How to write a great Blog Post? - Best practices of Blogging

Why to BLOG?

1. A chance to speak in detail to your audience/peers/customers/target group.
2. To establish a knowledge strong hold in your personal circle/community/industry/business
3. Contribute back to the knowledge ecosystem, in your area of interest/industry
4. Use it as a key tool in building your personal brand.

What kind of content SELLS or goes VIRAL?

1. Short and to the point (...most 'read' blogs are written in 300 – 500 words).
2. Properly proof read ‘data sets’ to substantiate your assertions/points.
3. Usage of imagery would paint your points even better
4. Plain and neat language – (…it’s good to refrain from using the Shakespearean vocabulary)
5. Use good and qualitative media – Info-graphics and a video blog once in a while

**Use your blog’s analytics to figure out which blogs have done well, try to understand the elements of that blog that brought in the good readership, build further upon those elements.


**Never be in a hurry to hit the “Publish” button. Always save your content and read your blog after a while, assuming yourself to be the reader. You might find things you want to omit or add.


**Great & Sharable content always strikes an emotional chord with its target group. The emotions that have been the most compelling across digital media are as below


Positive emotions: Amusing, Inspiring, Cute, Illuminating. Negative emotions: Shocking, Fearful, Anger, Controversial

How to write an ENGAGING blog post?

1. Try to tell a story
2. Use a catchy title – HOOK #1
3. The first paragraph should glue the reader – HOOK#2
4. Use a casual tone -  Make it sound like a conversation
5. Allow it to sound personal – As your own opinion
6. Ask questions, invite comments & start discussions
7. Take care of the bare minimums – grammar, punctuation & language tone

How to GAIN/RETAIN readership?

1. The readers should have a take away in every post, through which he/she should be able to positively take a decision or make/change their perspectives.
2. Do not Direct-Market yourself or your product/service. The reader should never sense any marketing flavour in the content. Such content will not bring back the reader.
3. Break a bigger topic into smaller topics and write posts as a series. 
4. Place links to your other blogs in a post, where ever possible.
5. Reach out to other blog posts on similar topics – post your opinions and leave links to your blog.
6. Leverage your blog posts on your company’s social channels – Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Quora, etc.
7. Reach out to the communities and forum discussion boards in your industry – engage yourself in the discussions and leave mentions of your blog post & links.