4 Tips to Decide What and How to Write Blog Posts
This post has been inspired by Michelle Quillin of New England Multi Media who invited me to take part in the IC Publishing Summer Blog Tour. The focus is to 4 answer questions on how to write blog posts. I’ve gotten to know Michelle from Twitter and we actually got to meet in person last summer at an event at Allies Pet Store here locally in Rhode Island.
The 4 How to Write Blog Posts – Tips from Start to Finish
1. How do you start to write blog posts? I need to be inspired by a topic. It has to be something I really want to share and that I hope will help my readers. Sometimes its a new thing I learned about on social media, blogging or SEO. I’ve learned over the years not to assume everyone knows about everything. I’ve done a few posts and many readers commented that they never heard of this or that.
My writing process starts with a title. (Opposite of how Michelle starts her posts – hint to read her post). A title is not always easy for me to come up with when deciding how to write blog posts. It’s one of the harder things to do in writing blog posts. I then look for images. That can take some time. I’ve been more picky finding images as time goes on. The use of Pinterest is a great way to get your blogs posts out there when you have great images. I then do research on a topic. I want to be sure I fully understand the topic so I can answer questions that come in the comments. If it’s a topic I can’t grasp I ask for contributors to write about it.
Other times I’m inspired by causes. Something that will help other people. A cause that will benefit readers or help them not suffer from something others are suffering from. When I’m inspired and writing time flies by and I sometimes forget about eating and sleeping.
2. How do you continue your writing projects for blog posts? I re-read and sleep on writing blog posts. In the beginning days of my writing blog posts I could not wait to publish. I would usually publish on that day. Not anymore in most cases. I like to re-proof and rethink the post. Sometimes I will go back and add more – either in words or images. Sometimes I will go back and change the title. I may do more research. I don’t write as much for SEO anymore. I’ve found it becoming less important in traffic this year. I do have the Yoast plug-in which I still highly recommend. Some days if I feel I don’t have enough information in the post and I will do more research. Sometimes I’ll tweet questions out or ask them on the Inspire to Thrive Facebook Page.
3. How do you finish your blog posts? I re-read and see if there is anything else I can add to the post. Can I make it better? Is it easy to read? Will my readers learn something or benefit from it? I do proof with a spell check website and then re-read the post on my mobile phone. That’s how I write blog posts here at Inspire to Thrive. I’d love to know how you write your blog posts and which activity you do first.
4. Include one additional tip to benefit the collective communities: My one tips would be this: Get involved with other bloggers. Get to know them, comment on their blogs. If you really like blogging and getting to know people you will naturally make friends along the way. Friends do help each other out. I love when a friend from blogging will email me or send me a DM on Twitter of a mistake on my post. Even with using spell check some errors do happen still every now and then. I don’t stress about them anymore like I did in the earlier days. That’s what the update button is for, right?
I’m passing the pen on to ALi Lawrence - Ali is a content specialist for a tech company and enjoys cooking in her apple-red kitchen, binge reading fantasy books, and playing tennis in her free time. You can visit her blog here.
What is your process on how to write blog posts at your blog?
It’s interesting to read how some writers / bloggers do things differently when writing their blog posts.
A special thank you to Michelle for inviting and inspiring me to write how to write blog posts as part of the IC Publishing Summer Blog Tour!
