How to Write Content for Your Blog: Day One

If you have joined me on my quest to teach you how to write compelling content for your blog, I’m making a few assumptions about you:

1. You are either blogging for personal reasons, or you want to promote a product or service. Or both.
2. You have found a blogging platform, on WordPress or Blogger or a Web-hosting company, and are set up to start posting. (You have a name for your blog, and have a general idea of why you want to blog.)
3. You are literate and know how to write, but get stumped on finding relevant topics to write about, or aren’t sure how to write in the more casual style of blogs, which is less formal, conversational and fluid in style and tone. The hardest part may just be knowing how to start.

Now that we are on the same page, let’s dive in. In this post, I’m going to pretend I’m a yoga instructor who wants to promote her studio and classes. Where do I start? The best place is to simply introduce yourself.

Here are some questions to help you get going:

• What’s your name and why are you starting this blog? “Welcome to YogaSalon! My name is XXX XXXX and I’m a yoga instructor from Bend, Oregon, who loves working with clients with special needs….I’m not the best writer in the world, but I am so passionate about the power of yoga that I wanted to share with you what inspires me and how can find strength….”
• What is your goal with this blog?
• Why should we listen to you? What’s your background? “I first started practicing yoga 13 years ago after hurting my neck….”
• Why are you passionate about what you do?
• What can your readers expect to learn from reading your blog? (Are you going to give lots of useful information, or inspirational stories, or a mix…)
• Try to end your post (and all posts) with some type of question for your readers. On this one, why not ask them what they are looking for in a blog like yours.

Tips on style:

• Write like you talk. Imagine you have a small group of customers listening to you. Be friendly, direct, joke around if you want. This is a friendly audience.
• Pound out your introduction. Don’t worry if it’s perfect or sounds silly or stupid. You will just go over it again and make it better. Shoot for a couple hundred words. Re-read it out-loud to yourself. I bet it sounds fine. But make any changes, read it again, then let it go.
• Give it a simple title (we will work on writing great titles later), add your tags, include a sub head or two, add a photo(s). Hit preview and see how it looks as a package.
• If you like it, hit Publish. You can go back and edit it as often as you like.

That’s it. You have started your blog. Don’t look back! The idea is to post again, and build content. The beauty is that your content evolves over time, your voice will grow stronger and more familiar, and your earlier posts fade away but still do their job of attracting hits.

Now start thinking about what you want to write about next! (It doesn’t hurt to keep a running list of ideas.)

My suggestion is that you expand upon your introduction a bit on your next post. Think of a little story to share with your readers about your topic. See if you can remember some type of problem or obstacle that you faced involving your passion, product or service, and how you handled it. I bet there’s a nice little story there. The most personal and open you are with your readers, the quicker you will develop a nice rapport with them.

Remember, I’m focusing on how to write blog posts and how to generate quality content. There are so many other aspects to creating an effective blog, which you must pursue on your own. I will make suggestions, but my main goal is to help you communicate to your readers through powerful language and strong topic ideas.
 

I spotted the list of best first lines from novels in an unlikely place–on one of my favorite food blogs, called 101Cookbooks.com. There’s a reason I love this cooking blog that goes beyond the yummy recipes the author shares. She can write.

As a freelance writer and blogger, I find it affirming that my favorite blogs, whether they are on vegan recipes or mid-century design, are compelling because the authors are writers. At least they have mastered that casual and familiar first-person voice that makes you feel like you found a friend. For all the blog garbage out there, well-written blogs are their own art form, in that they can be as difficult to write as they are easy to read.

Here are a couple other blogs I follow, as much for their authors’ voices as for what they have to say:

BigBangStudio

The Brick House

Wabi-Sabi

More than a year ago, I started one of my own blogs, called Laguna Dirt, which features outdoor living ideas, partly to learn how to blog and develop my own cyber voice. I use a slightly different voice on my other blog, Killer Essays, about writing college admissions essays, because my target audience is younger. What blogs do you follow mainly for the writing?

Oh yea. I got off topic there. Back to that first-line novel list. I was surprised how fun it was to read. Here it is:

Following is a list of the 100 best first lines from novels, as decided by the American Book Review, a nonprofit journal published at the Unit for Contemporary Literature at Illinois State University:

1. Call me Ishmael. – Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

3. A screaming comes across the sky. – Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)

4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. – Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. – Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)

Continue reading →

Hello! My name is Janine Robinson and I am a professional journalist who freelances writing, editing and tutoring services out of my home office in Laguna Beach, California. I have worked as a staff reporter for top newspapers, including The Miami Herald and The Orange County Register. I was also the editor of a monthly lifestyle magazine for women published by Orange Coast magazine, called Orange County Woman. Currently, I am the managing editor of Pelican Hill magazine, a luxury lifestyle magazine that mainly serves the clients of The Irvine Company’s resort in Newport Beach.

As a freelancer, I write for both editorial and corporate clients. I have written content for Web sites that promote everything from surfing vacations to luxury home furnishings. My feature stories have been published in the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine, Orange Coast magazine, Laguna Life & People, and numerous other publications. My specialty is bringing the credibility and compelling narrative style of the editorial world to marketing, advertising and public relations.

If you would like more information, please contact me at: J9RobinsonLB@Gmail.com.

I look forward to working with you!