Many of you reading this have your own personal blog or write blog posts for others but have you really thought about what makes an interesting blog post?
It takes a lot of work to become a successful blogger today. You need to show perfect and unique writing in every update, otherwise people will just ignore your content. But how to write an interesting blog post? Here you’re about to find the answer. Keep reading.
What makes an interesting blog post?
Story
Stories can easily attract attention. By telling a story, you will make your content more interesting. It takes just short, simple stories to take your blog posts to the next level.
First Person
It’s no secret that first-person writing sounds more natural and attractive. So, you will want to say, “I know a great place to eat ramen” instead of “David is aware of a great ramen place”.
Foreshadow
Foreshadowing is important to spark excitement and curiosity. Rather than revealing the whole plot, you can set your readers up for what’s about to come.
Transition
A transition helps you change directions smoothly, thus allowing your reader to prepare for moving from one topic to another.
Be crystal clear
When it comes to blogging, clarity is crucial. You should say what you need to say, use the right words properly, and reduce distracting stuff. Don’t try to be more interesting by sacrificing clarity, because clarity itself is what actually makes a blog post interesting.
Don’t be too long or too short
A long blog post is good, but if it’s longer than what you need to say, it will be less interesting to read. Likewise if your post is too short that it doesn’t cover all the points you need to make, then it won’t be good enough.
Use short sentences
Short sentences are more attractive than the long ones. The reason is simple, your readers will get lost in long sentences.
Structure of a good blog post
Clear introduction
With a clear introduction, you’ll be able to map out what your blog post is about. Depending on the length of your content, a good intro usually contains no more than 100 words.
Headings
Headings make your post more interesting as it lets readers skim and return to the points that grab their attention most.
Compelling imagery
A picture is worth a thousand words, have you heard about this? With relevant imagery, your post will catch the eyes of your audience and give them a reason to keep reading.
Short paragraphs
Short paragraphs are powerful because they’re easier to read and digest, thus making the whole content more likeable.
Active voice
While most information has been written about before, you remain the owner of your content. So add your voice, opinions, and experiences to your post to make it unique.
Plain English
Instead of making your sentences long and complicated, you should keep them simple so that they’re easily understood.
Conclusion
Just like in an essay, a blog post needs a conclusion to sum up your content. Make sure it wraps all your important points up.
How long and what should it contain
According to experts, the best blog posts contain between 1500-2000 words. This is the ideal length of a high quality blog post. As for what it should contain, the answer is as follows.
Compelling headline
A blog headline should indicate what your content is about and make users want to keep reading. You can include emotional words in your headline to make it more eye-catching.
Interesting lead
The first paragraph of your post should be attention-grabbing, because you want it to convince users to read the next paragraph.
Informative body
The body is the most important part of your blog post. Therefore it needs to be engaging and informative. You can use it to tell a cool story, give helpful tips, establish your authority and develop a deeper relationship with your readers.
Effective call-to-action
A call-to-action is important for every blog post. You can ask visitors to leave a comment, read another interesting post on your blog, or check out a product or service you offer.
Examples of good blog posts
There are countless blog writing examples, below are among the best ones you can find on the internet.
1. Brilliant Business Moms
Brilliant Business Moms gives tips for mothers who want to be entrepreneurs and build a business while keeping a balanced family life.
2. RetroSupply Co.
RetroSupply Co. combines product content and editorial content in relation to design and art.
3. Bravely Go
For those who need personal finance advice, then Bravely Go is the blog to visit. It provides you with tips on saving, managing, and investing your money the proper way.
4. RenewedMacs
RenewedMacs contains tech advice on Apple devices. It also sells refurbished iPhones, Apple computers, devices, and accessories.
5. Path
Path publishes product photography and photo editing tips, as well as Photoshop tutorials to help businesses learn to edit the photos of their products.
What makes blog posts valuable
Relevant
The value of your blog post lies in its relevancy, so always write about something that matters to your audience.
Unique
Unique and original blog posts are considered valuable as they contain information that’s not found elsewhere.
Helpful
There’s nothing better than a helpful blog post that allows people to learn something new. It can answer a question or share tips on how to solve a certain problem.
Blog posts for SEO
SEO is one of the keys to successful blogging. Therefore you need to pay attention to the factors that make your blog posts strong in this aspect. Here are some tips for you.
1. Craft your content carefully
Think carefully about what you’re writing. What’s the purpose of your content? What question do you want to answer? Be clear about it. You can use search engines as a research tool to determine what people need and are looking for, and the right keyword you want to rank with.
2. Set up a structure for your article
A SEO-friendly blog post should contain a clear structure. In other words, it should have the following elements:
- Introduction
- Body
- Conclusion
Write a few sentences in each or the aforementioned sections to create a summary of your post.
3. Use headings and short paragraphs
Use eye-catching headings that include your target keywords, and keep your paragraphs short to improve readability and SEO.
4. Use related keywords
Include not only focus keywords, but also the related ones in your article; because search engines like Google love blog posts that contain synonyms and other relevant key phrases.
5. Link to previous blog posts
If you already have articles on the same topic as your new post, you should link to and from them. Internal linking is a great way to boost your rankings in Google.
6. Write regularly
If you publish high-quality content on a regular basis, visitors will keep returning to your blog; and so will Google Crawler. As a result, your position in the search results will rise and the popularity of your blog will increase.
I hope after reading this article you have all you need to know about what makes an interesting blog post and how to write one. Also, interesting blog posts that are optimized for SEO are even more valuable for yourself or those you are writing for. Happy blogging!