How to Blog Effectively
What is your purpose for blogging? That is an important question – if you do not have a purpose it is a waste of time. For me there are 2 main purposes:
- To get information out to my readers
- To get my website ranked better in the search engines
You may have another purpose; just be clear on what that purpose is when you are writing your blog post.
Blogging Tips
- Blogging is nothing more than writing a focused article. Make sure your blog topic is very focused and do not try in include anything outside the scope of that focus. I have seen many people try to include to much. If you find yourself deviating from the topic then you have more than one blog post rolling around in your head. Keep it focused!
- Keep your blog concise. People so not have a great deal of time. Make your blog post easy to scan by your reader. Do not say any more than is necessary to get your point across. Writing concisely is a skill that you can develop.
- Use headers and lists. This is a great technique to help keep your blog focused and concise. It makes it easy to scan by readers and it really helps with your search engine rankings. Make sure your main keyword or a related keyword is in your headers. Start at the top with a heading 1, then the next will be a heading 2, etc. Think of this format like the outlines you learned in English class when you were in grade school.
- Include at least 1 image. Including images will break up your blocks of text and make your blog post easier to read. Another purpose is to get your blog post indexed in Google Images as well as the regular Google index. Some people search by images so be sure you are not excluding your blog from that index.
- Aim for 500 words. Every post needs to be at least 300 words but 500 seems to be the sweet spot for getting your blog posts indexed well. 500 words gives a search engine enough focused content to allow for indexing on the right keyword. It goes a long way to being an optimized post when it is around 500 words long. If you have substantially more than 500 words consider breaking it into 2 posts.
How to Create a Blog
Creating a Blog can be easy. If your website is already in WordPress, and you do not have a blog, then you just need to activate it within your dashboard. If you are starting from nothing and want a freestanding blog (not attached to a business website) then I would suggest using WordPress.com. You can get a free blog that is fairly easy to set up and use the tools they provide. There is a great deal of instructional videos on YouTube for using WordPress. I have a great deal of instructional videos on my YouTube Channel.
There are other blogging platforms available, like Blogger, LiveJournal, Tumblr, SquareSpace, Tinypress, and much more. I personally feel that WordPress has better search engine rankings than the other platforms – if everything else is equal.
When you get a great idea for a blog post, and you are in the middle of something else, use Tynt to save your idea for later.
If you follow these blogging tips then you too can create a very Effective Blog!
