• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • The Famous Blog
    • Blogging
    • Social Media
    • SEO
    • Marketing
    • Design

Famous Bloggers

How To Blog and Start a Business

  • Contribute
    • Submit News
  • Login

Home » The Famous Blog » Checklist for Writing Awesome Blog Posts

Checklist for Writing Awesome Blog Posts

September 28, 2011 - Last Modified: September 28, 2011 by Timothy Ng

Writing Awesome Blog Posts

Every experienced blogger incorporates some method when compiling blog posts. They do this by following a basic set of guidelines moulded to their own unique situations and styles.

Blog Content vs. Mattresses

I usually compare blog content to the softness/support ratio a mattress needs to have. Imagine the mattress padding consisting of:

  1. Opinion pieces
  2. Weekly roundups
  3. Top ten posts

With the mattress springs consisting of:

  1. Research-based pieces
  2. Meaty posts
  3. Posts announcing new and important information

Different mattresses will suit different individuals, and so the correct ratio will also be required when writing and maintaining a successful blog. Here is a checklist which will help you write awesome and more in-depth blog posts

Checklist for Writing Awesome Blog Posts

checklist writing blog posts

Prepare Yourself

There are 7 steps to ensure adequate preparation:

1. Distinguish Yourself and Don’t Imitate

You only become a successful blogger by offering something unique to the viewer. Establish yourself by not imitating industry leaders.

2. Don’t Scrape for Crumbs

Don’t just post for the sake of posting. Great bloggers publish useful and informative posts when and as they see fit.

3. Know Your Audience

As the blogger, you share the same interest as your audience, therefore you should write as if writing for yourself. Will you pick your own blog to read amongst thousands of others? If not, you need to determine why.

4. Contribute by Providing Fresh Information

Readers want fresh, unique and useful information. If you are simply stating the obvious or restating what was already covered by others, chances are you won’t generate a following.

5. Do Proper Research & Be Creative

You don’t need the secret service to obtain new information. Instead, simply create it yourself! You can even use public data.

6. Think Like a Magazine Editor

Not all articles in a magazine may interest a reader, yet a couple of great ones ensure people subscribe to it. Make sure your blog includes both attention grabbing and deeper content posts.

7. Challenge Yourself & Stay motivated

Blogging is not only difficult at times, but can be both time consuming and disheartening. Your environment should be filled with people who support you both at home and online. Ultimately, your audience should become this influence.

Time to Write

Providing attention grabbing content is one thing, writing professionally is another. There is nothing more wretched than reading content with poor grammar and spelling. Your reputation is at stake, and if you can’t spell properly, how will people be convinced that your content is reliable? Ensure it is done correctly the first time.

1. Use a Word Processor

Draft your post in a Word processor such as Microsoft Word to ensure your spelling and grammar is correct. Never draft it straight into your web editor.

2. Note Your Main Ideas First

This will ensure you leave a comprehensive post containing all the important ideas.

3. Be Able to Backup Your Statements

Take ownership of your posts, and ensure that they are credible as you may one day need to back it up with facts.

4. Read Your Post Aloud

Obvious typos can time again be overlooked when silently reading your content. Any copywriter will tell you that this can be avoided when reading the same text aloud.

5. Have Adequate Layout to Keep Attention

Use bullet points, tables or images to separate large pieces of text to ensure that the attention of the reader remains fixed.

6. Take Some Time Out

Save your document and take a break for an hour or so. Not only does it give you a well deserved break, but also helps to clear your mind and allows you to scrutinise your document with a fresh approach.

7. Remove the BS

Read your post and edit where required. Look for unnecessary arguments, preaching, repetitious points and wordy sentences, and remove them.

8. Publish It

Again, read your post aloud. If you feel confident enough that you could read it to a live audience, you are ready to post it to your blog.

Start Blogging

Blogging is a wonderful tool and specifically designed to allow interaction between both the blogger and those viewing the posts. Successful blogging will require some maintenance. Do this by:

1. Becoming the Viewer

Access your blog as a viewer reading your post for the first time. Ensure that the post layout, spelling and grammar are correct, and that images display accurately. Check that the URL path of a link correctly displays and that it opens in a new window. Here you want to ensure all works 100% as you want to avoid people leaving your blog mid-post.

2. Respond to Comments

Blog posts are meant to be interactive, and without responding to questions, you will leave the impression that you are not serious about your blog. There is no rule stating you have to reply to every comment made, but be sure to contribute to your blog community with proper etiquette.

3. Add Updates

If you stand to be corrected after publishing a comment, always remember to provide updates. Never delete incorrect posts as people can always view cached versions of your post. People tend to relate more to bloggers who acknowledge mistakes and provide a solution. Use the strikethrough in these instances and ensure to make it obvious to the viewers.

4. Engage in Conversations on the Web

People might be talking about your post elsewhere on the web, so be sure to join in the conversation. Use the following book marking search engines to find these conversations:

  1. Google Blog Search.
  2. Delicious,
  3. Technorati.
  4. Reflect and Learn

This is probably one of the most important actions any blogger should take. After publishing your post, take some time to reflect on how well or poorly you have done.

    1. Have you achieved the desired results?
    2. Have you made any mistakes?

Determine the way forward, and if satisfied with your work, give yourself a well deserved pat on the back!

ShareTweet

Filed Under: Blogging

About Timothy Ng

Follow @creditcardau

Timothy Ng from Sydney Australia is genuinely passionate about helping people with their personal finances. He writes for a network of personal finance blogs

Reader Interactions

Related Posts

  • Blogging Limiting Beliefs about Money5 Blogging Limiting Beliefs about Money that You Need to Release
  • What’s Up Bloggers! Roundup #8 with Don Sturgill
  • What is Keeping Your Blog from Making Money?What is Keeping Your Blog from Making Money?
  • Start new blog post10 Techniques how to Start a Blog Post to Engage Readers to Stay on Page

{ 21 Responses }

  1. AstroGremlin says:
    Timothy, your advice raises the bar for post content and presentation. Here's what happens to me: I see my traffic dwindling and feel pressured to post something, anything. Your guidance to set standards, take one's time, and remember to remove the BS reminds me not to post for posting's sake.
  2. Mia says:
    Ok,noted :) I think i can ask your approval to have the RSS feed so i can ping this page :)
  3. Jane says:
    Hi Timothy, Thanks for the insightful post. Writing the blog post in a unique manner without copying others (both in terms of the content and the voice) is very important. Thanks for pointing that out. Cheers, Jane.
  4. George Anderson says:
    Great list here, Thanks for your advice I really appreciate that.
  5. Ana says:
    6. Take Some Time Out I think that people usually don't realize how important this really is. During every mental process there is a plateau that has to be reached and lived through it order to move on. Taking a break will give your mind a chance to recuperate and get a fresh perspective on your already written content.
  6. Rohan Banerjee says:
    I am extremely grateful that you created this post!!!!! This will be infinitely helpful to me. A verry informative post.. THANK YOU
  7. Sergio Guillen Rodriguez says:
    Hi Timothy, Great article, couldn't agree more. I believe that Becoming the Viewer is a really important aspect of good blogging. Correct spelling and grammar is something readers always appreciate. Thanks! Sergio
  8. Morgan says:
    Hey Timothy! Great post! I love that you really emphasize being unique when you write your blog posts. It is so important to stand out in this day and age. Like, for instance, I know my audience is people who are looking for social media ADVICE, not social media news. So I don't talk about the latest trends, platforms and changes on FB; I talk about how to improve your social media standing or little quirks within social media. You gotta know the WHY of blogging. :) Great stuff!
  9. David Domm says:
    Great post, excellent content and information. Thank you for sharing, amazing what we can do these days.... :0)
  10. Tanya says:
    Thanks for the posting this, A lot of useful tips to help me in my new blogging adventure. Great post :)
  11. Steve says:
    Timothy, I love this one. Distinguish Yourself and Don’t Imitate I do a fair amount of blog reading and commenting. Sometimes I simply cannot muster up the energy to comment because the topics I see are the same exact thing I have seen 4-5 times the same day. It gets frustrating. Sure, there are very very few truly unique Ideas but some people do not seem to even put their own spin or personality into the ideas. they just pop out the same "5 reasons to guest post" or "Great tips for SEO that you see everywhere. Now there is nothing wrong with those topics. If done with some originality. But too many people simply follow the format that they themselves have seen half a dozen times making for very boring reading. Now, since I am commenting and saying this I obviously DO NOT feel that way about your content. (I just leave when I feel that way). Sorry for the mini-rant, but something struck me there. Anyway nice article and great points. Have a good day, Steve
  12. Grady Pruitt says:
    Great tips! I especially like the comparison of blogging to mattresses. As for writing posts, if I'm not writing them in the browser window, I prefer using a plain text editor, like Notepad++. Sometimes, when you try to copy from a word processor, characters get changed and doesn't look like you intended. Thanks for sharing, Timothy!
  13. Jason says:
    Why use a bloated, distracting word processor? Personally I write in the Wordpress interface for the most part. When writing for non-Wordpress sites or just doing general writing, I use Writemonkey, a minimalist full-screen-capable text editor which supports Textile and Markdown and can export ready-to-publish HTML to the clipboard with one click. And yes, it has spellcheck. :)
  14. Nick Stamoulis says:
    If you're going to blog, you need to understand that it's a serious commitment from the start. A successful blog is an active blog. There is no sense in starting one and then letting it sit idle for months at a time. Set a blogging schedule and stick to it. You don't want to build up a following only to ditch them because you didn't keep up with it.
  15. Jamie Northrup says:
    You have some good tips Timothy, definitely worth noting a lot of them.
  16. jigar doshi says:
    great post. valuable tips. thanks. shouldn't it be "time and again" ?? " Obvious typos can 'time again' be overlooked when..."
  17. Noel Addison says:
    When I was a kid, one of my teachers taught us to write an essay. After completing it, we were told to read it out loud the next day. It's therefore nice to see a post pointing out the same technique. I think injecting humor can also make your blog posts more awesome. It's something that I try to do and I know I still need to work on it.
  18. Ryan Biddulph says:
    Hi Timothy, Super tips. Reading posts aloud helps you to hear your errors. You can hear how the post flows. Reading to self? Not quite as effective. Practice writing a lot. Like every day. The more you write, you become a better blogger. It's simple. I run 3 blogs. I post daily. I churn out expansive comments when visiting blogs. So writing a 400 word post is easy, because I write all day long. Before I practiced consistently, I ran into writer's block. My posts were of a lower quality. Now with many months of continual practice I sit and write. It's easy for me, because I made it easy through persistent practice. Thanks! Ryan
  19. Louis says:
    Couldn't agree more. Only that after drafting on MS Word, be sure to check the links since they tend to break when copy-pasted from Word.
  20. Thomas Frank says:
    Definitely agree with the tip on knowing your audience. So many people just write like to please everyone, and don't realize that people in their niche might like a certain style.
  21. Ming Jong Tey says:
    Hey Tim, I like the idea of "Engage in Conversations on the Web". Sometimes, when a post went viral, people will discuss them else where rather than your own blog. One way to monitor this is to use Google Alert to track your name or post name, etc... Cheers, Ming

Primary Sidebar

Our Newsletter

Our Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our blog.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Popular Articles

  1. Top 10 Sites Where You Can Get Paid to Write 115,652 views
  2. How to Get Targeted Twitter Followers Fast 92,036 views
  3. How to Set Half Rating Scale 1-5 (Poor to Excellent) by Words 86,825 views
  4. 66 Awesome Social Media Quotes 78,368 views
  5. 50 Traffic Sources You Should Milk Like Crazy 75,081 views
Schema Structured Data for wordPress
  • Blog
  • Contribute
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Disclosure Policy

Copyright ©2020 · FamousBloggers - All Rights Are Reserved · Powered by Genesis Framework

  • Login
Forgot Password?
Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.
Go to mobile version