Blog writing is nowhere near as hard as it might seem. In fact, it can be a light-hearted, cathartic and even therapeutic exercise. That’s because writing blog posts gives you the opportunity to write in a chatty style for people who like what you do. It’s fun. You can drop your commercial zeal and let your community into a few secrets and ideas that you find interesting. Longer sentences, longer words, more subclauses, subjective language, humour and opinion are just some of the blog-writing luxuries you can enjoy. But you MUST get your structure right. Here are our seven top tips for writing light-hearted, almost frivolous, blog posts… But remember, there is always more than one way to do it well…
#1 Strong heading
Always aim to catch the eye with a heading that will push a reader’s buttons. Easier said than done? Well, visualise your typical reader and imagine how to get an emotional response from them. You could choose to make them inquisitive, concerned, or even a bit angry, to get them to interact with your post. Another tactic is to make them laugh out loud if you can.
#2 Use a standfirst
Segue effortlessly from the title into the substantive text using what writer’s call a standfirst. You can see one of these above. You should use your standfirst to set the scene, raise preliminary issues, and importantly, introduce readers to the main copy. Think of it as an advanced welcoming party through which you can acclimatise readers to the style, subject and context of your blog post.
#3 Subheadings
Subheadings help you structure what you want to say and ensure the piece looks readable. After all, a big block of text on screen will turn a lot of readers off. You could grab a pen and paper and draw your blog post as a diagram before you get started if it helps. One subheading initiative is the Top-5 or Top-10 format that you see here. This strategy is an SEO winner because people are always searching for ‘tips’ on this and that.
#4 Evidence
You can use quotes and statistics you’ve researched to support what you’re saying. Some people include links to other websites; however, make sure these open as a new window or your reader will bounce off your site.
#5 Add a summary
To add some extra content and make your blog post more reader friendly, you can summarise the main points in bullets at the end. This can be added in a new section called ‘Information to take away’.
#6 Call to action
If the reader makes it to the end of your blog post, then you’ve done a good job and it’s reasonable to put a sales move on them. Therefore, always sign off with a call to action. Think about what you want them to do and ask them to do it. It could be to follow you on social media, sign up for correspondence, or browse your latest deals.
#7 Share the blog post link on social media
Make sure you share the link to your latest blog post on your social media channels. Don’t be shy about doing this. Just remember that you’re a thought leader in what you do and people who follow you WILL be interested. As well as generating more web traffic, doing this is good for your SEO ranking. Follow us on social media, contact us for more information and browse this site to discover more about what we could do for your organisation.