How to Write a Post That Readers Will Love

Do you find that some of your posts get a great response … and others are barely noticed?

Learning to write posts that your readers love can involve a bit of trial and error, but these five steps dramatically increase the chance that you’ll hit on a winning combination of topic, structure and style.

Here’s how to do it:

Step #1: Choose a Hot Topic

However well-written your post is, it’s unlikely to be a success unless you’ve chosen a topic that your readers are eager to hear about.

Maybe that’s something in the news – an exciting (or worrying) development in your industry, or a feel-good story that people can’t get enough of.

Or maybe it’s one of the topics that you know always strikes a chord: for a personal development blog, for instance, that could mean “being more motivated” or “managing your time better”.

Try to avoid any topics you’ve done to death recently, though – even if they’re popular ones.

Step #2: Give Your Post a Great Structure

Your post’s structure is its skeleton. Readers may not be able to see it – but without it, your post will just be a big blob of ideas.

There are plenty of easy structures you can borrow and use, like the “how to” post (you’re reading one) and the “list” post. You’ll see these done over and over again on different blogs.

To make your post stand out, look for ways to add extras to the structure. In our series of “Mistakes” posts, we have “fix it” suggestions for each mistake.

Step #3: Use Your Readers’ Words

If you use language that goes over your readers’ heads, or leaves them cold, then you won’t be creating a post that they’ll to read and share.

Use readers’ emails and comments to find the exact phrases they use when asking a question or describing a problem. (This is a technique Sam Horn recommends in her book Pop! Create the Perfect Pitch, Title and Tagline for Anything.)

If they suggest a post, consider using their wording: one of my most popular posts on Aliventures is titled “7 Habits of Serious Writers”. I wasn’t sure about that title – I thought “serious” would sound dull and unattractive – but I was mistaken!

Step #4: Edit Your Post Carefully

One of the great things about publishing on a blog is that it’s easy to go back and make changes – but don’t use this as an excuse to get sloppy.

While readers will be forgiving of an occasional typo or grammatical error, constant mistakes will undermine all your good work. A post that’s full of good information but badly written won’t get the attention it deserves.

Tip: Try cutting your post by 10% after drafting it. You’ll almost always make it stronger.

Step #5: Add Formatting, Links and Images

A well-written, well-structured post that speaks in the readers’ language isn’t quite enough … it also needs to look good.

You certainly don’t need to be an artist or designer to create an attractive blog post that’s easy to read, though. Simply use basic formatting features like:

• Subheadings, to break up the text, add visual interest, and act as “signposts” for the reader.
• Bold text, to highlight key sentences. (Pro tip: aim to be consistent with this. You’ll see that in this post, I chose to have one bold sentence at the start of each subsection.)
• Links to other posts. These can help readers who need extra background information, or who want to dig deeper into a particular topic.
• Images, which draw the reader in, add white space and visual appeal, and can make it easier for readers to understand or appreciate your points.

For your blog to be a success, you need readers to love your posts enough that they’ll keep coming back for more (and spread the word to their friends too).

Follow these five steps and you’ve got a very high chance of creating a post that will be a great hit with your audience. Leave a comment below to tell me how you get on!

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100 Great Business Ideas for 2014

A couple of weeks ago I came across an interesting blog:ScottSBarlow.com. Scott is what you could call “an ideas guy,” and that’s the focus of the site. Business ideas, more specifically.

Last week he came up with a pretty interesting post titled 100 Awesome Business Ideas for 2014. It’s nice read. Below you’ll find some of my favorite entries:

Rock Your CV: I was once a manager and also hired someone to work for me when i ran my own business. The rubbish that was CV’s representing people is ripe for disruption! If people really wanted to earn $100k a year then they should be investing upfront in themselves. One option would be to offer a service where you re-design peoples CV’s like the hundreds of templates available on GraphicRiver or find a designer to build you 5 templates. Charge $49 per CV. Can’t design? Then find an offshore designer via oDesk. People should even be going as far as this to stand out from the job competition!

Security Analytics: This is going to be a growing area in 2014 as we see more and more hacking stories in the press. Most organisations have the data but how do they visualize it into meaningful results? Maybe a start would be to offer a data analysis service using offshore experts, after this start figuring out what a core product would be that these companies want. Here’s a good post on the current situation of companies not knowing where to start.

Make sure to check the full article, and I am pretty sure it will give you a good insight or two.

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Three Good Reasons to Use an Editorial Calendar

Do you plan your content ahead of time … or do you just sit down on each “blogging day” to write a post?

While it’s a perfectly good idea to write while you’re inspired, it’s more likely that you’ll end up sitting down in front of a blank post or Word document, scratching your head and trying to figure out a good topic.

Even if you don’t have trouble coming up with ideas, you may find that you’ve run five list-style posts in a row, or covered the same topic in two consecutive weeks.

An editorial calendar is simply a list of what blog post you’re going to write when.

You can use a plugin, like the Editorial Calendar, or you can create a spreadsheet, use a physical diary, or even use a Gantt chart – or whatever works for you!

Image from Flickr by danielmoyle.

Here’s why planning and scheduling your posts in advance is a very good idea:

#1: It Helps You Stay on Top of Your Blogging

Do you ever find yourself rushing through a post at the last minute – or skipping posting for weeks on end because you never seem to have enough time or enough ideas?

An editorial calendar helps you stay in control. You’ll come up with a bunch of ideas at, say, the start of the month – and then you know what you’ll be writing all month long.

This makes it easier to plan the rest of life around your blogging. For instance, if you know you’ve got a big post coming up that will need a lot of research, you can spread the work across several days.

#2: It Gives You a Better Balance of Posts

I know from experience that it’s all too easy to write the same types of posts day after day and week after week.

Maybe you’ve got into a bit of a list post rut, with “5 ways to…” and “7 tips for…” cropping up every single time. While list posts are great, and numbers make for compelling headlines, it’s good to shake things up a bit.

A calendar lets you plan for a good balance of posts. This might mean having a regular series – e.g. I’m running the Mistakes series on Fridays at present. Or it might simply mean throwing in a few new types of posts – perhaps a review once a month, or a how-to every couple of weeks.

#3: It Allows You to Work with Other Bloggers

If anyone else writes for your blog (either as a guest or as a co-blogger), then an editorial calendar is especially important and useful.

Guest posters will want to know when their post is likely to run. If you don’t have a calendar, it’s hard to give them a good answer – and if you simply run their post as soon as possible, you may find that you end up with a whole lot of guest posts in a row, followed by none for weeks.

Co-bloggers need to know when you’re posting and (unless you always cover different topic areas) what you’re posting about. A calendar will keep everything running smoothly, especially if you edit one another’s posts, or if one person approves them all before they go live.

Do you use an editorial calendar, or is this something you plan to do in 2014? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…

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