Package Your Big Ideas: 5 Tips on How to Write Good Blog Posts

Need some help scaling your own private mountain? The Hub’s grand ambition is to boost the capacity and improve the work of all the organizations behind community development initiatives in West Virginia. In other words, we are here to help.

Look, I’m no genius. But I know some people that are. Over the next few months, I’ll be passing along some quick and simple tips of the communications trade that I hope will prove useful to those of you out there wrestling with blog posts, email newsletters, websites, press releases and the like.

So, let’s kick it off. Without further ado, I offer you:

5 Tips: How to write good blog posts.

1. Make it timely.

Think of your blog post like a breaking news story, and it becomes important to get it out to the public in a timely fashion – the day after the event, or well before the deadline, or right after the information has been released (depending on what your time hook may be.)
Whatever your sector or community, your blog has the potential to be the go-to news source. In that sense, you’ll be competing with other information providers (like newspapers, or other organizations.)
Develop a reputation for being the first and the best with relevant breaking content and you’ve not only solidified an audience for your news, you’ve also proven the value of what you do to a whole new crowd.

2. Keep it compact and punchy.

Somewhere in the 400 – 600 word range is about ideal for a blog post. Even then, make sure you get to your point quickly.
Assume that your reader will only read the heading. And then, if you’re lucky, the first couple of paragraphs. Make sure you get the genuine marrow of the news into the heading and the intro paragraph.
Your reader may continue into the rest of your post, but only if the heading and the intro (and the photo – we’ll get to that later) make them believe this is a piece of news that matters.

3. Lead with a compelling photo.

A nice wide, eye-catching and relevant photo at the top of your post is a great way to quickly draw people into the content.
A sub-tip: Try and crop the image so it’s wider than it is deep (like the photo at the top of this post). It’s great to have the image fill the full width of your blog space. However, you also want it to be quite shallow, as the deeper the photo is, the more people will have to scroll down to get to your blog post.

4. Break up the content.

The human eye is a funny thing, to say nothing of the human brain. We know a lot about the way people in this day and age scan and digest visual content, and it is not by reading in a consistent, linear fashion from top to bottom or left to right.

Keep your content moving. What I mean by that is find a paragraph or section of your content that could stand by itself – information about a meeting, a list or resources, a quote or insight by someone – and carve out its own space within your blog post.
Regardless of what blog platform you use, you should be able to find a “pullquote” feature. This lets you highlight a piece of your blog post and put it in its own space. It’s a great way to break up your content, make it visually a bit more interesting, and draw attention to highlights.

5. Use your voice.

You are an expert, or at least some kind of expert, or at the very least someone with something to say worth listening to! Your blog post is not an organizational press release, but rather a personal piece that should be written with a style and voice that best represents you and the content.
If you’re wonky, be wonky; if you’re shooting from the hip, then develop a voice that is consistent and forthright.
The best blogs include the author’s photo and a little bio, and so are written and read as a personal comment from a position of authority.
If your face and contact information are to appear next to everything you write, what sort of personality do you want your writing to have?