writing skills for bloggers workshop

Writing

for

Bloggers

T H E W O R D S W E U S E A N D H O W T H E Y A R E P R E S E N T E D O N A W E B P A G E .

( O R , H O W T O W R I T E F O R R E A D E R S … W H I L E G O O G L E L O O K S O V E R Y O U R S H O U L D E R )

Writing for Bloggers

By Rick Zullo: http://SimpleDigitalBranding.com

USING WORDPRESS, THE VISUAL EDITOR, AND YOAST

Technical Elements of Writing a Blog Post

WordPress Visual Editor

Important data and tools:

URL/Permalink

Keywords

Title (H1)

H2, H3, etc.

Plugin: WP Edit

Yoast Plug-in for “on-page” SEO

Focus Keyword

SEO Title

Meta Description

Photo alt tags with the target keyword. (I will talk about this later.)

On-Page SEO is a necessary “entry ticket,” but in most niches, it will not get you ranked in Google on its own! You must promote and get backlinks.

Yoast Dashboard

What could I have done better here?

In the end, this is a good exercise, but don’t get hung up on it. It’s more important to write engaging content.

Google’s Crawlers can’t “read” images… but they can read the metatags.

Linking

Internal linking to relevant posts (ex. Wiki)

External/Outbound linking to authoritative websites.

J U S T A S W E D I S C U S S E D O V E R A L L W E B S I T E D E S I G N , Y O U R P O S T S S H O U L D A L S O H A V E “ V I S U A L ” E L E M E N T S T H A T

A P P E A L T O T H E R E A D E R ’ S E Y E .

Structure of Your Posts

Make it “Scanable” Short Sentences, Short Paragraphs

Shareability: implies clever, or “quotable.”

Z – Pattern to move eye

Images mixed with text

Bold and (rare) Italics

• Bullet Points

• Numbered Lists

Two Colors, Maximum

Total Word Count: Short (400-500) or Long (1,000+) ?

Inverted Pyramid

Borrowed from traditional journalism in order to:

Grab readers’ attention

Grab Google’s attention

Get the most important information, especially keywords, near the beginning.

*Only about 10% will read the entire post.

Old School Thinking The Current Approach

Stuff the page with keywords.

Variations of a long-tail keyword.

A more natural style that doesn’t appear “forced” to human readers.

Keywords

E X A M P L E : B E S T T U S C A N R E D W I N E S

• B E S T R E D W I N E F R O M T U S C A N Y • G R E A T W I N E S O F I T A L Y • A F F O R D A B L E I T A L I A N W I N E S • W I N E P A I R I N G W I T H T U S C A N F O O D • B E S T W H I T E W I N E S F R O M T U S C A N Y • B E S T R E D W I N E S F R O M P I E D M O N T • V I S I T I N G W I N E R I E S I N I T A L Y • T R A V E L I N G T O T U S C A N Y F O R T H E H A R V E S T

Long-Tail Keyword Variations

( Y E S , A S I N , “ W H A T ” T O W R I T E A B O U T ! )

Writing

A N Y T H I N G I N Y O U R G E N E R A L N I C H E I S F A I R G A M E , B U T Y O U S H O U L D T R Y T O G I V E R E A D E R S W H A T T H E Y W A N T .

O K , S O H O W W I L L Y O U K N O W W H A T T H E Y W A N T ?

T A K E A D V A N T A G E O F A F E W S I M P L E S E A R C H T O O L S T O D I S C O V E R W H A T T O P I C S P E O P L E A R E A L R E A D Y

S E A R C H I N G F O R O N L I N E .

• G O O G L E ’ S K E Y W O R D P L A N N E R T O O L ( L E T ’ S T R Y I T ! ) • A M A Z O N : E S P E C I A L L Y G O O D I F Y O U P L A N T O S E L L

P H Y S I C A L P R O D U C T S O N Y O U R S I T E • T W I T T E R T R E N D S • P A I D A P P S L I K E L O N G T A I L P R O O R M A R K E T S A M U R A I

T H E I N F O R M A T I O N T H A T Y O U G A T H E R F R O M T H E S E

S E A R C H E S W I L L B E C O M E T H E “ L O N G - T A I L K E Y W O R D S ” M E N T I O N E D E A R L I E R .

Subject Matter

The “Blogging Style” of Writing

Favors an informal style of writing.

Write as if you’re chatting with a friend.

Worry about refining it later. And you WILL have to refine it if you expect people to actually read what you’ve written. It needs to be sharp and engaging; not an endless ramble!

If we had to roughly define a style of writing that is considered “ideal” blogging, it would be something like, 60% journalism (to give it credibility), 35% creative writing or “diary writing,” (to give it personality), and 5% ad copy (to help the search engines find you).

The “ad copy” portion should be mostly reserved for the title of your posts, and maybe a couple of subheadings.

“I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN YOU A SHORTER LETTER, BUT

I DID NOT HAVE THE TIME .”

Edit Yourself !

Grammarly Hemingway App

Write More Gooder

grammarly.com hemingwayapp.com

How to Write a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Blog Post from Hubspot Blog:

1. Write a boring, non-descript headline.

2. Talk only about your products and services

3. Write for someone other than your target audience.

4. Have nothing remarkable or helpful to say.

5. Format it as one big block of text.

6. Include zero in-text links.

7. Forget to attribute your sources.

8. Fail to include a call-to-action.

9. Make a ton of spelling and grammatical errors.

10. Disable social media sharing links and comments.

11. *Exclamation points do NOT replace genuine emotion!!!!

Examples

Be Specific with your Title

“A Handful of Ways to Optimize Your Site” What’s wrong: This particular title suffers from an acute lack of specifics. If you take a “handful of minutes” to check a few Google searches, you’ll find that numbered lists are incredibly popular. 10 ways to comb your hair, 14 secrets to a better smile, 11 dogs that ruled the world; the number is important. It doesn’t matter how many you list, you just need to specify the number. A better title in this instance might be: 12 Ways to Optimize Your Blog for Facebook. The lesson to be learned: be specific. http://blogpros.com/blog/2014/05/10-common-examples-bad-blog-post-titles

Formatting

E V E R Y T I M E I S T A R T W R I T I N G A B L O G P O S T , I A L R E A D Y H A V E A T E M P L A T E , A S T R U C T U R E , I N

M I N D B E F O R E I E V E N S T A R T W R I T I N G , A N D T H I S T E M P L A T E I S F O U N D E D O N F I V E S T E P S

K E E P I N G T H E F I V E - S T E P S T R U C T U R E I N M I N D , H E R E ’ S A “ P E R F E C T ” B L O G P O S T T E M P L A T E :

5 Steps to a “Perfect” Blog Post

http://thewritepractice.com/blog-post-elements

1. The Lead

Also known as lede for journalism geeks, this term describes the first paragraph, the hook of your story where your job is to grab the attention of the reader, preferably by presenting a problem that your reader desperately wants solved. (Another way to describe a lead is your premise.)

Length: one to three paragraphs.

2. The Aggravator

The next step is to make the problem worse, and that’s what the aggravator is for.

Here you want to identify with the reader, telling them what makes solving their problem so difficult. You’re also setting up your solution, which we’ll get to next. This is a great place to tell a story or use an example.

Length: three or four paragraphs.

3. The Core Points

This is where you finally explain the solution to your readers’ problem.

Take note that in this template, you don’t get into the solution, the core points of your post, until you’re halfway through the article. Most people start their post here. However, that’s a huge mistake.

Skipping to the solution before you’ve fully explained the problem is like passing on foreplay, and if you do, you might find that your post comes out flat.

Length: three paragraphs or more

4. The Connector

This is where you connect your core points to how they will actually solve the problem that you presented in the lead.

Another word for this is the “conclusion,” and surprisingly, many people skip the conclusion. However, it’s the single best place to connect the dots and show how your solution actually solves your readers’ problem.

Length: one to three paragraphs.

5. The Question

What makes blogging different than print newspapers or magazines?

Blogging is interactive. That’s why a blog post is never finished until you’ve added a question to stimulate discussion. Scan to the end of a few blog posts from top bloggers and you’ll find that they always include a question to their readers.

Length: one or two sentences.

T H E I M P O R T A N C E O F W R I T I N G L I K E E R N E S T

H O W T O W R I T E A P E R F E C T B L O G P O S T

( O R … )

H O W T O W R I T E A T E R R I B L E , H O R R I B L E , N O G O O D , V E R Y B A D B L O G P O S T

1 0 V I S U A L E L E M E N T S O F W R I T I N G F O R T H E W E B

E X A M P L E S O F B A D B L O G P O S T T I T L E S

G O O G L E W A N T S U S T O W R I T E B E T T E R

Further Reading on Writing