How To Write Excellent Blog Content - What We Wish We Knew

This post is part of the ‘What we wish I knew when I first started Blogging’ Series. Below I’ll share readers comments on the topic of Writing Good Blog Content as well as some of my own thoughts.

One of the most key aspects of any successful blog is the ability to create content that keeps drawing people back to your blog. I’ve written so many posts on this topic and know that ‘excellent blog content’ means something different on every blog - as a result I won’t pretend that what I write in this post will be a definitive guide to writing great blog content.

However I can tell you five things that I wish I knew in my early days of blogging about writing content (with a few links for further reading).

5 Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier about Writing Content for a Blog

1. The Power of Titles - the title has the ability make or break a blog post. It impacts how (and if) it’s found in search engines and social bookmarking sites, it influences whether people visit your blog in News Readers, it affects whether people leave a comment and is vital in whether people actually read what you have to say. Read more about using Titles Effectively on Blogs.
2. The Viral Nature of Lists - a single well written list post can launch a blog to great heights in the blogosphere. While the prolific nature of lists in the blogosphere can also mean your lists get ignored, I find that when writing the same content as a list that you write as an essay like article the list will almost always get more attention. Read more about why lists are great for getting traffic to your blog.
3. The Importance of Being Original - perhaps the best lesson that I ever learned as a bloggers was that people are drawn to others who speak their mind, who have something unique to say and who say it in a creative and fresh way. Say what everyone else is saying in the same way that everyone else is saying it and you’re almost guaranteed of being largely ignored. Read more about how to avoid joining the echo chamber and saying something original.
4. The Value of Well Formated Content - people don’t read content on line in the same way that they read content in other mediums. Online readers tend to scan content. As a result if you place visual cues in your posts that draw the eye to important points you’ll find people stick with you longer into your posts. Read more on How to make your content Scannable
5. The Impact of a Good Image - another simple technique for providing an additional point of interest in your posts is to provide something visual. I don’t use images in every post on this blog but find that when I do that those clicking through on the post in my feed reader increases. Images have the power to communicate in ways that words cannot - use them. Read more on Using images to make your posts POP in RSS feeds.

Reader Comments on Writing Excellent Blog Content

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Guess the Search Term and Win a Blog Mentoring Prize

OK - it’s time for a little ProBlogger reader competition.

It’s called - “Guess the Top Search Term Competition” (or GTTSTC for short)…. catchy isn’t it!

Here’s how it will run. I’m going to offer a prize for the first person to submit the search term (via comments below) that brought in the most traffic to ProBlogger from Google in the month of June.

ONE ENTRY PER PERSON (I’ll check IP addresses to make sure). Your first entry will be taken as your only entry - so be quick but make your entry count by reading what others have already said (first in best dressed).

Note - By search term - it could be a combination of more than one word.

The Prize - A month’s free access to the Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program. It’s a good way to check out Yaro’s great new mentoring program for free - you can unsubscribe at any time to avoid ongoing payments.

Judging - The Winner will be the first person to get the exact term right.

Do note - that my comments are filtered and some comments go to moderation and don’t appear on the post until I’ve given them the go ahead. As a result you might think you’re first for a term but someone else might actually be.

I’ll announce the winner in 24 hours so we can get a nice array of search terms submitted for a little fun. If no one’s got it in 24 hours I’ll start giving a few hints.