Becoming A Better Blogger

Andy Nathan

Your content must entertain your readers long enough to engage, so you can educate them on the benefits of your point of view.

http://socialtriggers.com/perfect-blog-post/

The best way to learn about blogging is to

blog!

To do this, write a list of 10 questions your clients

regularly ask you

Spend 2 minutes creating an intro

Create An IntroWhen I first started blogging, I knew nothing about writing. In fact, after high school English I swore off writing forever. It was boring, and I had no aptitude for writing. At least that was what I believed for most of my life leading up to the blog I started writing in 2010. However, as a social media expert, I needed a way to connect with my audience. Social media made this possible. Over the years, I improved and even started writing for clients. Despite what my wife calls, the worst grammar that she has ever seen, I get paid for writing great blog content. What I have realized after writing 3,000 articles in the past 5 years is that your content must entertain your readers long to stay on the site, and educate them, so they remember who you are.

Spend 7 minutes creating a body

5 Things Every Blog Post Needs

How do we educate and entertain are audience with our content?

Write To Your Audience“Do you know who you are talking to?”I always love that line, because in blogging you have to know who you are talking to be successful. Stephen King said that he writes all of his books for his wife. She is his audience. If she likes what he writes, he keeps it in the book. If she does not, he changes or omits it. Everyone else who likes his work is an added bonus.

Tell StoriesStories are a bridge between entertainment and education.Now, what if I also told you that the first day I blogged on my new site, AndyNathan.Net, I received 5 visitors. When the blog was active, I had thousands of visitors coming to the site every month. The blog generated over 300,000 lifetime page views.Stories give you insights to share normal how-to and stats might now. Told properly, you can inspire people with your story and educate them as well.

Use different types of media to engage with people on different levels.

As a former teacher, one of my favorite books was Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner. His understanding of how we all learn in different manners was brilliant.

Have videos, photos, and other media support your writing.

Pictures of attractive women increase the response rate by 4.5%.

Optimize for search and social traffic Search and social traffic are the top two traffic sources. Make sure to optimize your posts for search.

This means lengthy articles of 2,000 words that are broken up for sound bites for social media.

Use Click to Tweet or Pin It Button for Image

Make sure that your paragraphs are not longer than 2-3 sentences. At the same time, use bullets and headings to

breakdown the point of your article.

According to recent research, 60% of your readers never make it past the median scroll bar. Have a call to action before the mid-point, asking clients to share our content.

Tweet: RT @andynathan the best way to learn about blogging is to blog. http://startupgap.com

How to Advice

The best advice then with all these different ideas is to write like you talk. In fact, you probably forgot how to talk if you are new to writing. We spend so much of lives thinking about what to say to people in the appropriate manner that writing as human beings is just…scary.Therefore, you need to write all your drafts in free flow without editing. Those are your true beliefs. If you want to remove something later on for being too controversial go ahead. For now, just write.

Spend 3 minutes with a summary

That’s A Wrap PeopleNow we get to the end of the post. In this part of the blog post we need to wrap up your entire post. This means that we review all the great content you shared in the body. Finally, you will want to end with a rock star call to action. Make it simple, and compelling for your readers to take action on your content. Perhaps you want to share the blog post? Or maybe you will comment on this post?

What is the next step?

Connect With Me• Andy Nathan• Twitter: andynathan• Google+: http://plus.google.com• LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/andrewmarcnathan • Website: http://startupgap.com