Blogging Best Practices: Structuring Your Posts Effectively

We hope you're enjoying our series of posts on Blogging Best Practices! Each Thursday for 10 weeks, we're debuting a new post designed to help you create great content, share it with the world, and become a better blogger. Check out other posts in the series here!

One of the best ways to make sure that your readers visit your blog again and again is by making sure that your posts are nicely and effectively structured.

• Title: You'll want to keep your titles somewhere between three to eight words in length. You should make sure to use words that not only pique your reader's interest, but also use key words that will help your page rank in search engines. Additionally, it's recommended to avoid using all caps and exclamation points whenever possible.
• Opening: If your title was interesting enough that someone read the first line, now's the time to really capture their interest and make sure they don't leave. Be bold. Challenge your reader to keep at it. You want to make sure that your content is something that they feel is relevant and interesting, otherwise it's possible you'll lose them as a reader.
• Body: You don't want to let up and lose your momentum, so make sure to keep up the pace. If there's something in your post that isn't needed, remove it. You might want to use headers for each new paragraph. This will create visual interest and also make the text easier to read.
• Close: The best and most important thing about your blog is that you're engaging more than just one reader - you're building a community. One way to do this is to make your blog interactive. Don't just finish your post with your own thoughts and feelings. Ask your readers what they think on a topic or if they've had similar situations in their lives. The more feedback that they give you, the more your community grows. To encourage this and keep the feedback coming in, make sure you reply to each comment. This can be to continue telling a story or just thanking someone for their opinion. This is a great way to get readers coming back again and again since everyone likes to feel that their feedback is appreciated.

Following all of these tips should help you make sure that your post is well-written and grow your blog's community at the same time.

What other tips do you have for writing a great post? Is there a guideline that you use when structuring your own?

Comments

[Pramod B Nair]

thank you for the valuable advise. As a newbie every bit helps me.

[Account Deleted]

Couldn't agree more. Some bloggers really could do with reading these tips, especially the first two.
One great tip I have learnt is to read your posts over and over again before publishing. Too many bloggers just write from their brain and press publish, you need to re-read it many times and edit and perfect it. The trick is to make it look like you wrote it in one go.

[Anastasia]

There's always room for improvement, I think, even for a great blogger - one reason why I like your series on Blogging Best Practices. With your valuable help, I'm sure I will become a great blogger one day...hopefully! What I do , almost invariably, is plan a post, then write it and, if I have time, I will proofread. If I spot a mistake after publishing my post, I always edit using strikethrough. However, there are times when I just face the compose page and start writing! Thanks a million for the great tips and advice.

[Henry Johnson]

Great tip. I'm also a new blogger but I start all my posts with a draft. I agree that having a structure and an organized format makes a blog more appealing. Even though blogging is personal to a great extent, you still have to write for your readers.

[Will_Edwards]

Great tips. I would add that formatting is very important for blogging. You need to strike the right balance between the inclsion of blocks of text and the use of white space.

http://www.monify.me

[eddie_justo]

Thanks for the good tips - I'm just starting out and it's vital I do it right

[Raaz]

Good......................

[Jerry Benson]

Thank you for this helpful hints to the best blog posts. Something that I am guilty of is having my titles too long instead of as you mentioned that they should be between three to eight words in length.

[Josema6]

Thank you very much for these valuable tips. It's important to expose one's idea very clearly. As writing is the first thing we see on a blog, I consider writing style is even more important than the story behind. I didn't use to think that way, but after having participated in some blogs for a while, I have begun to change my mind (comments or stories nicely exposed are always a joy to read, no matter what story or topic is behind).