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.


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.

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.

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.

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.