You don't want your audience wondering why they bothered reading your post in the first place, do you? Give them something to take away. Want your audience to reflect on a particular idea? To do something? Respond somehow? Whatever it is, be clear about it. It will not just happen. You will get what you ask for. This is the part of the post where you invite your readers to answer a question, leave a comment, or share your post. Make it clear and actionable.
When I write a blog post, I follow each of these four elements, treating them as steps. Here's how I typically blog:. Follow this process every time you publish, and you'll struggle a lot less with coming up with great content. The structure may feel kind of stiff at first, but this is like any practice you do.
Eventually, it starts to feel normal. The constraints can lead to greater creativity. It may not always be easy, but you'll have a structure for when you get stuck.
And you'll always know how to begin. What's your process for writing blog posts? Share in the comments. There is no one I know The act of finding the deeper part of you that never fades may be the most important task of your life.
It is certainly the best place from which to create. Over my 11 years of blogging, I've made a habit of studying prolific, influential bloggers, and realized something: They all have a system and structure for blogging. Here they are: 1. An attention-grabbing headline A good blog post is about one topic, one story, one idea. If someone finishes reading a blog post, sits still for a minute, and thinks long and hard about what they just read, that is what sets a good blogger apart from a run-of-the-mill one.
The upside is people who identify with a particular post are more likely to share it, so that usually equates to a wider reach for the blog as a whole. Writers like Seth Godin are good at explaining ideas through illustration, and this technique helps to put ideas into perspective. While a lot of blogs out there tend to give you the same reports of news slightly changed from one post to another, the odd one out gives you the report and then adds unique commentary.
The devil may be in the details, but in the end, so is salvation. Getting detail-oriented blogging right can be painstaking, but in the end, the kind of attention you draw is more than worth the effort you put into it. Detailed analysis requires an informed opinion. Bloggers that go this route usually research both sides of the story before forming an opinion of their own and then discussing their insights. It sets them apart from bloggers who are simply glorified muckrakers.
Some of those comments can be quite vitriolic. Internet anonymity makes it easy for hateful individuals to hide behind the thin veneer of a hastily made-up screen name and be outright nasty without having to face consequences. The most successful bloggers are able to spot trolls early on and head them off at the pass.
Although some bloggers use their loyal followers to combat trolls, that can be as effective as throwing gasoline on an open fire. Quite often, the best way to deal with these kinds of individuals is to simply ignore them.
What they have to say is usually irrelevant to the discussion anyway. In the earlier, more innocent days of the internet, there used to be a thing called a blogring. Good bloggers use networking as a way to spread their presence and build their own personal brand.
This is why we love bringing our audience and industry experts into our blogging sphere on a frequent basis. You never know who is going to spark an engaging discussion with valuable insights! One of the most successful content marketing techniques that exists today is guest blogging.
By using your professional network to leverage likes, shares, and new visitors, you boost both the popularity of your blog and the attentive traffic that goes with it. Since niches are usually close knit, you tend to find users within a particular niche who are happy to assist in any way.
The most important part of blogging is to consider what your audience wants to read. Ready to give your blog a major boost with authoritative writing? But, behind every good blog is an equally good — or great — blogger. It feels like we hear about Squarespace on every podcast. But when you compare Squarespace to WordPress, you soon discover that WordPress is superior in several ways.
This is why every serious blogger I know uses a WordPress blog. While this variety is a benefit, we know full well that too many options can lead to a paradox of choice. This is why we recommend starting with the premium themes designed and supported by our friends at SPYR. This is not an affiliate link—SPYR just does great work. Features Plugins. While Squarespace has a rich feature set, no blogging platform can compare with the immense scale of features that WordPress offers.
WordPress has a library of over 54, free plugins that can handle any task. While we suggest that you keep the number of plugins on your blog to a minimum, the level of customization provided by WordPress is unmatched.
Version control tracks your changes and allows you to compare revisions and revert back to a version of your Page or Post from any point in time. This feature provides a failsafe that allows bloggers to compose, draft, edit, and publish their posts within WordPress itself, making it a complete blogging solution.
You Own Your Content. Owning your content means that you have full control over what you express on your blog—and complete access to take that content and use it anywhere that you wish. To enable the latter, WordPress provides tools to export your data for use on any hosting provider that you choose to use. With Squarespace you can never truly download a complete copy of your server files or database, but with WordPress you can create an exact replica of your blog, at any point in time.
This is most valuable for maintaining backups or in case you choose to restart a blog with a new hosting company. Out of the box, both WordPress and Squarespace are search engine friendly. A plugin we recommend for every blogger is Yoast SEO. This free WordPress plugin allows deep customization of your on-page SEO, but, more impressive, it provides automated content analysis.
This helps guide you to improve and optimize your content for better readability and improved reach in search engines. Following proper SEO practices can be a differentiating factor in reaching new people. WordPress is extremely robust and customizable. But what happens as your new blog grows? Since WordPress provides you with complete ownership of the platform, it also provides a designer with the freedom to build and create your blog design without restriction.
Nothing is off limits. How do I become a blogger? The answer is in the question: the only way to become a blogger is to start a blog. The barrier to entry is gone, so start blogging if you want to become a blogger. It really is that simple. While the lines have blurred over the years, the simplest way to put it is that a blog is a type of website, one that catalogues, over time, the personal or professional thoughts and beliefs of a person or organization.
As your thoughts, beliefs, and ideas change, so will your blog. As a matter of fact, our blog has grown every year since and now boasts more than 3. Millions of people read our blog every year-and our audience continues to grow because, thanks to our blog, new people find our work every day. Blogs are popular all over the world, and they are the simplest way to publish content without middlemen or gatekeepers.
Blogging is the opposite of a waste of time. Our blog is simultaneously our practice space-where we share new ideas and writings with the world-as well as an announcement board that keeps our audience abreast of any new developments in the world of minimalism.
Yes, starting a blog is arguably more important than ever. Whether you want to publish your writing, build an audience, open a business, or start a podcast , your blog is the home for your creative projects. If they fall out of relevance, then so do you remember MySpace. Because you own your blog, it stays with you no matter where the culture sways.
The best time to start a blog was a decade ago. The second best time is now. If you have an idea you want to share, get started! While new forms of media continue to enter the picture-podcasts, newsletters, social media-nothing replaces having a home for your creative work. The Minimalists have a podcast, an email newsletter, and several social media accounts, but none of them could ever supplant our blog.
Instead, we use our blog to point to these additional resources. If so, write about that! A blog is used for two things: to express and to communicate. A good blog is able to marry communicative writing and expressive writing to create blog posts that are informative and entertaining. When considering how you want to use your blog to communicate and express yourself, ask these questions:.
The good news is that starting a blog is free with WordPress. All you need to pay for is hosting, as outlined in the step-by-step instructions above. When talking to my writing students, I recommend writing every day and publishing a blog post at least once a week. We usually publish two blog posts per week on this blog. Seth Godin blogs every single day. Whatever you decide, we recommend you stay consistent. Avoid grandiosity.
Avoid throat clearing. Instead, find one thing that interests you today and write about that. For reference, you can read the first blog post on this blog, circa Be on the Mountain. Tweet to theminimalists with your question and a link to this essay.
Ask Your Question. The Minimalists. Download our free ebook: 16 Rules for Living with Less. Start your blog by adding WordPress. Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own. Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats. Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love. Do you want to start a blog fast? This is a long essay and you may want to start your blog without learning all the details. This is the first how to quickly start a blog guidepost. To start a blog fast simply: Look for these boxes.
Follow the brief steps. Click the link to jump to the next box. Because The Minimalists are a Bluehost affiliate partner i. Blogging Quick Start — Step 1 In this first step you will choose your blog name domain name and buy your blog hosting. Go to Bluehost and click the Get Started Now button. Select the Basic plan. Pick your domain name and enter it into the New Domain box.
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