6 Tips for Writing a Blog

Interested in writing a blog? To write a blog or not to write a blog - that is the question.

The answer could mean the difference between getting the success you deserve and going unnoticed in the vast ocean of competitors on the Internet.

I’m a huge advocate of blogging, it’s really helped my career to ask for exposure in my own words. I started blogging on www.cyprusnewsreport.com in 2009. The response to my blogs has led me to some brilliant and interesting career developments. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Well, maybe one thing. I’d have written more about the strategic importance of blog writing. So, let’s fix that regret with a blog post about why you should be blogging right now.

Writing a Blog

What are some of the most important things to consider when writing a blog?

Passion.
Creativity.
Great writing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Word count.
Teach something new.

Writing a Blog with Passion

People respond to passion. Martin Luther King, Oprah Winfrey, and Winston Churchill - these iconic people were not only good orators, but they were also passionate advocates for the words written in their speeches.

“So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
Dr. Martin Luther King.

Inspire people with the passionate vision you express in your blog. To inspire your readers, make sure your blog uses words that express who you are. Writing reveals your character, personality, and expertise. It’s the most powerful form of communication there is.

Once you find your voice as a writer, the sky’s the limit.

Writing a Blog with Creativity

I believe everyone is inherently creative. Human beings create in each moment. We create thoughts, ideas, and connections between one thought and the next.

Creativity is a decision. When you decide what to have for breakfast, or how to cook a recipe, your innate creativity is at play.

How you respond to challenges is creativity. Creativity is not limited to the arts, you can write about even the most technical subject with passion and creativity to bring it alive to others.

Albert Einstein’s chasing a beam of light thought experiment. “If I pursue a beam of light with the velocity c (velocity of light in a vacuum), I should observe such a beam of light as an electromagnetic field at rest though spatially oscillating.
Einstein’s Autobiographical Notes

While physics is often seen as dry and obscure, Einstein’s creative decision to ‘chase a beam of light’ brought a childlike enjoyment to his thought experiment. His writing about the experiment shows the reader how important it was to him and how marvelous it was to wonder about the nature of light. What a loss it would have been if Einstein had been too reserved to share his ideas in writing!

Great Writing

Sir Richard Branson is dyslexic but that doesn’t stop him from communicating in writing with his blog. Whether he writes it himself, hires an editor, or hires a great writer to ghostwrite for him isn’t as important as his creative decision to start blogging about his values and experiences.

What holds you back from blogging? There are many writers out there who could help you to write your blog. You could also learn how to blog. I’ve trained many people to communicate better in writing, it’s a skill that anyone with a strong urge can learn.

Are you interested in learning how to blog? Register for my course!

Search Engine Optimization

While passion and creativity use the right side of the brain, SEO uses the left side of the brain. SEO is more to do with the logic of words and how your blog is discovered when someone searches for the words included in your text.

My personal preference is to include keyword research after I’ve written and edited my draft text. This allows me to be passionate and creative first and add the SEO logic afterward. For me, this is the best of both worlds, there’s nothing more painful than reading an article that is clearly short of passion and wit and long on repetitive, painstaking keyword stuffing. If the writer is uninspired, how will the reader feel? Flat. Uninspired.

Having said that, you ignore SEO at your own peril! In a nutshell, these are some of the main on-page SEO tips to take into account, according to the experts on SEO - Search Engine Journal.

Search engines send out bits of code called spiders or crawlers. They follow links to build a search index and save the contents of a website in the search engine’s servers. From there, they are retrieved when someone searches for the keywords found in your blog.
Whether your blog gets favourable search results depends on E.E.A.T. That stands for Experience. Expertise. Authoritativeness. Trustworthiness.
The keywords in your blog must match the words your target audience will enter into the search bar on Google, Bing, or any other search engine.

Word Count

Word count is a hotly-contested debate amongst online writers and SEO experts. Search engines these days don’t necessarily reward long articles, meaning that the writer has to be an expert in making their point succinctly without missing the most important and relevant details.

My rule of thumb when blogging is to think about how much time my readers have. Considering everyone has a busy life and there’s a lot of information vying for their attention, it’s wise to keep articles within a five-minute read. This means writing blogs more frequently and not trying to cram everything into one blog post, but your readers will thank you for it.

Teach Something New

An often overlooked aspect of blog writing, or any type of writing, is the reader’s need to learn something new and useful and the writer’s need to share their expertise.

Teach something new so that your reader benefits from your writing and you’ve earned yourself a new fan. Over time, your fans will turn into clients or customers, possibly into suppliers, partners, associates, or even friends.

If you make this your main goal, your blogs will be imbued with the best ingredient - you!

Originally published on www.contentwritercy.com