Are you a student struggling with content creation? Blogging is definitely one of the biggest trends in the schools of this century and even if it looks difficult right now, some clear guidelines and practice can make the whole process a lot easier. After all, the main purpose of these requirements is to teach you how to be more creative and professional.
Writing a blog is not the same as other types of writings and it takes more than a couple of minutes to plan and create. If you are in need of guidelines on how to do this, follow the tips below to understand what engaging blog content writing should consist of.
1. Creative title
The first thing people notice when reading a blog is the title. This is why the first step to writing a successful blog should always consist of thinking of a creative, engaging title that will entice the readers into clicking the post and reading it. People often make a mistake and focus more on the content while choosing a truly uninspired title. In this case, people will rarely be challenged to read the post, no matter how good the content is.
What should a blog title consist of? When writing a title for a blog, you must make sure to cover the key point of the story in just a few words. Do not create a simple title that solely represents the main idea. Try to make it more appealing by introducing phrases or even by making it in the form of question, while at the same time keeping all the important information in it.
2. A good headline
The headline of the text is the thing that people read after the title. This may sound strange, but people rarely sit down and read an entire blog if they are not intrigued by the beginning of it. They will most probably just scan trough the key points after reading the headline and then transfer to another blog and no blogger really wants this. If you want to make your headline work, you should focus on using keywords or a list-format. In this way, you can inform the readers about the area that your blog covers. Additionally, you may include some quotes or short phrases relating to the subject. Just make sure that the headlines are not much longer than the quotes and phrases.
The entire purpose in asking students to write headlines is helping them focus. If you manage to make your headline a combination of a few selected words that capture the blog's idea, you have managed to focus on the task.
3. Use of media
The photos you use in blogs should be subject-oriented and engaging. This is the main reason why teachers even started asking students to create their own media. But, even if this is not a part of the blog requirement in your case, you should not take media as an easy task. When choosing the right photo, try to focus on those that demonstrate dynamism and synchronism with the idea of your blog. And most importantly, pay attention to external sources' photos. You cannot use a photo for which you do not have the rights to use.
4. Scannable and findable context
One of the most important and perhaps most difficult tasks in creating a blog is the SEO optimization and the task of making the blog scannable. What do these two mean?
For a blog to be scannable, you have to ensure that the readers find the text easy to scan and digest. Let's face it: not everyone is going to read your blog with full attention and entirely from point to point. People tend to scan trough texts and this is why you have to try and make this easier for them. This can be done by using short paragraphs, subheadings, different sections, direct quotes and capitalized words for the most important points.
When speaking of findable posts, as a new blogger, you have to make sure that you know what SEO optimization means. The posts should be easy to detect when looking for a subject online and this is why making a post findable is a very important thing that a student has to learn. For this purpose, you could add links to similar texts, tag thematic keywords and try to use keywords with the right density.
5. Punctuation and grammar
If you wish to succeed as a student blogger, you have to pay attention to the grammar and punctuation of your blog. Readers can easily be disappointed from a writer that did not take the time to scan trough the text and do a spell check prior to posting it online.
Another way to make sure that the text is error-free is to use peer evaluation. Editing and review of your drafts before you publish them online is a great idea for you as a student and any blogger in general.
6. Love what you are writing
Having blogging as your career means that you cannot always write about things you love. When writing professionally, you will be given guidelines on what to write and when to write it. As a student, you have the chance to blog about things that you find interesting and are more informed in and you should not miss the opportunity to express them. Having your own blog as a student often allows you to write about things you are passionate about and this makes the whole writing process more interesting and easier.
The guidelines above are our six pro-blogging tips for you as a new writer in the blogging world. Being a student nowadays often requires good writing and researching skills and having this in combination with dedication and creativity can help you even turn blogging into a successful career in the long run. If you are a student that does not know how to begin blogging and do this properly, try and follow the tips above and see if they can help you become a successful blogger.
