People blog for many different reasons. For a few, it’s a full-time job. For much more it’s a way of connecting with others, gaining feedback or just a place to share personal thoughts and ideas.

Whatever your reasons, here’s ten top blogging tips to help you get the best out of your blog:

1. Divide and conquer

An online reader tends to scan rather than read. Make it easy for them to pick out content that interests them quickly. Use paragraphs, titles, lists, bullet points, etc wherever you can.

2. If you make it long, make it easy

If you do post prose, don’t revert to offline formatting. Space your description and dialogue to make it easy to read.

3. Use teasers

No-one appreciates a thousand word post filling up their feed. WordPress has a ‘Read more’ tool that allows you to put a line under a section of your work with a link people can click if they want to get the full story. Use it to tempt people in with a snatch of compelling content.

4. Use links

Consider where you can link to external sources to give greater integrity to your posts.  Then think about using related links at the bottom of your posts, to link to other posts you’ve written. Your want to keep people on your site once you’ve got their interest. Three to five links on a post should be enough, but don’t stick a link on just for the sake of it.

5. Use images

You can find a lot of free images online that don’t need attribution which makes things a lot easier. Pixabay and Morguefile are two I use and New Old Stock which has some great vintage photos. The template I use lets you add featured images to the top of my post which gives them an extra bit of attention. A well-chosen image helps to add integrity and interest to your words. And adding them throughout a long piece can break up and add colour to your text.

6. Post regularly

Your followers want to hear from you – that’s why they followed you after all! Professional bloggers will probably post at least once a day if not more, but for us, in the amateur world, I would suggest posting once a week. It’s not easy and I would advise you to make friends with your scheduling tool. Build up to it and you’d be surprised how the ideas start flowing when you begin to get into a routine. The more you post, the more followers you can attract.

7. Go mobile

More and more people are using mobile devices to view content, be they smartphones or tablets. So it makes sense that your blog is mobile friendly. You can find a number of responsively designed templates on WordPress that will tailor your blog to different screen sizes.

Tags are the keywords of the blog sphere you dwell in. If you want to find a post about cooking, you enter the search term and all posts tagged with that will be shown. So make sure you use them. You can add as many as you like but there’s little point in loads, so try to keep them relevant.

9. Shout about it

Everybody is going crazy about social media and not without good reason. You want to share your fine content with others right? There are many articles out there about which networks to get into so get Googling. Personally, I’d start where you feel comfortable. WordPress lets you automatically post to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Linkedin and Path so there’s plenty of networks to choose from.

10. Above all remember – content is king

There’s no secret formula to having a blog lots of people want to read. Ultimately it’s down to having great content and shouting about it. If your content is derivative, boring, or badly edited you’ll barely get the first look never mind a second. Write about what you love and you’ll be surprised how many other people love it too.

Related reads

How to Write*
5 Ways to Wordsmith your Writing
All About you – Why you should have an ‘About’ Page on your Blog

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