Writing your first blog post

Writing my first blog post was the hardest thing I’ve written in a long time.  I agonized over it for days and all I can say is that I hit ‘publish’ for the first time and I’ve never looked back. In reality your first post soon disappears down your home page and into the archive. It’s taken me a few goes to find my feet with a writing style and I’m still experimenting, but in the end I just write like it is. The aim of my blog is to be informative, straight-forward and helpful so playful wit isn’t required… just as well really.

The aim of your first post is to introduce yourself and state why you’re starting your blog. Setting the scene – simple as that really. In terms of writing style just be yourself, there are some incredibly good writers blogging out there and some really are very charismatic and an absolute joy to read, but these are few and far between and there’s no point trying to be them.

The very basics of writing blog posts

Headlines: You have to start your post with a good headline, Copyblogger.com has a great series of posts on How to Write Magnetic Headlines and here’s an excerpt:

Your headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader. Without a headline or post title that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist.

Here are some interesting statistics.

On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of the headline, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.

Post Length: It’s hard to tell what makes the perfect post length but generally I make sure mine are long enough to cover the topic thoroughly but not overly verbose.  Copyblogger has a great article called 3 Things to Consider When Deciding How Long Your Blog Posts Should Be and here’s an excerpt:

There’s been a debate ever since blogging became mainstream about how long blog posts should be. Many bloggers may read one or two discussions on it, and try to conform to that – never revisiting the issue again for as long as they blog. This can be a mistake.

For a definitive answer, the following are three things to consider when you’re trying to decide how long your blog posts should be.

Posting frequency: This is also something that is hard to prescribe. At the moment I’m trying to post every day because my blog is new and it needs content. But once a blog is established you can post every other day instead. Of course this depends on the type of blog and the nature of the topic you’re writing about. Cobyblogger has this to say on Posting Frequency

The loose, industry-accepted rule seems to be that the more frequently you post, the shorter your posts should be – and vice versa.

Many people don’t have time to read mini books everyday, so shorter posts if you post every day would seem to make sense. And, you tend to garner more search engine juice as well, because you are constantly adding new content.

They do go on to say that you shouldn’t be afraid to turn this on it’s head so be sure to read the complete article for their full opinion. The Copyblogger site is full of information to help you get traffic, gain subscribers, attract links and sell something!