How to Write a Blog Post People Will Read (Part Two)

One thing that’s really hard for me to accept as a person who writes for a living is this: as technology and social media increase, word counts decrease.

Not only that, but well-performing websites and blog posts have figured out how to “package” information for maximum views.

Frankly, this hurts my heart. I mean I did read William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” and, yes, he did advise that writers should only use as many words as necessary to clearly articulate their point, but in a 140-character, 15 second video world, even that is saying too much.

All this is to say that the #1 sin I see committed on blogs in general (but especially blogs that are seeking to build an audience) is that you use too damn many words!

So here’s three solid suggestions for how to structure blog posts that are not wordy and that people are more likely to read.

People like “top” posts.

Top 5, Top 10, whatever. For some reason, ranking things (even if it isn’t a true rank, but a “in no particular order” list), really motivates people. So if you write a blog about running, you could do a “Top 5 Running Apps” or “Top 10 Things You Should Do to Prepare for a Marathon). If you read my post on getting your blog off to the right start, you also know, then, that said post should be called “Top 5 Running Apps” or “Top 10 Things You Should Do to Prepare for a Marathon”).

If your paragraph goes beyond four lines, bullet point it.

Yep. Chunky paragraphs are the bain of web reading. People see them and they run the other way! It’s crazy because studies show it’s not the content but the actual paragraph length. Some studies have had the text in a chunky paragraph and then broken up and readership went through the roof on the latter. So don’t do the chunk. If you absolutely MUST have all that information in there, break it up into bullet points. And make the bullet points short!

Use the “ABC” Method of writing.

When I was in college my professor shared a life-changing quote with me. It seems overly simple but stay with me on this one. In good writing you “Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em, then you tell ‘em, then you tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”

In the writing world we call this the “ABC” (Abstract/Body/Conclusion) method of writing. When we’re writing, being reiterative seems ridiculous but think about when you are reading a good article. It usually repeats the point several times throughout and you leave not annoyed but…with a good sense of what the author was trying to convey!

Especially in longer posts, I tend to do an intro, then the body and my conclusion summarizes the body in bullet points, to make it even easier. Plus, this gets your point across to those notorious “scanners.” They’ll zoom straight down to the bullet points.

Which brings me to a bonus item. If you summarize in bullets, put your calls to action in those bullets! If you’re selling something, make it a bullet point. If you’re linking to an affiliate account (if you don’t know what that is, we’ll go over it later this month), put that. If you want people to sign up for something, ask there. People are more likely to read that call to action in a bullet point than in your text!

So those are just a few tips on setting your blog posts up so that people actually READ them. My next post will tell you how this set up can help you SHARE your posts – and make sure others do too!