I am still a blogging newbie…been just over a year now, and I blog every day!
But there are few things I have learned on my journey, both through doing online courses such a Blog with Pip, or by exploring the vast amount of information in the internet.
This was my first post…you see how far things have improved since then!
For My Friday Five this week, I am listing some tips which have helped me to start on the learning curve of how to improve my posts…
1. Keep it short
I find that people just don’t have enough hours in the day to read through a really long essay…I know I don’t unless I am doing research.
It seems the suggested word count is between 500 – 1000…most of my posts sit around the 300 mark.
Some are much longer…for example this and this that I wrote about organ donation.
But the majority are somewhat short and sweet…as I write everyday, I don’t have the time to invest in long posts.
2. Keep it concise
Another thing to avoid is long paragraphs…if people are skim reading, they will skip over large blocks of text.
If you go through my posts, you will see I rarely have paragraphs longer then a sentence or two.
My style is to write almost in point form…allowing easy reading.
3. Photos
What they say is true….pictures are worth a thousand words!
Always use good quality photos, that add something to your post.
And one very important tip I picked up is to have your images all the same size/width. I didn’t do this at the start of my blogging journey, and those early posts just don’t look right now.
I set my pictures to always be the width of my template, whether portrait or landscape…although the majority of my pictures are landscape orientated.
And good quality doesn’t mean rushing out to buy an expensive camera…it’s about getting the best image you can out of what you have got.
A smart phone can take a fabulous photo, if used wisely
4. Link to related posts
This is very handy for assisting to “coax” a reader into your little corner of the world.
If they read one interesting post, they are likely to want more…so by having handy links can make it easier for them to explore your blog.
Having set categories can also be useful.
5. Spelling and grammar
This is a golden rule that some people forget…always check your spelling and grammar before publishing!
I have been guilty of this, even though I always get my husband to proof read for me…sometimes the both of us will miss something!
What other tips have you found useful when writing blog posts? Feel free to share in the comments below!