We not only get this question from clients and prospective clients but we are also asking ourselves this question on a routine basis. “What makes a good blog post?” Now that’s a difficult question and it’s very hard to nail down one specific answer so here are a few ideas floating around in my little head right now:
1) You need to connect. The reader needs to feel like you really get it. You understand what they want to read and need to read. Connecting involves both timing and content. If I write a blog about Danica Patrick driving in her first NASCAR race – that’s a great blog to one audience – it’s totally irrelevant and stupid to another. Don’t forget timing – if I write that blog six weeks after she runs her first race at Daytona – it is much less likely that I’ll connect with anyone.
2) It should be a conversation. We are not trying to score points with spelling and grammer. I’m sorry. I hate to be the person to let the cat out of the bag on this one. Unless you are writing a blog about American Literature – this just needs to be a conversation – I want to feel like the blogger is talking to me. So they miss a dangling participle or use too many adjectives – the people that care can use your blog as an example in their blog.
3) You must deliver content. If you have great content – you will have readership. I don’t care what the blog looks like – they will come back. If you have bad content – nobody is coming back. Take the time (and it does take time) to develop some really good content that people will be interested in reading.
4) You must have original content. I’m sure that somewhere in cyberspace there are other blogs discussing this same subject. I can guarantee that my content is original. I could have written a paragraph and then linked over to one of these other blog posts – you wouldn’t come back.
I know – this list is short and probably incomplete – take what you need from it…and leave us your suggestions and comments at the end of this blog.
If you are blogging – my advice to you is this: Stop trying to do all of the technical things right. Quit worrying whether or not you have the best WordPress Plugins – stop loosing sleep over how many times you posted to your blog last week. We can get to those things later – in the meantime you should be developing a following of folks who like what you have to say.
Take a moment and comment. Jot down your thoughts on what you just read. We love reading comments.
Dennis Lynn
Social Media Dudes
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The only thing in this post that I am not in 100% agreement with is velocity of blog posts. I always talk to our clients about consistentcy. If you write 5 posts this week and then don’t write anything for 2-3 weeks, you won’t every build up a readership! Your readers get conditioned to buy products and they also get conditioned about how many posts they expect from you.
Get some discipline. And then set it and forget it. You don’t think about breathing. Don’t think about writting. Just write SOMETHING! You will get better over time. Overall this post is 100% right on!
I totally agree that the velocity of blog posts are important – but – this article was about “What makes a good blog post”. I believe that bloggers – particularly new bloggers – should focus their attention on the process of writing a good post first – as they get more accustomed to their own process they can begin to explore all of the strategies and tactics for creating a good blog. Developing a good blog is totally different from writing a good blog post.
Having spouted all of that – I do take the point to heart – if you are going to develop a successful blog strategy – a huge part of it will be about the frequency of your posts – the more you post – the more successful you will become. No doubt.