Blogging to me is easy. It’s like a maths equation and I have the answer and it’s so easy to solve.
Think for a second. Your on Google and you looking for something, for example, lets say your searching Low Alkaline Foods.
What do you want to see? An article helping you or an article that is written poorly?
Michael, that’s a silly question. Actually it’s not. Because the majority of bloggers write the crap posts and not the great posts.
Your so busy trying to make money from people, you forget the whole point of blogging. The whole point of you writing and people visiting your site is to deliver value, to help them in the way they need helped. If you article is all about you getting paid and ranking will in Google, you will not get anywhere. Google is to smart and people are quick to decide if a website looks like it’s going to help them or not.
Not only that but your most likely writing about a subject you have no right to write about. It’s like this industry, the ‘make money online’ niche. People want to make money online, they see me doing it and so they create a similar blog about how to make money from websites. The problem is, they don’t know anything about it, they probably think they do because they have installed a blog and once, one of their posts got 30 Facebook likes but the reality is, I’ve had millions of people visit my sites before I started this one and so it’s quite clear I know something. You on the other hand haven’t, this is probably your first site and you are simply re-writing things you just learned and don’t yet fully understand.
This applies to all niches, not just the make money online niche.
The above paragraph reminds me of myself and how I failed big time at school. I didn’t fail because I wasn’t clever and could not read/write. It was because I didn’t take the time to learn the subject.
The first 429 words of this article were written in under 5 minutes. That means I’m writting at a rate of around 1000 words every 10 minutes. Most blog posts are around 1000 – 2000 words long, at least the majority of the good ones. I hear university students complain that it’s going to take them forever to write 2ooo words. It’s going to take you that long because you don’t yet understand the subject. If you were told to write about your life, you could write about it at the same speed I write this post. Because you fully understand it, as you live it.
This isn’t the case with most blog owners. They don’t know enough about what they write about. The point of me telling you this is because you need to firstly know what you are talking about before you try to teach other people.
My bro is great at writing about photography. Why? Because he’s been doing it for years. If I was to spend a week with him learning how to take great shots and then try to write about the subject. It just wouldn’t happy. I won’t of grasped it. Every time I would go to write about something, I would have to firstly research and confirm what I was writing was right.
So how can you start writing successful posts?
1. Read The Introduction
The above introduction isn’t going to be read by most of you. Go back, read it. This applies to so many people it’s crazy. I have friends who start blogs and wonder why 3 months down the road, they still get 10 visitors a day and are not making any money. It’s because they suck at writing which is mostly a result of sucking at the subject they write about.
2. Work Out What You Rock At
You rock at something. I’m really good at computer games, probably because I now do it for a living as my blog is on autopilot. I’m also really knowledgeable about health and food, I’ve spent the last 2 years testing things on myself. This would work amazingly as a blog. Giving all my feedback on what’s worked and what hasn’t. The point is, I could talk about it because I’ve lived it. Find something you could write about that you have lived.
3. Learn How We Want To Read
I’m no expert at writing but I do know how to write posts that get crazy amounts of traffic. It’s simple, people want to read great content. It’s not just great content though. I find the most successful way to lay out content, is to make it easy to scan. People don’t want to read fluff, they want to see 1000 words and know instantly that the top 10 alkaline foods are. Not to read 1000 words to find out something they could of done in 100 words. However it’s not that simple…
This is how you do it. Example of part of a post:
1. Lemons are Alkaline
They have all these amazing benefits, this is also great information you may want to know.
Repeat 9 times.
So basically it’s two ways in one. One way so people can skim and find the 10 alkaline foods and another way which has more information on each food for those who want all the information. You see, for the majority of people, they just want to know which foods to buy at the super market, however, their is a percent that want more. A lot of people would think lemons aren’t alkaline and would judge your whole article on the fact that, they don’t want to take your word for it. The paragraph that comes after it explains why in fact it is and how to add it to your diet to improve your alkaline/acid balance.
4. Check Over Your Writing
I suck at spelling and grammar. But I make an effort. No doubt somewhere in this article I have made a mistake. Probably many mistakes. But I’ve made a good effort to make it easily readable.
It’s really obvious when someone hasn’t read what they have written. This spoils the article because someone is trying to read it and they keep getting stopped to work out what you meant by what you wrote. A great example of someone who needs an editor is Daily Mail Online. I read their site often, it’s a great way to distract yourself from work. Often I find myself working out what they have written, I also notice in the comments, I’m not alone in the frustration of reading their articles. I presume these articles are written by interns or outsourced to country’s where English isn’t their first language. Getting either of these people to write isn’t the problem, the problem is that the editor doesn’t take the 5 minutes to go over an article before they hit publish, that’s the problem!
5. Call It Something Exciting
When I Google, I always choose the sites that wrote top lists about the subject? Why? Because it saves me time and it’s easy to digest. You already know that because I’ve wrote over a 1000 words about it already. But the point is, 10 Top Alkaline Foods stands out more than Top Alkaline Foods. I think this is because you know what your going to get, unlike the other post which could be one of those dreadful content posts that I can’t skim.
Putting that aside, It’s also so important for marketing your article. A great title, makes people want to read. You most likely have bought a book just by judging the front cover, the same applies to a post title. Here’s a few suggestions for post titles.
- Top 20 Ways To Include More Alkaline Foods In Your Diet
- 20 Most Influential Alkaline Food Bloggers
- 10 Ways The Alkaline Diet Will Make You Healthier
- 7 Steps To Going Alkaline in 7 Days
- 4 Tip To Help You Feel Healthier Today and Every Day From Now On
Hope this gives you something to think about. Let me know in the comments how your going to improve your next blog post.
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