How to Write and Format a Blog Post

This is about how to how to write and format a blog post.

I thought it was about time to share a few blog post writing tips for personal bloggers. Though often I chuck all these suggestions out of the window! Plus when I write business blog posts, they have noticeable important differences, which I won’t cover here.

Make your blog post more scannable!

It doesn’t matter how good your writing is, neither how interesting the topic, if the post isn’t well presented you will have reduced readers or none at all. The reality is most readers won’t spend long on your blog and there are techniques to help encourage a) reading of your post b) return visitors. Plus it hopefully will look pretty for google’s new screenshot preview mode.

It is important to find a style you are happy with and that doesn’t have to be set in stone. Often I find a topic or type of post dictates how I will write and format a post. At the end of the day, however good your blog post looks, content is king!

The writing process

– Have an intro, main section and conclusion.

Really a sentence for an introduction would be great, but often I get carried away and write a paragraph or two *cough* okay sometimes three covering background. Then chuck in the main section and have your conclusion. Why not invite comments also and ask questions. Often readers have great insight to share, that can improve upon your post and great for others to see and discuss.

– Write a draft post, make a cuppa, then come back and edit.

It is scary how much I remove when I edit my post after a break away. Sometimes passion and knowledge for a topic can cause havoc with a post. I often end up removing sentences and even paragraphs when I edit a draft post.

– Have a word target in mind!

A typical post should be 250 to 400 words. I regularly go over this when writing personal posts! Nightmare! When I do, the layout tips help. You could consider breaking a long post into a series and recommend users subscribe to follow.

Layout tips

• If a long post break up with headings.
• Also break up long posts with bold centred sentences, highlighting a key fact or point.
• Use resized optimized photos to either fill a post, make the post more appealing or draw people to a section.
• Use bold, italic and underline to highlight important areas.
• Use bullet points (unordered lists) or ordered lists to help break up the post.

The Conclusion

So there you have some blog tips to help you along. What do you think? Please leave your tips and feedback below.