Active English

http://www.activeenglishspeaking.com/blog/index.php?userid=2

Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community

Starter Moves

1. An intriguing title goes a long way towards getting people to the
   blog. Failing that, posts with numbers seem to work. Especially weird
   or odd numbers. 27 is odd.
2. A picture per blog post has been my trick for a while. It
   draws your eye, whether or not you want it to. We’re wired for it. I
   use Flickr Creative Commons photos to do that. (Make sure you give them adequate credit. I show that in this post, too.)
3. Did you ever notice most of my posts open by asking a
   question? That’s a secret. When I do that, you stop and think about the
   question. But more importantly, it shifts your mind to the “what’s in
   it for me” sphere that you started reading from in the first place.
   Make sense?
4. Break things up visually. Notice that I have an H3 tag (html
   speak) title repeating the top title, and that I’m using a list to give
   your eye some natural “chunking.” Go back and read cafe-shaped conversations for an example.
5. Oh, maybe I should’ve started the post by saying that it
   helps if you write something useful for people. People want posts they
   can use to improve themselves or their business.
6. Brevity rules. I mention this a lot. People just don’t read long posts (usually). There are exceptions. I read every word Ann Handley writes, and often wish for more.
7. Write “unfinished” posts. Having ways that others can add to
   a post or improve on it invites participation. This might just mean
   asking for ideas or getting a sense of what others’ experiences are.
8. Mix up the length of your posts, so that people can read varied length articles, like magazines and newspapers do.
9. Consider an editorial calendar, where you write down which
   TYPE of blog posts you’ve written lately, and which you intend to
   write. This helps you from doing recurring posts, and gives some
   variety to what you’re writing.