Instigator Blog

There’s no magic formula for writing a blog, mostly because there are so many kinds, and different ways of approaching blog writing; which is what makes the blogosphere such an interesting place. The personal journal lives on, but we’ve evolved the blog format to help us get news, insight, how-to guidance and so much more. So what one person considers an outstanding blog post might be considered fairly uninteresting to someone else.

The most important thing to remember is that “outstanding” is in the eye of the beholder. What makes a blog post outstanding anyway? Is it the traffic you get from it? The number of comments? How it makes you feel? Links? What it makes you think about?

All of the above, really. I often receive very little feedback from some of the posts that I consider my best. Other times, posts I thought were so-so, receive tons of attention. I suspect that happens to a lot of bloggers.

Nevertheless, the key is to write to the best of your ability each and every time. And more importantly, to always be learning, experimenting and improving. With that in mind, here are the 5 steps I go through when trying to write the best blog post possible.

1. Think in Bite-Sized Chunks. Part of this is being in the Blogger Mindset at all times, where you’re always thinking about experiences or ideas in your life that could be written about. But it’s also a good way of tackling the actual writing. Don’t write in huge chunks, about huge ideas, in huge amounts of time. Crystallize your thoughts. Crystallize your writing. Keep it small and concise. Go after the headline first — which is a great way to think in bite-sized chunks, because headlines are shorter than the posts they precede.

   I try and think in “list format.” That might sound silly, but when I’m thinking about something, I break it down into a list in my head. That doesn’t mean every post I write is a list, but it helps structure ideas clearly. (And lists aren’t a bad way to write either!)

2. Write in Your Head. Get in the habit of writing blog posts in your head. If you sit down to write a blog post and you haven’t thought through the key points, introduction, ending, etc. you’ll probably be sitting at the computer longer than you have to. Trying to write full posts in your head is pretty difficult, and you don’t want to lose anything in there amongst all the other marbles rolling around, so get your ideas out quick, but let them percolate too.

   The more you write inside your head the better the writing comes out.

3. Edit On-The-Fly. Take breaks while writing a blog post, save a draft (don’t forget to save!) and go back to read what you’ve written. I like editing blog posts that aren’t finished. It gives you a chance to make sure you’re still on track with your original plans, and fix the details as well. Some of that nitpicky editing will help you finish up the blog post; by improving the remainder of your writing. You may also see that you’re heading in the wrong direction - off on a tangent - or losing your original message.

   Never stop editing, until you hit “publish.” (Even then, you can still edit.) Edit with broad strokes: “Am I saying what I really wanted to say?” And edit with a fine-toothed comb: “Is that word really necessary?”

4. Connect the Dots. Blogs need a lot of continuity of thought and subject matter to attract repeat business. If one day you’re talking about how to train a dog and the next day you’re talking about politics, never going back to the subject of dogs, you’ll attract an audience but not a community. Repeat visitors create a community. So it’s important to connect the dots between your blog posts.

   I often do this while writing and during the editing process. I’ll see some keywords in my blog post, remember something I wrote previously, look it up and link the posts together. I do this to link to other blogs as well. Use Google Blog Search (or your RSS Reader) to find information on your subject matter, read some of the posts, and find some worth linking to. Integrate those links into your post.

5. Check Your Headline Again. The #1 biggest mistake bloggers make is they write bad headlines. They put their heart and soul into an outstanding blog post only to lead with, “My ideas on life.” Um…yawn?

   Great headlines are so absolutely important I can’t emphasize this point enough. And it’s why I always re-read and re-think my headline before publishing anything. Some bloggers think headline writing is only important if you’re trying to attract lots of traffic from search engines or digg. That’s wrong. Flat out wrong.

   Going back to the headline also gives you a chance to re-think your blog post. Suddenly you come up with a great headline and realize you can rearrange some elements of your post, adjust it, add a bit or take something away. It’s your last chance to edit and refine your blog post to perfection.

Writing the best blog posts possible is a combination of mechanics and inspiration.

Take your inspiration and passion, and add layers of mechanics - good copywriting, strategic linking, etc. Inspiration and passion without good mechanics leads to a lot of ranting. Good mechanics without any passion leads to a lot of boring content. The best blog posts come from writing through inspiration with skillful precision.

I wrote this in part because I was bloggy tagged. Click the graphic above to see who tagged me!

Since I’m already in the process of coordinating a group writing project - The Ultimate Guide to Productivity - I won’t confuse the matter with more tagging. But anyone can pick this up and say they were tagged by me. Just read the rules first.

Very few people write headlines for search engines.

Very few people write headlines for digg.

Even FEWER people write headlines for people.

Many people think the purpose of writing better headlines is for search engines or sites like digg. It can be. There’s no denying the importance of search engines for long-term traffic growth, or the opportunity of social bookmarking sites like digg to drive thousands of visitors to your blog very quickly. But great headlines will work for search engines, digg and your audience.

And what bloggers are missing is that their audience wants better headlines.

Here’s why:

1. There’s an insane amount of content out there. And we’re putting more online by the second, not less. People need more and more ways to differentiate worthwhile content from stuff they’ll skip. A great headline is tops as a differentiator.
2. People’s attention is precious. You should value a person’s attention much more than you do, because as quickly as they give you a bit of it, they can take that attention away. Headlines grab attention. Their the single most effective way of grabbing attention. Content matters. Design matters. Headlines rule when it comes to getting noticed.

These two issues affect your blog’s success with PEOPLE - no matter how they find your blog - be it through a search engine, link, randomly or digg.

It’s not about search engines, digg, or anything other than people and how best to reach them, grab their attention and give them what they want.

The Headline Isn’t Secondary to the Content

Too often, people write great content but don’t focus whatsoever on their headlines. The headline is an afterthought - a necessity to publish a blog post - but not critical to it’s success. Wrong.

And this is wrong regardless of how you measure success - be it traffic to an individual post, traffic to your blog, digg, search engine pick up, comments, etc.

A headline is the doorway to your blog post. If it’s a great headline, you’ve opened the door wide open - a reader will walk through happily, devour your content and move to the next step: read more, comment, email you, sign-up via RSS. You’ve hooked them. And it’s not about being cheesy or fake. It’s just good copywriting.

5 Tips for Writing Great Headlines

The most important tip is to spend a lot more time and thought on headline writing. Learn how to do it. Check out what others recommend about writing great headlines. Study blog posts for their content and their headlines. Look at the list of “most popular posts” in my sidebar…

Here are 5 additional tips:

1. Be Descriptive. The biggest headline mistake is not being descriptive enough. If I don’t have an idea about the subject of your blog post from reading the headline, there’s a very good chance I won’t read it. Don’t worry if your post titles end up being longer. Many people seem to go for 2-3 word titles, which are very hard to make descriptive.
2. Use Powerful Words. A headline is a sales pitch. Every blogger is a salesperson, and your headline is the best tool you’ve got. Engaging, powerful words draw readers in. Think: Top, Free, How, Secret, You. Think about action words that encourage people to do something.
3. Be Personal. People need to feel like you’re speaking directly to them. Being more personal in a headline can help. An example: 5 Phrases You Never Want To Hear In A Presentation. Not 5 phrases someone else doesn’t want to hear, but 5 phrases YOU don’t want to hear. I’m talking to you.
4. Be Bold. More than the use of powerful, engaging words, being bold is about taking a stand with your headline. The headline is the perfect place to state an opinion. It’s the perfect place to make it clear that you’ve just written the BEST post ever on your subject matter. Be brave and claim ownership of something great.
5. Ask Questions. Question headlines work because they draw people in to get an answer. It’s a great format for a headline, but the same tips above still apply. Make the question as engaging, brazen, powerful and descriptive as possible. And answer it in your post…

Don’t Ignore Your Blog Post Headlines

Failing to write a great headline is tantamount to ignoring your audience. Even if your blog is extremely personal in nature, a journal only your friends read, and search engines or digg are not of real concern, it doesn’t matter. Great headlines are about people, whether you have an audience of 5 or 5,000,000.

Great headlines will help with search engines.

Great headlines will help with digg.

But those aren’t the reasons you should focus on great headline writing. Gaining advantages in search engines and digg are just benefits of writing great headlines for people.

You need to write great headlines to grow a successful blog.

“Put your best foot forward.”

“First impressions count.”

“Are you wearing clean underwear? What happens if you get hit by a bus and have to be taken to the hospital?”

Aside from the fact that your mother most likely uttered all of these to you at some point in your life, what else are these phrases telling us?

Yup, design matters.

Your blog is an extension of you. It’s your most powerful personal branding tool (short of yourself.) It says a ton about who you are, what you’re passionate about, what you believe in, etc.

You don’t want it to look crappy, do you?
In the world of blogging, content might be king, but design is at least the court jester. And we all know the court jester is really the one keeping things together.

You need to stand out.
Before I re-designed Instigator Blog I was using a nice WordPress template, but I hadn’t modified it significantly. And you could find plenty of other blogs that looked almost the same. What did that same about me? It certainly wasn’t helping me stand out. While I was thinking about re-designing the blog I spoke to a friend of mine on the subject, and he told me (paraphrasing), “Having a custom blog design is critical. You’ll be taken more seriously, and attract more readers.”

You shouldn’t fool yourself; first impressions do count.
A higher quality blog design will give a better first impression. There’s no doubt about it. And if it encourages even one person to click through and read a bit further - and get sold on the content - then it’s worthwhile.

You shouldn’t push design to the backburner.
Design often gets pushed to the side because it’s so easy to design a basic blog. With WordPress there are countless themes you can use instantly - and with almost no modifications (or design talent) you can setup a blog. That’s a great thing because it gives everyone - regardless of technological know-how - the opportunity to express themselves. At the same time, when you want to take your blog to the next level: think design.

It’s never too late.
The beauty of blogging is that you can always change things, experiment and see what works. This holds true for copywriting, social networking and your blog design. You might start by changing some basic colors in a WordPress theme or moving things around in a sidebar (which can have a big impact) and eventually get into more sophisticated changes. You may choose to hire a blog designer to help out (there are plenty out there - if you want recommendations, feel free to ping me.)

Your blog’s design should be important to you. It reflects more than you might realize on you and how you’re perceived by others. You should always want to put your best foot forward.

Design matters.

You’ve launched your new blog…now what?

You want to share your ideas with the world. You want to make a name for yourself. You want to stand out. You want to have some fun too, learn a bit and leverage blogging in other aspects of your life (both personal and business.) All true? Then get ready…

Here’s a list of 10 things to do after you launch your blog:

1. Write 10 Posts. Before you really start promoting your blog, write at least 10 posts. You should have launched with at least 3-5, so you’ve only got a handful more to go. By writing 10 or more posts at the beginning, you’ve created a rich enough content experience to keep someone interested. Plus, you’ve given Google a chance to find you, and some blog directories won’t add you without that amount of content. It will feel like you’re blogging into a vacuum, but don’t worry about it. Get 10 quality posts out the door, then keep going through this list.
2. Link Smartly. In the early stages of your blog you should be linking to people to grab their attention. Target people you want to connect with. Find blogs in your field of interest and link to them heavily. Don’t worry about getting links from the uber-popular blogs or A-listers - there are a million bloggers out there that will be happy to check out your stuff and link back. You need that foundation of reciprocal links to grow your blog’s popularity.
3. Add Your Blog To Site/RSS/Blog Directories. There’s a huge (and constantly updated) list at RSSTop55 Best Blog Directory and RSS Submission Sites but that list is completely overwhelming. A much smaller list can be found in this blog post The 23 Most Critical URLs Where You Should Submit Your Blog or Feed. I would also suggest Blog Catalog.

   You don’t need to go crazy adding your site to a million places - but it can’t hurt. Do 10 a day, every couple of days, for a few weeks as the blog develops. More important, make sure you’ve got a sitemap and it’s submitted to Google Webmasters, since Google rules the day and having your content easily found via search is critical.

4. Get Out And Comment. You might have already been commenting on other blogs, but more than likely you stayed in lurker mode, without a blog of your own to point people to. That’s now changed. Increase the amount you comment - leave intelligent, meaningful comments on blogs you’ve targeted for attention - and you’ll start to create a powerful spiderweb of contacts.
5. Setup TheGoodBlogs Widget. This is a great widget for your sidebar. It’s a dynamic blogroll of related content from other blogs. In the early stages of your blog it’s a great way of finding worthwhile, relevant content. You want to find that stuff so you can check it out and interact with other bloggers. Visit TheGoodBlogs for more details.
6. Setup MyBlogLog Widget. MyBlogLog is a popular blog community where you can promote your blog through a network of contacts. It’s easy to setup and has a few worthwhile features. First, it shows you which other MyBlogLog members are visiting your site (which is fun + interesting.) It also has some basic stats (such as visits / popular clicks on your site) and will help drive traffic. MyBlogLog is a useful way of connecting with people online, so it’s worth doing when you launch your blog.
7. Change Your Email Signature. Make sure your email signature includes your blog address. If you’re using FeedBurner you can use their Headline Animator to produce a cool little graphic at the end of your emails. It looks like this:

   

8. Learn About Social Bookmarking Sites. Early on, the most effective social bookmarking/news sites will be StumbleUpon. It’s less important to write great linkbait for StumbleUpon users, and although you may not get thousands upon thousands of visitors instantly, with a bit of work you could see a few hundred per day quite quickly. Tamar Weinberg has some worthwhile instructions on StumbleUpon - How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide.

   Digg is the king of social bookmarking sites. Make it to the front page of Digg and you’re looking at 10-60,000 unique visitors. But getting there isn’t so easy. And until you’re really comfortable writing (and writing great linkbait) it’s not worth the effort.

9. Get People To Comment On Your Blog. A blog looks so much more alive when people are commenting on it. This is a big reason why you see “Most Recent Comments” promoted so heavily at the top of sidebars - people like to see other people commenting. There are some ways to write blog posts to get more comments, but you’ll also want to encourage your friends and contacts to participate. Get your buddies out of lurker status quickly and others will follow.
10. Learn How To Improve Your Blogging. Being a blogger means you’re always learning and improving. There’s no end to the road, it just keeps on winding along. There’s no shortage of high quality blogs out there about blogging. You’ll want to check these religiously. You’ll probably print quite a few posts out and pin them up near your desk.
    • copyblogger
    • ProBlogger
    • Successful Blog
    • Daily Blog Tips
    • Andy Beard

    Part of learning is experimenting. Don’t be afraid to try new things quickly. Mix up your style of posts, test out new headlines, write lists, move things around in the sidebar. The beauty of blogging is that you can make so many changes - and if something doesn’t work, change it back.

It doesn’t matter where your blog starts. It will be a bumpy few months as you get a handle on what you’re doing, experiment, and connect with your growing community. Everyone looks back at their start in blogging and chuckles at all the blog mistakes they made.

Don’t stress out about stats. It’s not worth it, and although it’ll be tempting to obsess over them at the beginning, it can also be demoralizing to see less visitors than you expected. Traffic will always go up and down, you’ll see big spikes and maybe even big drops. Since there’s no end to the blogging game, the fluctuations at any given time in your traffic numbers aren’t important - it’s the trend that matters. And since you just started there’s no real trend. So don’t worry about it.

Have fun and be prepared for a significant emotional and time investment. Blogging is easy. Blogging successfully is another story. It takes a time investment to blog successfully. As your blog gains popularity, your brand develops and you find your voice, you’ll think nothing of the time you’re investing, it will make complete sense and be totally worthwhile. You’ll have fallen into the Blogger Mindset. But initially it may seem frustrating and odd to devote so much time. Get ready to open your mind and jump in.

Setting up a blog is a combination of 20,000 foot vision and nitty gritty details.

You can’t have a successful blog without thinking about high level questions — What’s its purpose? Who do I want to connect with? Why am I blogging?

At the same time you can’t be successful without getting into the details. The details - once taken care of - help a blog run smoothly.

Here’s a checklist of 10 questions you should ask before launching your blog:

1. Does the blog look OK in different browsers? It’s a common mistake for people to only test in the browser they use. But you need to test your blog with multiple browsers. Some services like browsershots will help with the process.
2. Does the feed work? Whether you’re using FeedBurner or not (although I highly recommend it) you should test the feed. Subscribe to it with your own RSS Reader and make sure it’s coming in properly. It’s also a good idea to make the subscription options highly visible. Don’t bury your RSS feed link at the bottom of the blog or in a far-right sidebar. Get it front and center.
3. Did you setup stat tracking and a sitemap? Everyone wants to track stats on their blog, so make sure you’ve got stat tracking setup properly. There are lots of options - Awstats, Google Analytics, 103bees, etc. A sitemap is equally important. It helps search engines crawl your pages faster, which is good for search engine optimization and ranking. And don’t forget: Submit your blog to Google Webmasters.
4. Did you update the About page and test the Contact page? Too many bloggers forget about the About page and leave it as the default (or don’t include it at all!) In WordPress, the default About page tells you it’s an About page; which really doesn’t help you. Make sure you update it and spend some serious time thinking about what you’ll write. The same holds true for the Contact page - Do you have one? If it’s a form, does it work?
5. Did you test all the links? Before launching your blog click on every link and make sure they work. This is particularly important for links to pages (i.e. About, Contact, etc.) as well as links between posts and to outside sites. You want to make sure links to outside sites are working - those other bloggers will see the trackbacks and visit (or they should.)
6. Did you claim the blog in Technorati? Your blog needs to be live before claiming it, but it doesn’t have to be “launched” - where you’re actively promoting it, telling people, building links, etc. Before launching the blog, make sure you pop over to Technorati and claim it. The process is simple and quick, and it’ll help people find your blog. It’ll also help you track incoming links.
7. Did you write a few posts? You can’t launch without content. I’d aim for 3-5 posts before you really put yourself out there and launch your blog. The more content you have upfront the easier it is for people to get a feel for what you’re doing. Plus you’ll get more comfortable in your blogging shoes. It takes awhile to get into the Blogger Mindset.
8. Do you have a few more posts ready to go? It’ll be a huge shame if you launch your blog only to write sporadically or not-at-all for the next little while. You want to be as productive and effective as possible right out of the gate — so have a handful of blog posts ready to go. Even if they’re not completely written, it’d be good to have the ideas and basic outlines in place.
9. Did you make a list of people to contact? You can’t launch your blog into a vacuum. Yes, people will find it, but you should give it a nice kick into gear right away. Put together a list of contacts that might be interested in your blog. When you launch, ping ‘em all and let them know that your blog is ready for action. Encourage them to comment, send feedback, link over and spread the word.
10. Do you know how you’re going to promote the blog? There are lots of ways to promote a new blog, including blog directories, various widgets, strategic linking, etc. You may not have all the answers right off the bat, but a big part of blogging is marketing - you need to market your blog. Do some research, make a list of blog promotion steps to take, and get going once you’re launched.

These 10 questions are applicable irrespective of the blog software you’re using. Lots of things in blogging at platform-agnostic; it doesn’t matter whether you’re using WordPress, Typepad, Blogger or something else. Good writing is good writing no matter what. Killer headlines are killer headlines no matter what.

Covering all the details and making sure your blog is prepped will help your blog be successful.