How does she do it?…
How does that Ana Hoffman manage to publish so much [good/great] content all around the web?
Never in a million years would I have imagined my name used next to “writes so much“, “great content“, “everywhere“…
Why?
I’ve always strongly disliked writing. It never came easy – always a struggle…
Want proof?
I was on track to graduate Summa Cum Laude from high school, but got a ‘B’ on my final test in creative writing (my teacher felt too sorry for me to give me a ‘C’.)
Then I almost dropped out in my first year of college because all we did was writing essays and I hated it.
Yes, I am a lousy writer.
How does someone like me become a blogger? Good question…
Some years back, I set my heart on starting an online business. Shortly thereafter, I was told I needed to write content to promote my business. Yes, I needed to start a blog.
Ahhhh, the irony…
And my distaste for writing? It had to be dealt with, one way or another.
More on that later.
But first… a few pearls of wisdom.
Finding the Writer in You
What makes a good writer ‘good‘? Or a great piece of writing ‘great‘?
There are as many answers as there are writers and readers.
To me, a good piece of writing resonates with both the reader AND the writer.
It has to touch them BOTH.
Then and only then, the writer will write well and the reader won’t stop reading.
How do you master that kind of writing?
No, I don’t have a ‘10 Steps to Become a Good Writer‘ checklist for you.
Trust me, that’s a good thing. The last thing you want to do is to adopt another writer’s voice or style!
I can however tell you what I’ve learned on my journey to writing better blog posts.
1. Follow your natural style
There’s a reader for every style of writing.
Find your writing style first, then find the readers whom it resonates with.
My first few blog posts were so bad that I quietly deleted them a while ago in fear they’d come back to haunt me.
You know why they were so bad?
I wrote what I THOUGHT my readers wanted to read. Turned out I thought WRONG (surprise, surprise!… ?) and I lost the few readers I had to begin with.
The a-ha moment came out of pure frustration…
Write how you speak.
Simple.
Friction-free.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?…
My best writing advice? Write how you speak.Click To TweetMy brain thinks in bullet points. It wouldn’t know what fluff is if it hit it on the head. (hmm… what would it look like if my brain had a head?… 😃😅)
Me thinks in bullet points – me writes in bullet points. And short sentences. And paragraphs?… what’s a paragraph?…
That was definitely a step in the right direction and my Readers agreed!
Good example of my bullet-point writing:
2. Personality is the key
You don’t have to
- be a stand-up comedian,
- be a master story-teller,
- curse,
- write with “I don’t give a …” attitude
…to be memorable.
You don’t have to be sweet and cuddly and agree with everybody either.
Find strengths within yourself and focus on what you’ve got.
For instance, I’ve got my ‘dry Russian humor’ on my side.
Some like it, some don’t. But they get it anyway. That’s who I am.
3. You are not writing a novel
Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ is a brilliant piece of writing. Brilliant. A must-read.
And I bet it would be read a lot more if it wasn’t 1,296 pages long. Or 587,287 words, give or take a few.
It’s not unusual for blog posts to top 10,000 words these days. Those posts are MASSIVE. They get a lot of shares. Links. Traffic.
And that’s great! It’s good to write a post like that every once in a while to bait all of the above.
However, let me ask you: when was the last time you truly read one of those impressively long posts? Let alone put into action what it taught?…
A while ago I wrote The UN-Massive Guide to Getting Massive Traffic based on Neil Patel’s Massive Guide to Getting Massive Traffic.
Still stand by everything I said there.
Respect your Reader. Respect their time.
How long should a blog post be? Say what you NEED to. The rest is FLUFF. Click To TweetHow I Write Blog Posts – My Step-by-Step Process
Writing a great blog post takes a great deal of time. That’s a given.
It usually takes me hours upon hours to write a post worth publishing.
With that in mind, it’s VITAL to establish an efficient writing process.
Here is mine.
Feel free to copy the entire thing or tweak it to your own preferences.
1. Every great post starts with a great idea
Read. Listen. Observe.
That’s how you get the best blog post ideas.
I’ve made it a habit to read daily; as a result, I have 20-30 blog post ideas to work with at any given moment.
As your blog readership grows and comments start coming in, you’ll start getting even more post ideas.
Someone might ask a question. Someone might say “I wonder...” or “what if“.
If you aren’t getting enough comments to get you inspired yet, here’s a tip on how to use comments on popular blogs (it’s #5).
Additional resources:
- 202 Bite-Sized Tips To Insanely Increase Your Blog Traffic
- 150+ Blog Ideas That Will Absolutely Kill Writers’ Block – Devin Joubert at coschedule.com
- 5 Unique Ways to Find Blog Post Ideas For Even the Most Painfully Boring Industries – Joe Davies at Moz.com
How to keep track of your blog post ideas
There are many ways to keep track of your ideas (Evernote, Trello, etc), but I’ve found that creating WordPress post drafts is the most sure way not to lose track of them.
Every time I think “this would make a great post“, I create a draft with a working title and a brief description.
I use Drafts Dropdown plugin to help me access my drafts quickly and easily from anywhere at Traffic Generation Café.
Just click on “Drafts” from the admin menu and you are there.
2. Start with the post outline
No, I don’t start with a blog post title. To me, that’s putting the cart before the horse.
A blog post outline is your train of thought on the topic.
My outlines most often look like a bunch of headings and bullet points.
There’s another benefit of starting off with an outline: use it to repurpose your blog post into a SlideShare presentation, video, podcast, etc.
Intimidated? Don’t be – it’s a lot easier than you think.
My best hacks on repurposing your blog posts into various content formats:
By the way, it’s a good idea to save your post outline separately before it becomes a full blog post.
You can later copy/paste it into a PowerPoint presentation, add more excerpts from the post (optional), then publish it on SlideShare and YouTube (explained in the posts mentioned above.)
3. Format your post as you go
I’ve found this to be a great time-saver. You already have plenty of ‘do it later‘ tasks; why add this one to the mix, right?
So add your headings, bullet-point lists, bold, italic, and underlined formatting as you write your post.
Better yet, learn keyboard shortcuts to turn the tasks into a few extra keyboard strokes. Easy peasy.
👆pin me, please👆
Want to write better blog posts faster? Use WP keyboard shortcuts! Click To TweetAdvanced styling tip (and a huge time hack)
If you are good with coding, you can add custom formats right to your WP post editor.
If you are not, do what I did – find someone who can.
4. Add links as you go
Adding internal links (links from one page on your domain to another page on your domain) and external links (links from your domain to a different domain) is extremely important for the benefit of
- your readers (to provide additional relevant information),
- you (to increase the time readers spend on your site and the chances they follow your calls to action),
- SEO.
I tend to add links as I go, just like with post formatting.
The keyboard shortcut for adding a link is CTRL+K (Windows) or ⌘+K (Mac).
How to get rid of inline links in WordPress [TIME HACK]
WordPress has recently introduced a feature that’s driving many bloggers NUTS (me including) – inline links.
Inline links feature forces you to make 4 clicks to add a link to your post instead of 1-2, like it used to. They look like this:
Good news is you can (and should!) change that – by installing Advanced WPLink plugin (Hat tip to MaAnna Stephenson and her Tips Tuesday series for introducing me to this great time-saver.)
Not only will this plugin allow you to add links the way you used to, but also give you a handy option to quickly add target=”_blank” (to force your in-post links open in a new tab/window – I highly recommend doing that!) and/or rel=”nofollow” to links that need it (affiliate links, sponsored links, guest post links, etc.)
Learn more about nofollow links:
- What are NoFollow Links in SEO (And Why You Should Care) – Ashley Faulkes at madlemmings.com
How to make it easier to add internal links [TIME HACK]
For that, I’ve created a Google Drive master spreadsheet of all my posts.
I use that spreadsheet in many other ways as well and highly recommend you create your own.
Here’s a link to my blog post list; feel free to use it as a template for yours.
Needless to say, remember to update your master blog post list as you publish new posts.
5. Add introduction and conclusion
Not my favorite part of the process…
My inclination is to open every post with ‘Read it, then do it‘ and close it with ‘Read it, now go do it‘,… buuuuut I probably shouldn’t.
Great stories do create certain level of built-in virality, true.
However, if you are not a story-teller, don’t sweat it; a sentence or two at the beginning and the end will do.
That’s what I tend to do anyway.
I’ve also been testing creating ‘blog post trailers‘ – video introductions to my blog posts.
To give you an example of a blog post trailer, take a look at 5 Brilliant Ways to Go Blog-to-Video with Content Samurai. Not only you’ll see my video post intro in action, but will also learn how I make them.
Making blog post trailers does take more time, but it also allows you to drive traffic from sites like YouTube, SlideShare, use them in your social media posts, etc.
Win-win!
6. Add featured image
Adding visual content to EVERY blog post is a must.
You can write the most brilliant post, but truth is few will read it if it looks boring.
I am often asked where I get my blog post images. You can learn more about it here:
I edit found images with SnagIt or, even better, in PowerPoint – and I’ll tell you why.
Creating blog post images in PowerPoint makes it easier to repurpose them as a SlideShare presentation, then a YouTube video.
Learn more about how you can do it too:
7. Brainstorm blog post titles
Most copywriters recommend you START with a post title.
I think it’s a great suggestion, but it’s never worked for me.
My brain has a mind of its own. It might start with one idea for a blog post and end up taking it in a completely different direction.
Thus starting with a blog post title is not an option for me.
By the way… did you notice I said ‘titleS‘ in the heading?
No, it wasn’t a typo.
You absolutely need to write more than one title for every blog post!
Preferably, more than two… or even three..
Did you know UpWorthy team writes 25 headlines for each of their articles? Then they A/B test the top two to find their best performing headline.
Best way to keep track of your blog post title ideas
Peter’s Post Notes WordPress plugin.
This plugin adds a panel to the sidebar of your WordPress post editor where you can add notes relating to the post.
That way all your ideas stay in one place.
Simple and useful.
Easiest way to test your blog post title contenders
ThriveThemes Headline Optimizer is a simple, easy to use WordPress plugin that allows you to test your headlines, like the most successful sites do, on your very own website.
It literally is as simple as
- write as many headlines as you can think of;
- start your test and Thrive Headline Optimizer takes care of the rest.
Here’s an example of Headline Optimizer at work in 7 Simple Tips to Create Traffic-Driving Mobile Friendly Emails post:
As you can see, it doesn’t take a genius to do this – even a small one-word tweak could make a big difference!
8. Add call to action
Each post you write should have a purpose.
What action would you like your readers to take after reading your post?
- subscribe to your email list?
- buy your product/service?
- click on affiliate links?
- share the post on social media?
Should you have only ONE call to action per post?
Let me tell you something – it’s impossible to have ONE call to action in any given blog post.
Blogs are meant to be interactive with features like:
- comment section
- social media sharing buttons
- related posts
- sidebar with even more elements to click on…
That’s the very nature of blogging. A blog post is not a landing page.
However, there still should be one MAIN call to action per post.
To get your creative CTA juices flowing, read:
- 25 Call to Action Examples You Can Swipe Right Now! – Sarah Arrow at sarkemedia.com
9. Edit and proofread
Here’s my proofreading routine:
- Always take a break before proofreading the post – at least an hour or, even better, a day.
- Read the post in ‘Preview’ mode – check what it will look like when published and correct any formatting mishaps.
- Read aloud. If it doesn’t sound right, it needs to be reworded.
And, most importantly…
Edit ruthlessly.
10. Check SEO
This is the last thing I do: cross my t’s and dot my i’s for the on-page SEO elements and write a post snippet for the search engines.
I use Yoast SEO plugin for that.
If you are not exactly on the first-name basis with SEO, I recommend you download this free guide:
- Learn step-by-step how to do SEO for your pages and posts in 15 minutes – Ashley Faulkes at madlemmings.com
Marketing Takeaway
Read it? Good.
Now go do it. 😉 👍
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” ~ Anne LamottClick To TweetThe only thing that makes a writer lousy is resisting change.
Writing great blog posts is a matter of practice, listening to feedback from your readers and peers, and adjusting your writing style accordingly.
From Ana with
Hey Ana, Thanks a lot for this post. This blog is extremely useful for people like me who are new to blogging. I believe content is the king and SEO is the queen of the blogging world. Thus, SEO plays an important role to help you increase your relevant audience reach.
You are a fast learner, Shruti! 😉
This is one of the best blogging tips articles I have read so far, Ana. Not only is it very open with the reader about your insecurities and abilities, but it is also very genuine and credible in the eyes of people who never thought they could write but have somehow learned to as years go by. (That’s me 🙂
I have picked up on new WP plugins as well as keyboard shortcuts I will definitely use when I post.
Recently I wrote a post about writing a killer blog post, just like yours but not to your supreme levels, Ana. 🙁
I would like some critiquing and maybe, just maybe, a Pinterest share. May the good gods of blogging look kindly on me.
Here’s the link, Ana.
(http://karizmatik.co.ke/2017/07/26/promote-your-blog-post/) You will find it in my website which I will link.
I will be honored for your kind gesture.
Thanks.
Hi, Owen – thanks so much!
Practice makes perfect, as proven by so many before and ahead.
Took a look at your post; love how specific your tips are.
A couple of things to mention:
1. In the beginning of the post, you mention that Pinterest is the second highest social referrer behind Facebook. Unfortunately, the source you refer to is over 3 years old (2014).
When it comes down to stats and especially social media stats, 3-4 years might as well be ancient.
That takes away from the credibility of your post, in my opinion.
2. Great writing deserves great formatting.
Compare yours to mine:
Do you see how much more dense your formatting is?
More compact font type combined with a lot less space between paragraphs makes it a lot harder for people to scan/read. And if they perceive your content to be too much work to consume, they’ll leave.
Hope you find this helpful, Owen, and thanks for coming by!
Good read Anna, first time on your blog and enjoyed the style and your content feel. This write-up was good, a thorough read for new and intermediate bloggers.
It was interesting to know that in your point 3, you mentioned about editing as you write. My understanding was that the writing and editing are dealt by two different parts of brain. Never mix the two together. When you are writing, just keep writing no matter how bad or incorrect you write. It lets your creative skills come out and you generate ideas and words that are unique.
Then come to the editing part completely separately. Put your editor’s hat on and do several rounds of editing.
But I appreciate that everyone is different and there are no hard and fast rules in the world of writing. Thanks again for the useful post, going to share and will try to be more regular on your blog.
Thanks for the compliment, Ahmad!
Actually, in Step 3, I was talking about formatting, not editing. Completely agree with you about editing.
Formatting is different though. As you type up your thoughts, formatting them into bullet lists, bolding, italicizing text, and so forth, helps you to see where you were going with it later on, when editing.
However, you are completely right – to each his/her own.
Nice to read your story. Although it’s a fact that no one is a born writer. Every single writer had to deal with their own set of difficulties to conquer this world of words. Now your story will always stay as another inspiration for budding writers. Creativity comes when you push yourself to the limit or give that space to think. If that is not there then writing creative content is difficult. And without creative content, no one is really going to read you. Let’s start today, never leave it to tomorrow…
“Let’s start today, never leave it to tomorrow” – hear, hear, Steve; well said.
And I completely agree, everyone has to work to perfect a skill – whether they have a natural gift for it or not. Some of us just have to work a lot harder. 😉
For me, Writing has always been about passion, it becomes so much easier, when we have topic which we love, we can put all out passion in it and produce epic content regularly.
That’s my way of writing blog posts.
So true, Jeannette. Without the passion for the topic, writing becomes a chore.
Dear Ana, browsing this wonderful and amazing world that is the internet, I ended up discovering your blog and I’m really enjoying your tips.
Honored, Doni!
Thanks for sharing such wonderful tips, Anna. Even I was lousy writer initially but I feel once a little money starts pouring and the appreciation of your audience it gives you further inspiration to write more.
I need to do so much better on remembering to include a call to action. Not just in my blog posts, but in my social media posts too. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to do this – it’s obviously an integral part of any post. So much for me to work on during 2017!
Thanks for such a thorough and helpful list.
Just takes practice, Liz.
Sticky notes help! And checklists. How’s your organization generally?
Their is nothing impossible if we feel passion to learn and achieve any newthing thorugh hard working. Be a good writer we have to follow the blog of good writer must be in a relevent field.
I’ll take hard work over talent any day of the week, Forhad!
Hi Ana, It’s a fantastic post,
I write few blogs now and then, Often when i start writing i stumble at few points where i don’t know how to convey/ what to suggest the audience. How do you do your research before writing.
Selecting an topic and coming up with idea is a bit easier than portraying it in target audience words. Often i loose track and end up in the wrong corner, This post has provided me some confidence. The truth is that, I feel my writing skills weren’t top notch (Which i hope you understand from this comment itself). And it takes an entire day to write a 1200 word article plus exiting it with the help of grammarly.
Thank you Ana
Nishant – I know EXACTLY what you mean. It’s not unusual for me to get stuck on one thought and, no matter, how much I try, I can’t seem to pass beyond that point in a post.
What helps me is to either jump to the next point (sub-heading) in the blog post (and come back to the sticky point later or even much later) or to walk away from writing altogether, just take a break. A ‘break’ might be an hour or two or a day or two. Can’t rush those things; it’s just counter-productive.
There are a couple of things that I’ve noticed trigger my inspiration: (be ready, this will sound weird ?) vacuuming and taking showers. Those are the times when my brain has nothing better to do but to brainstorm. I swear that’s when I get the best ideas! And yes, that’s why my house always looks so clean… ?
So… next time you are stuck, take a deep breath, remember that it’s nothing more than what’s common to every writer, and move on to something else. Or pull out a vacuum… ?
And did I mention it takes me days or even weeks to finish a post? Taking a day for a post is not that bad, if you ask me. And what’s the rush anyway? Shoot for quality, no matter how long it takes.
Hey, Ana!
It’s a great post with many practical tips and trick for a great blogging. And you are really a great author and interesting blogger with own voice.
I’m from Belarus and I have some difficulties with reading on English.
Thanks and best regards,
Nick.
Considering English is not your first language, you are doing quite well, Nick. ?
Thanks so much for coming by; Happy New Year!
My best headlines always appear after 25 iterations, sometimes more! Part of my editing process includes having a second set of eyes proofread my posts. Ideally, someone who’s not familiar with my topic which gives me an extra “clarity” check.
Great post.
And to think that most people write their headline as an afterthought…
Definitely helpful to have someone look over your content before hitting that publish button!
Pleasure to see you at Traffic Generation Café, Mary.
This is great stuff Ana. Although I think I’ve got the writing part down after 11 years of blogging, I didn’t know anything about the shortcuts under #3. I’ve also always been bad at the call to action thing, but since I don’t have an email list (yeah, I know… lol) I’ve rarely thought about it unless I was marketing something I recently created.
Mitch, you and I go way back.
I know you are ‘just sharing’, but… I know you are not against making money from your sharing, right? So why on earth are you making so difficult for people to do anything but to read your content and leave?
Is there any financial goal behind your blog? Besides a couple of e-books for sale I had to dig out from your sidebar? And if that’s it for now, why not make it a call to action to purchase the books?
HONESTLY, just want to learn more and to help… although it’s presumptuous of me to think you might need/want help. ? ?
Always love reading your thoughts in my comment section!
Hey Ana,
A nice piece of information you have shared. These tips are really worth to implement while writing a post. Nowadays most of the bloggers focus more on traffic rather than on quality of the content . For them this post is a must read.
Thanks for sharing this post,
Cheers.
Thanks for the thumbs up, Jitendra!
Where do I start, Ana – I’ve been taking notes from your fantastic tips.
It’s obvious you share advice from your wisdom and blogging success.
I agree with your tip to write how you speak.
Have you ever recorded your outline ideas using a speech to text App, i.e. Dragon Dictation?
Still laughing over your un-massive guide to getting massive traffic. ABSOLUTELY you can help others, including yourself, get greater results with far fewer words. Some long posts get confusing and overwhelming.
Appreciate your WordPress editor shortcuts and blog post trailers suggestions!
I’ve made a note to read your post on going from blog to video, next.
~Keri
So very kind of you, Keri.
Speech to text doesn’t work very well for me. I find it that I have to edit it a lot more than when I just write it down – go figure…
Have a feeling I’ll be seeing you around, Keri; look forward to it! ?
Ana, it’s great to see that you’ve found something that works for you.
Most bloggers fall short in this area.
I never have issues with writing, however, unless you count having TOO MANY IDEAS a problem! 😉
Anyway, great post. Sharing it now. 🙂
Can’t believe had to fish your comment out of spam, Lorraine!!! How dares Akismet!…
I can totally picture your mind brewing a dozen of ideas at any given moment… What a blessing and the envy to most (especially newer) bloggers!
Pleasure, as always, to see you at Traffic Generation Café, Lorraine. Even my spam folder was honored! ?
Ana, YOU a lousy writer?? I can never for a moment believe that!! Your posts are incredible, engaging and it’s like sitting across a coffee table chatting with you!!
I loved learning about Thrive Headline Optimizer… {big ThriveThemes fan for their landing page thingie} and also, that spreadsheet hack for the blog posts!! GENIUS!! I’m going to get my VA to create one for our archives and then, will update it as I go along!!
Thanks SO much for this as always!
P.S. Yes, exclamations are my best friends 😉
Can’t stop smiling after reading your comment, Prerna – all those ‘!!!’ hard at work! ? ?
So glad you picked up a good idea or two from the post… I am a sucker for the little things, like a simple spreadsheet of the blog posts, that end up making our lives more efficient and productive.
Merry Christmas, Prerna! ? ?
Hey Ana,
Just a fantastic piece of information.
New bloggers rarely think of including a call to action. Just out of curiosity, How many blog posts have you written on traffic generation cafe? And how long did it take you to build up an audience?
I am at about 470 blog posts, Fahad.
Building an audience didn’t take me long actually. At about 3 months of age, Traffic Generation Café looked like a seasoned blog.
Keeping the audience is a lot more work, actually. You can’t just assume people will come back; have to keep working at it!
Thanks Dear Ana,
For shouting my comment on your precious blog. I will love this blog.
And, and also happy to see your rapid progress and impressed by listening 3 months of work Great job.
When we love to do something with perseverance, we can do it, just start writing about your feelings, funny stories happened to you … to know how well you write simply by traffic driving your messages, traffic is your judge, The most important is writing about something you love and understand it.
Thanks Ana
Right you are, Hakim – writing about something you are passionate and knowledgeable about are half of the battle!
Hi Ana,
I would like to write for TGC. I tried messaging you on Google+ as you said, but it seems I don’t understand this social network that much. If you could write me how I can get a hold of you, that would be awesome! Thank you
Sorry, Dustin; I do need to make myself more available via platforms other than G+ – I understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea… or ☕️. ?
Thank you for the offer; however, I don’t accept guest posts from new to me authors at the moment.
Hey Ana,
I have always thought about crafting something better than I do now. As a blogger, it takes the time to manage the time to have any idea about a new blog post.
To become a great writer, an idea should stick to your mind. A great writer has that thinking capability.
Starting with the heading till the end should bring the joy. It’s important to have a format for the post.
You have mentioned the helpful points here.
Thanks for sharing with us.
~Ravi
I like your point about sticky ideas, Ravi. I often find myself ‘writing’ in my mind while doing anything around the house, driving, taking a shower, you name it… ? Those always turn out some of my better post!
Thanks so much for coming by.
Ana, you’re not a lousy writer (and you know it). Liked your idea about following your personal ‘natural style’ of writing.
I’m feeling like a hater when I see how some blogging “kids” are copying writing style of gurus like Neil Patel or Sue Dunlevie.
By the way, I found two great tools for making my lousy writing less lousy 🙂 These tools are Hemingway Editor (that cuts all my fluff) and Unplag duplicate content checker (sometimes I use its free version for quick checks of different content).
P.S. I invite you to visit my blog http://cultivatingeducation.com. A little bit of critique never hurt anyone.
Appreciate the compliment, Michael, but I actually AM naturally a lousy writer; I just have to work a lot harder than many others to deliver great blog posts. I don’t mind though… love blogging too much to let such a small thing like no writing talent stop me. 😉
Haven’t heard of Unplag (will check it out; thanks!) and would love to stop by your blog soon.
Hey Ana,
Now-a-days, It’s easy to build a blog, but hard to build a successful blog with significant traffic. Every business owner who’s ever hosted a blog has experienced the frustration of trying to gain readership. Though we’d all like it if readers just magically came to us, the reality is, it takes some work to build an audience.
It’s easy to get frustrated and just give up on blogging, but once we experience the benefits, we understand that our blog can have a tremendous impact on our business by attracting traffic to site, helping us to build a social media audience and making an impression on prospects and clients alike.
Studies show that the more often we update our blog, the more traffic it will receive. Google gives higher priority to websites with fresh content, so if we want to get more attention from the search engines, we need to update our blog at least twice a week and share each new blog post across our social media networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. If we spend time cultivating our networks and share great content, social media sites can become some of our top traffic sources. keywords are considered as the heart of SEO. One of the easiest ways to generate more traffic to our website is to ensure that every page on our site has a keyword strategy. Eventually, thanks for sharing your worthy thought with us.
With best regards,
Amar kumar
Blogging sure does sound easy, especially (no!) thanks to all the bloggers who are selling it that way. What they are really selling is the services to start a blog and who cares about anything else! ?
However, while starting a blog is certainly easy, blogging is quite a different story! Absolutely agree with your thoughts on that, Amar.
What I beg to differ on is how often you should publish new content.
Publishing twice a week would most likely mean spending ALL your time writing, and even then no way someone can write two quality posts per week. And what’s the point of writing ‘good enough’ posts? For the search engines? They are not the ones who pay the bills. ?
Also, I find it that promotion yields much better results that writing. Without promotion, who would ever come to read your two posts per week? And promotion takes time. A lot of it. As a matter of fact, I spend most of my time promoting the content I’ve written and not writing more content.
Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Sure, this post is compelling. I was kicked into an island of regurgitation after reading the article.
My best point was to start with post outline rather than title. Yeah! I always start with post title which sometimes make the content a little bit differ to the title but I hope to turn over a new leaf.
Also, I was moved with the point that you should be yourself. That’s it! You can’t copy other people’s success, you can only create it.
Don’t think you meant to use the word ‘regurgitation’ here, Helyz. ?
People certainly won’t read your blog because you write like everyone else, right? It’s the writer’s unique style that draws them in.
Glad it made sense to you to dive into writing the post itself first (starting with an outline), then writing the title to match what you said in the post!
Hi Ana,
It’s great that when writing as we’re speaking but the advice is the second step after getting started to write.
Giving advice to others can impact either way, plus or minus. Defintiely getting started to write and read more of what’ve brought results to others and share it.
Instead of doing what Ana did and I also ): sharing some random stuff.
Cheers,
Louis Huynh
Hey, Louis – I agree, starting to write is the first step. However, that’s the very step a lot of bloggers fail at (called ‘writer’s block’ ?); so instead, they procrastinate.
I truly believe, however, if they thought of writing as simply speaking, it might be a lot easier for them to get started.
What do you think?
PS Never thought about it for some reason, but saw it on your site and it made a lot of sense. You showed a popup opt-in after a comment was placed. Perfect timing! I usually redirect them to a page that does something similar, but a popup (as much as I hate them!) might be more effective.
Which plugin are you using for that?
Hey Ana,
I use to hate writing myself and now I love to blog. You can actually be yourself without following extraneous rules and regulations which makes our writing more robotic.
I follow just about everything in your routine except for coming up with a title. I usually write a “temporary” title first that gives me a starting point, then an outline, then a rough draft.
But I definitely like the information you put out. I figure as long as it’s helpful to your audience then that’s what matter the most!
Thanks for sharing Ana! Have a great week!
Love it how you put it, Sherman – “extraneous rules and regulations which makes our writing more robotic.” That’s exactly what my writing was before I basically said ‘Screw that; either I have to be myself or quit blogging.’ 😉
I hear you about a working title. Have to have one of those for sure!
Thanks so much for coming by, Sherman; have a great week as well.
Hey Ana, Another fantastic article. New bloggers rarely think of including a call to action. Just out of curiosity, How many blog posts have you written on traffic generation cafe? And how long did it take you to build up an audience?
I have 470 posts published at the moment, Ava (most of them need to be updated in some manner, of course – never ends!).
Actually, when I first started Traffic Generation Café, I was smart enough to figure out a couple of things that helped me to go big in about 3 months. “Smart” because my first blog failed, so it was do or die with this one. ?
Hey Ana,
That’s a fantastic read. You a lousy writer? Ha!
Great tips as always. Starting with a headline doesn’t work for me either. And just like you, I would start with a seed idea and while writing a blog post, it would take a different route – sometimes a slight off track and at other times a total U-Turn.
I just use my first, working title as a hint – but I write the actual title(s) only after I complete the blog post and have read it myself at least once 🙂
Thanks for pointing out the Drafts Dropdown plugin – sounds interesting. I’ll check it out.
Cheers,
Jane.
Such a pleasure to see you at Traffic Generation Café, Jane!
I find it interesting how our brain works sometimes when writing blog posts – when we give it the freedom to go into an entirely different direction if need be, the blog posts often turn out a lot more epic than they would had we followed our original outline to the ‘t’….
Hi Ana,
What a great post you have given us. Writing killer blog posts ain’t easy! I do like to write like a talk – or should I say tawk – he he he. But seriously, once I get started and won’t let anything distract me, I do get on a roll. But then comes the editing. Too many adjectives…cutting and pasting to form ideas that make sense, etc.
I do believe as long as we have confidence in ourselves, it is easier to express what we want to write about….and on this note…. I too use Evernote. My goodness so many ideas pop into my head during the day I need to write them down or else they get lost in space.
Fab Article…
-Donna
I used to be a big fan of ‘formal’ writing… Grammatically correct, perfect sentences. No contractions – ever. And yes, adjectives galore. 😉 BORING!
Had to fight myself quite a bit to change that, but now it’s second nature! Makes me realize how hectically our brains actually think when I see it in writing, don’t you think? All the ‘…’ among other things?… I love it! ?
Thanks for coming by, Donna; pleasure as always!
Hey Ana,
Thanks for an informative and open blog post.
I have to say that I agree with most of your ideas and ways of working. But like you say, everyone has to find their own way. I don’t like writing in the WordPress editor. I prefer to write in Google Docs and then copy into WordPress editor or more often into Thrive Content Builder. It’s always good to have a backup of your post outside WordPress.
Thanks again!
– David
PS – I don’t think you’re a lousy writer 🙂
I’ve tried Google Docs in the past, but always had trouble with formatting after pasting it to WP, David. You don’t have such a problem?
I also like to add images as I go. They are often a good visual aid to keep my creative juices flowing. It always irritates me to have to go back and figure out which image goes where, etc. Feels like double effort. ? ?
PS Thank you for the compliment. ? In order to appear to be a better writer than I am, I have to edit, edit, edit – multiple times. No wonder it takes me days, sometimes weeks to write a post…
I’ve used copy n paste from Google Docs to WP Editor OK. I had to remove a few extra line breaks, but it copied the H2, H3 tags, and other formatting OK. But you have to add the images in afterward. (I add a placeholder in the text so I know what image to add where).
There is a tool called Wordable (https://www.wordable.io/ – previously Postable.io – from the guys at Grow and Convert) that might be of interest to you. It copies everything, including images, from Google Docs to the WP Editor.
If I’m copying from Google Docs to Thrive Content Builder then I have to revert to ‘Paste and Match Style’ and then format in TCB.
And that’s why I write in WP. 😉 No extra (and unnecessary, imho) steps.
Afternoon Ana, thank you for including my post in this awesome resource. Love the look of the plugin that gets rid of the in-links thingmajiggy that’s driven me nuts for the last few months. I’m going to check it out right now x
Pleasure, Sarah – enjoyed browsing through your blog last night!
I KNOW!!! Whoever thought inline links was a good idea… The only saving grace is that that plugin developer got to work right away!
Ana, fantastic post. I am relatively new in blogging and this is so far not my primary profession, I am working in an education company. I am learning about blogging day by day and how I can improve my skills to make a living from blogging in next couple of years down the line. This article gives so many new points which I have to re-work and I am making a point by point brief note of these tips, and am going to recheck those whenever I am writing a blog article. Thanks Ana, for posting this and helping me and many like me with your knowledge and experience.
That’s definitely the BEST way of doing it – don’t quit your day job until you’ve learned enough to know what you are doing! ? Too many folks jump all in just to realize money won’t start pouring in overnight.
So glad to hear you found this post helpful! Love it that you are making it your own by taking notes; let me know if you have any questions.
This post has provided me some confidence to believe I could at least start a blog. I’ve resisted the urge to blog mainly because I felt my writing skills weren’t top notch.
Thank you Ana
You are DEFINITELY not alone, Michael!
Plus, English is my second language, so you have no excuse…. ?
Do it anyway Michael, you can always delete (or edit) your earlier posts once you improve. I started blogging to improve my writing and I’ve just had a book published. I never saw myself as a writer but I persevered and it has definitely improved my confidence. Reading also helps a great deal in terms of helping to hone your style and expand your vocabulary!
Ditto to everything you said, Navaz – the more you write, the better you get, that simple.