Blogger Talk Articles

Every blogger wants to write an awaesome blog post. Today guest blogger Dana Leipold talks to us about how to write a blog post people want to read.

by Dana Leipold

I’ve been blogging now for two years and I’ve been a marketing writer for more years than I want you to know about right now. I think I’m finally getting the hang of how to write awesome posts (you can be the judge of that after you’re done reading this one). It’s been a long process and I’m still learning, but I’ve learned a thing or two that might be helpful to some of you out in blog land:

Come Up With a Theme

This could be a metaphor for something, like how tying your shoes relates to life. You could use pop culture icons like I did in a recent post. Food is always a good theme because people get hungry (for food and information). Whatever you chose, try to find a photo that matches your theme. You do this by picking a keyword, like “balance” then go to Creative Commons on Flckr and search photos by that word. Make sure you follow the copyright rules so you don’t get busted.

Try to Impart Wisdom, or Experience, or Both

You might not know it but you have wisdom. Any kind of experience where you learned something and put that learning to good use is wisdom. Write about the time you spent too much money on something then realized it was kinda lame so you learned that you’d rather spend your money on something of value rather than an expensive trend. Turn that into a story with a few colorful details and you’ve got a great post. People love stories.

Remember Exposition Writing 101, but Make It Shorter

We all remember expository writing from high school or college. Boring. But there are some good nuggets you can use in writing a post. A well-written exposition focuses on the topic (or theme) and seeks to inform, explain, or describe it. You gotta keep it short though because this is the Internet and people have short attention spans. Wait. What was I just saying?

Relax and Have Fun

Pretend you’re sitting at Starbucks telling your BFF about your post. Imagine the expressions and guffaws he or she might have as you write. When you are relaxed, you can have fun and your writing is better too.

Basically, this is how I come up with my posts. I also try to come up with an “editorial calendar” of sorts where I write out a bunch of ideas so I have enough material to appear interesting.

---

Bio: Dana Leipold is a freelance writer for software companies that are willing to pay her to turn mumbo-jumbo into plain English real people actually understand.

She’s an aspiring humor writer in between paid work, product reviews, cleaning the house, raising two children, maintaining a marriage, blogging, paying bills, eating, sleeping, etc. She has a self-published a book of poems entitled, Stupid Poetry: Volume I and writes a weekly column for Castro Valley Patch where she ponders about life and other absurdities. One of her essays was also recently published in the October issue of Long, Story Short eZine. Her blog, Random Chick Blog, serves as a creative outlet while she furiously completes her first book of humor essays.