After a classmate told me that she had been reading my blog and started asking questions about how I got started and how I come up with the central idea for my posts, I could tell that she wanted to start to blog but was needing guidance in doing so. I came to the conclusion that there are many other people just getting started that also need to be guided in the right direction. So here is a blogging instructional, written by a blogger.
Step One - Read blogs. That’s right. Don’t create a post, or share a photo or link; just read blogs.
Step Two - As your reading blogs, write down what types of posts you tend to skip over or posts that come off as boring to you when your reading a blog. I wrote down things such as “Long posts and paragraphs”, “Personal life”, “Drama”, and “Cursing” (Cursing is unnecessary, you do not need to use vulgar language to prove a point. Doing so would just make you look arrogant and idiotic because you cannot find a better word to use.).
Step Three - Write down the types of posts you tend to enjoy reading. Some things I liked that I wrote down were “Short to medium size paragraphs”, “Quick and to the point”, and “Something I could use to improve my own life”. A two column list of what you liked and disliked would serve best in pointing out these ideas.
Step Four - Daydream. You can turn them into a main ideas for what to blog about. Doing so may be difficult, but after a while, this will become easy. This is done by shaping and molding the daydream. For example: “I wish I could be successful” could be turned into “Why do we feel the urge to conform to society’s standards” as a main idea by asking “why” or “what” in regard your daydream.
Step Four (Alternative) - Look around. Choose an object, for me right now the object is a notebook. I could turn this item into an idea by asking myself “how could this resemble something in my life” and go off that idea. I might start the post by saying “Life’s like a notebook, everyday is a fresh new start, a clean slate” (in reference to the pages in the notebook). The main idea(s) from that could be “letting go of yesterday”, and “letting the future fall in place”. See? Literally, ANYTHING can inspire you to write a blog post.
Step Five - Start your post by asking yourself “what” in regards to your main idea. This gives the reader some background knowledge to what it is your topic is. For example, your main idea is “letting go of yesterday”. Start out by saying something down the lines of, “we have ups and we have downs, but whatever those downs may be, we need to let go of what has been bothering us, and let the future fall in place”. Or something like that.
Step Six - Go off of your main idea by asking yourself “How”. This gives the reader a feeling that they are reading a blog that was meant to help them with whatever the main idea is. Let’s be honest, who likes to read about some stranger half way around the world having problems with her boyfriend? Nobody. Asking “how” is a way to make the post relevant to your readers.
Step Seven - Write about “why”.This is the meat on the bones because it incites the reader to keep reading that post. Give the readers reason to keep reading.
Step Eight - Resurface your main ideas within that post. This is a great way to end a post because it leaves with the reader, rather than them forgetting about the points you made throughout your post.
Step Nine - Create a title in such a way that it incites the readers to read that post. For example: “Don’t worry about the past” is a terrible title while “live your life like a notebook” would be a better choice. Often times the reader will see it and say “WHAT the heck, HOW would I do that, and WHY would I do that”. But by doing steps five, six, and seven, these questions will be answered. Awesome.
TIPS:
*Don’t write about your experiences; write about how your experiences could benefit others.
*Don’t write about drama.
*Don’t write extra long paragraphs, many people will find a post boring, but wouldn’t if the extra long paragraph was broken into two. See what I did with “step four”?
*For steps two and three, writing down on a piece of paper serves best; It’s a quick and easy reference.
*Your title is your advertisement, it is the one thing that draws your readers in.
I hope this post was of use to you. This post was based on my own experiences with reading blogs and what I have noticed I have done wrong in my own blog through time. Feel free to submit questions by clicking here.
Drake
