Book Blogging 101 – Chapter 5
The Art of Writing a Perfect Blog Post
When writing a blog post you should always have certain key aspects. These key aspects will help you generate higher SEO rankings and clicks, whether from Reader or social networking. What you have to understand when writing these posts is the key target of your blog post should be keeping people on your blog. This means clicking related links, or engaging with you in a forum or comment section.
Quality & Targeted Content
An engaged audience is one that will return. This is achieved by quality and targeted content. Content that is relevant to your reader that will benefit them in some way. As a book blogger that also generates blogging tips and tricks I make sure that my content always sticks to the topic at hand and I’ll always know when I stray – because it will show in my reader engagement and pageviews.
Suggestions on Creating Great Content:
- Don’t Go Overboard, keep it simple and to the point.
- Show off your unique style and voice
- If you are bored, your readers will be also
- Do your research, if you are not knowledgable about the subject, become knowledgeable.
Eye-Catching Headers
Make sure your headers reflect your content. Remember that your Header is what will most likely be tweeted out or posted on other social networks along with the link. If you header does not contain the gist of your post and promote an action it will probably be passed right on by. We wouldn’t want that to happen.
Utilize Categories and Tags
Categories in WordPress, along with Tags in other Blogging platforms are wonderful tools and help you target the areas you want to focus on. Set up the categories you want to cover and blog within them. The categories and tags also help readers read more about your topics that you focus on. For example if you focus on niche subjects like Steampunk and all your posts regarding that are tagged as Steampunk, then readers can easily just click your tag or category and read all you have to say about it.
Headings
What you might see a lot in SEO posts is that Google likes a formatted post. What this means is that they love to see a structured post with heading tags and paragraph copy.
There should only be one H1 tag and it should be the most important statement. Usually this is the Header.
Subheadings should be labeled h2s and then sub-subheadings h3 and so on and so forth. Their can be more then one H2 and less headings. Your headings should have a keyword in it.
Picture It
A picture is worth a thousand words. Represent it within the post. This keeps readers from getting bored, especially if you have a long, informative post.
Links!
Include links, external and internal. Make sure you include related posts or other informative links within your posts. If you mention a previous post, link it. If you mention a source, link it. You can also leave links at the bottom of the posts. If you like this one, you’ll love this one…
Question Your Readers
The point of the post is reader engagement and the best way to engage is in the comments section. Sometimes readers don’t know what to comment with though, so help them. Ask a question at the end of your post that will help them join the conversation.
Tune in Next Week for Chapter 6: Creative Thinking – Brainstorm for a Better Blog
Reader Question of the Week:
I was just wondering about the etiquette of book tours? I notice some bloggers have a lot of book tours, but none are run by the same tour host. Can you give me the basic run down on signing up for blog tours and such? – Ellen Faith
Ellen – most blog tour hosts can only run so many blog tours a month, yet a blogger could literally have 30 blog tours set up a month if they want to run it that way. There is no exclusivity that I know of as far as being a tour host for different blog tour sites. And if there is one, I wouldn’t recommend that tour site. You don’t want to be hemmed in by just one host. It would be like being exclusive to just one publisher. So, basically you can sign up for a host for all of the book tour hosts sites and then sign up for as many of the tours as they host. Just make sure you keep track of the tours that you are on. You usually sign up for being on a tour by going to the hosts main site. Usually you can sign up to be on the newsletter which will send out which tours are running, and then you have to sign up for each individual tour as they are being scheduled.
Book Blogger News:
The Brit Edition
Trolling for Notoriety
RJ Ellory, apologetic crime writer extraordinaire, admitted to being a total troll, writing fake reviews and being a dickweed to other rival authors. And he has gotten a ton of nasty backlash. People are calling him socially disturbed, abusive and even a sociopath. RJ Ellory has come out an apologized profusely about his actions over the last 10 years, stating that he will take responsibility, but the fact of the matter is, he only apologized after being caught and exposed by spy author Jeremy Duns on twitter. [Top
Great post as usual. I’m always trying to keep the dialogue open on my blog.
You do an excellent job of it Juju…I need you to write a BB101 on the art of commenting & dialogue LOL
Great post again this week! I was glad to see the answer to the Reader Question since I have been wondering that myself
Just jump right in with blog tours Chrystina — they are easy and a fun way to drive traffic to your blog.
I find it hard to stick to the subject when I do discussion posts. My rule is to write the post the best I can and do a quick edit then walk away for at least a day before going back and editing it again and usually cutting out huge chunks. I still don’t stick the point as well as I should though. I guess I have way too much to say.
I have been reading all the BB101 posts and loving them. Its nice getting the news as well since I often don’t hear about it.
hi Candace’s ! Hope you will be fine. i am agree with you it help you filter your post many times. If some one just write a post and at the end publish on blog there is chance he may skips many editing able things. but reading at different times and with different mods help to produce better post.
Loving every post you make in Book Blogging 101.
Thanks Lizzie, I appreciate it.
You have been so helpful to me in starting my blog. Thank you so much for your valuable information!
Really you share great ways to write a good article. I learn so many tips by reading this article, from today i will visit you frequently because you have a lot of good written varieties of articles. I will follow few things as you told. thanks
very good.
I’ve recently started a blog, the info you provide on this site has helped me greatly. Thank you for all of your time & work.