Anatomy of a Blog Post
Today, I’m going to do something special*… I’m going to let you in on how I put together a blog post.
This isn’t the way I always do it, but this is what usually works for me. This is what gets comments and retweets on twitter. And, if we’re being completely honest, isn’t that what we’re all going for here with the whole blogging thing? For just a few people to read it and love the things we have to say?
- So, I start out with something random witty. It doesn’t have to be a whole lot of words, we’re talking like a sentence here. Maybe add in a bold word or an italicized one, just for coolness.
- Then comes the graphic. I either draw it myself, or find some really great free clip art on the internet somewhere and jazz it up with Picnik.
Admittedly some days my graphics are better than others. What I love about picnik is that you can make a plain ‘ol picture tie perfect into your blog post, and I’ve got to where I can navigate it all pretty fast and know what I’m doing with it. In the beginning it took me a while, but now it’s quick and easy. I’m all about the quick and easy.**
- Now we get to the meat of the blog post. And by meat, we’re not talking like five paragraphs. Two, maybe three, if I really have a point I want to make. But, keep it quick. People have like 99 blogs in their feed readers, if you want them to read yours, then keep it under 500 words.
Anonymous sideline person: Did she just say 500 words? But we’re WRITERS? How can we do that.
You can do it anonymous sideline person. I promise. This is a classic case of less is more.
- Then, you need to wrap it up. You can do this a couple of different ways. One of my favorite ways is with a question to my readers. This gives them something to DO in the comments. (Which makes them more likely to LEAVE comments.) Or if I’m feeling particularly avant garde, then I finish it off with a witticism, a thought to ponder, a tidbit of knowledge, you know–something dorky.
- When you feel like you’ve built a great blog post, go back and make it better by adding some formatting. Nothing fancy, just a few bullet points, the occasional highlighted word, etc. People like things that catch their eye–hook them up.
- And finally, before you hit that publish button PREVIEW it. It takes two seconds, and can save you from going out to RSS feeds looking all craptastic.
Because, dude… nobody likes a craptastic blog…
*Okay, by special I mean not really all THAT special. Shut up.
**There’s no joke here, I just wanted to make you think I had one.
Have a Nice Day and Watch out for the Big Yellow Chicken.
Jamie Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
@Linda G., I did one earlier this week that was like 1,500 words long… spent HOURS on it and got like one comment… that’s when I did some word count research
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Linda G. Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
@Jamie, I will keep this in mind. Less is more, less is more, less is more… *grins*
.-= Linda G.´s last blog ..Me & St. Pat, we got a thing going on… =-.
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Jamie Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
@Linda G., it’s tough though… I even had to trim this blog post down… it was at like 550, which normally I’d do, but I was actually SAYING to keep it under 500 so I didn’t want to like NOT do what I said haha!
.-= Jamie´s last blog ..Anatomy of a Blog Post =-.
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