Guidelines for new bloggers

Writing a blog can be a daunting task. People today are selective and judgmental under the cloak of anonymity the internet provides. There are several ways to create a good blog or good content and it is not a completely hopeless task. You must start with one of the most difficult choices you will make concerning your blog. You have to choose what kind of blog it will be! There are many kinds of blogs out there that range from travel blogs to the blog of a housewife and what she cooks at home. Your blog needs one topic to keep it focused and also grab the interest of people who may come across it.

This also makes it easier to find your blog! If you are a travel writer, anyone who is looking for travel blogs can find your blog and will be very interested. Having a blog with content that varies makes it harder for people to relate to your blog and they lose interest when something they don’t like is posted. If you absolutely cannot decide on a topic, it is a wise idea to at least separate the content by pages.

Once you have chosen the direction you want your blog to go in, you must provide the fuel for it to get there! You must write and post things for people to read. Obviously the things you post must be at least slightly interesting but in the end you post what you want. Some good advice would be to keep things short! A blog filled with long posts is intimidating and most people will not be too interested so it is a good idea to keep your posts under 4 paragraphs. This does not mean you can’t post something that is longer,  it is just not a good idea to do it all the time. If you want your blog to be more informational, that is ok too! It is your blog and if the content is good, people will read it.

Pictures are also another important part of a good blog. They draw people’s attention and help your blog look nicer. If your blog is more informational, pictures and diagrams help readers understand what you are writing about and help you get your point across. One thing that is not a good idea is to post only pictures. That kind of blog is not going to draw regular interest and there are plenty of sites specifically dedicated to sharing that ‘no filter’ selfie you took this morning or the picture of the mediocre food you just ate. if you want to stand out from the hundreds of thousands of blogs already out there, then you need to have some interesting written content too! It is all about balance.

One important thing to note is that a little humor can go a long way! If you post something funny to your blog every now and then, you are bound to get some readers. A blog can be deep and meaningful or incredibly accurate and informative, but that will not always draw readers in. If someone thinks a blog is funny, they are more likely to show it to people they know and come back to read more. This does not mean every single thing you post has to be insanely hilarious. Think of humor as a spice. just a pinch of funny in your blog can make it taste a whole lot better. Adding humor is not that difficult either.

You can give your articles funny titles so they draw people to read them. You can give your pictures funny captions or mess with them in paint or Photoshop to make them look silly. You could also just write a funny post every once and awhile to keep readers happy. In the end it is all you. Your blog is written by you and only you decide the direction it goes in. Just be yourself and write what you want! It is also important to keep trying. it could be a long time before you get a lot of followers so don’t get discouraged. People can’t like a blog that you stop writing.

Dan Ripoll is co-founder and CEO of Content BLVD, a crowdsourced content marketing platform enabling bloggers to publish more content and grow their audiences. This is achieved by connecting authoritative bloggers to a crowd of top notch contributors offering high quality, informative content.

Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net