How To Write Engaging Blog Posts

In the past I’ve talked about how to survive a 30 day blogging challenge and what I learned from blogging everyday for 60s. Today I’m going to share tips on how to write more engaging blog posts. (Aka how to write blog posts for beginners.)

I’m going to start with a common mistake people make. That is believing that every single blog post they write must be 20 paragraphs long and perfect from the moment they start. That’s crazy, and totally unnecessary! Honestly, I don’t know many people who enjoy 18^th century style blog posts (as I call them.) You know posts that explain every tiny unnecessary detail. Don’t worry there is nothing wrong with one paragraph posts about a profound thought! If it only takes you that many words to get your point across all that matters is that your communicating your thoughts clearly.

So now let’s move on to some important things to keep in mind when writing posts. Here are two questions to ask while writing.

1. Who is my intended Audience? (For this post it’s new bloggers or people looking to improve their existing content)
2. What is the take away? Or what is the thing I want them to walk away with? (For this post I want to help people learn ways to improve their blogging skills)
3. (Optional but recommended) What is the value I’m providing my reader? (For this post specific tips to help the above-mentioned blogging skills)  

I’ve spent a lot of time researching this topic over the last few years and I also wanted to share some of the practical knowledge I have accumulated as well.

The first piece of advice is just start! I know it’s scary. But trust me it’s never the perfect time for anything truly important so you might as well just go for it and learn as you go and grow! Don’t wait till things are perfect because they never will be.

The second piece of advice is the value of adding a picture to your post. I found out a while back that when you add a picture to your post it increases the amount of time your readers spend on your page by a substantial amount. (I’m not always great about this one but I try whenever I can.)

And the Third simple but useful piece of advice I have is share your experiences. You are unique. You have done things and been places that a very small amount of the population of earth has ever and will ever do. So, share them and your perspective! Everyone loves a good story so don’t be afraid to genuinely share yours.