Five Tips to Write a Successful Blog Post

A blog post is worthless if the reader clicks off after reading a few sentences. But with nothing more than a few paragraphs of text, how can a writer truly connect with an audience? Often, through improving their blogging style, decent writers can transform into amazing writers and build audiences that keep coming back for more. These tips will help writers kick their blog writing skills up a notch, making them better able to connect with their target audiences.

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Improve the Tone

Blogging is an excellent medium to connect with an audience, yet it can also be greatly abused by those who know nothing about writing. Because anyone with basic computer skills can put up a blog post, readers often find poor writing and are turned away from a particular post. Bloggers who want to make a good first impression on their readers can do so through well-crafted pieces. Those who need additional help to hone their writing skills can consider taking online classes in creative writing.

Proofread, Proofread, Proofread!

One simple typo can turn a blog post from something informative and helpful to something laughable. Proofreading may seem tedious, and it’s certainly not the most exciting part of the writing process, but it must be done. Bloggers need to proofread everything they post at least twice, and they may want to have someone else read through it once as well to be certain they have caught everything.

One way to proofread more successfully is to read the post out loud. Often, when a writer reads his or her work aloud, or has someone else do so, poor wording or confusing sentence structure pops off of the screen. Blog posts should be conversational and easy to understand, so reading them aloud can shed light on sections of text where the wording is awkward and detracts from the message.

Create a Killer Opening Sentence

Internet readers often skim an article to determine its worth before actually reading it. The opening sentence of a blog post needs to hook the reader. A great lead sentence will compel the reader to read the entire post. A good opening sentence will ask a question, use a statistic, present a quote, make a claim or tell a story. Spending time on that opening sentence is always a wise idea when writing a blog post.

Write Short Paragraphs

Blog writing is different than academic writing in that readers have different expectations. When writing a paper for a college professor, long, carefully crafted paragraphs are expected. This is not the case with blogging.

Readers prefer short, crisp paragraphs. Now, this doesn’t mean the paragraphs shouldn’t be structured well. It does mean, however, that the paragraphs need to be short and to the point. This also helps make the article easy to scan, which is beneficial to online readers.

Part of the reason this is important is that reading on a screen is harder on the eyes than reading on paper. Whereas a reader might be willing and able to persevere through a long paragraph in print, online it just serves to make the reader feel tired. This often translates into the reader clicking away from the blog post.

Focus on One Topic

Blog writing is a bit more informal than other types of writing, but that can be detrimental. Bloggers can too easily slip into rambling, and a long-winded, aimless post is boring to read. Writers who keep their posts focused on one particular concept or main thought will have a better chance of connecting with their readers.

When it comes to writing a blog post, clarity and brevity will keep readers interested. Add to that a grammatically accurate post that is thoroughly proofread and has a winning opening sentence, and the writer will succeed in connecting with the reader within just a few paragraphs of text.

Lindsey Harper Mac is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in writing guest posts on social media and education on behalf of Colorado Technical University. Currently, Lindsey is completing work on her master’s degree.

13 thoughts on “Five Tips to Write a Successful Blog Post”

  1. Blogging is good for anyone, who is looking a job for him/her. One can earn decent income from writing unique content for blogs.

  2. I love the ideas of creating a killer first sentence and proofreading. These are great ways to get and keep the readers interested.

  3. Hi Lindsey,

    Great article. A killer opening sentence and short paragraphs are really helpful to attract and hold the readers’ attention.

    One more I want to emphasis on is ” Article Heading “. A compelling and nicely crafted article heading means Job 1/2 done!

    Thanks.

  4. Good tips Lindsey. Writing a good and successful article is very important. Or you can say writing a article that becomes successful is very important. And you have mentioned the main 5 points that one must note Proofreading is one of them. I completely agree that Proofreading is very important and avoiding any minor mistakes can raise the standard of your blog and take it to the next high level.

  5. Lindsey Harper Mac

    Aditya- YES! do proofread!
    SEObloggingtips- I agree with you. Deviating from topic happens but I think taking short 2 min. breaks to get back on track and free your brain for a moment can really help!
    Gautam- In my opinion, short paragraphs are very important. Dragging on within an article can really hurt the quality of your writing. During the editing process I always try to make sure I get rid of anything that deviates from the titles point. Give it a try! :)

    Thanks for the compliments!

  6. Writing Short Paragraphs is the best for attract the visitor. readers don’t like long paragraphs. so Write Short Paragraphs is i liked very much.

  7. seobloggerstips

    Hi Lindsey…..
    Congratulation for such a nice article.
    I am impressed with last point “Focus on the Topic”.
    This is very important point. most of the time we deviate from the original topic while writing and its give a bad impression on reader.

  8. Nice article:)
    Proof reading is must to write a successful post, you are right sometimes a single typo mistake can ruin the importance of your blog post.

  9. Thanks for your nice tips.its look easy and everyone can understand. Sure it will be useful for new users. the tips for creating snappy, eye catching headlines or titles never fail to catch reader ideas are very interesting.
    Regards,
    Jose

  10. Content is the KING! I know such a cliche..but it is also very true. If you want to be a succesful blogger then you should first of all make sure that you provide unique,valuable and interesting content to your readers. If you do that then you can be sure that people that will visit your blog it won’t be just for a post. To bring traffic on the other hand, use your social media. Share your content and through your account and use catchy texts and headlines to linkbait them :) Also social media and bookmarking sites will also add value to your SEO efforts.

  11. Andi the Minion

    Hi harpermac11 great post, I agree about the proofread, I have written a guest post that has been published, I read it several times and yet once it went live and read on the site I still managed to find a spelling error I missed. LOL It can be so easy to do. Great post, I look forward to reading more.
    Regards
    Andi

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