for days or even weeks. Here are a few suggestions you can use to keep your blog running smoothly in these periods of absence.

1. Set your cushion posts for timed release
In Wordpress, you can do this from the ‘Write‘ page of each draft you want to post in future. Expand the ‘Post Timestamp‘ panel in the sidebar and tick the ‘Edit timestamp‘ box (this is important!). Set the timestamp to the date and time you’d like the post to appear on your site, double-check everything is correct, then hit publish. Your post will appear on your blog at the time you’ve requested.

You can make sure your cushion posts are set to auto-post on the correct date and in the right order by viewing them in the Manage > Posts panel.

If your blogging software doesn’t offer an equivalent option you might consider enlisting the help of a trusted friend to publish your cushion posts for the duration of the blogging emergency.

2. Stop moderating comments
Spam catchers like Akismet generally do a good enough job on their own to keep your comments section in order. This will allow the conversation to continue on your blog while you’re away from it.

3. Get the help of a friend
It can be a good idea to ask a trusted friend to look over your blog and its recent comments once a day to check that everything is in order. If you have the time to give them your account details and walk them through the procedure required to delete comments (if necessary), you can rest assured that things will remain orderly during your absence.

4. Set up an email Auto Responder
Let those who contact you know that you’ll be offline for a few days, or weeks, but that you’ll get back to them as soon as you’re able.

Over to you

• What’s your contingency plan for a blogging emergency?
• Do you have any other tips for a solid emergency plan?

Article From Daily Blog Tips