Blog writing – 11 tips on how to get started

So you want to write a blog, but you’re not sure how to get started? First things first.

Why are you doing it?

Before you start blog writing, figure out what you’re doing it for. Is it for marketing purposes? Do you want to prove your business smarts and connect with potential clients? Maybe, you’re just a little crazy and want to do it for fun. Or perhaps, you want to change careers to a hobby you’re passionate about – mine’s marketing, social media and training (sad, I know, but I’m passionate about it nevertheless).

Next think about the audience you’re trying to attract – what do you think they’ll be interested in reading about? What are the hot topics of the day, week, month?

Then start writing – yes, right now.

Blog writing 101:

1. Head to www.wordpress.org (my preference, but there a lot of others).
2. Pick a design free theme – don’t waste too much time at this point – go with something simple (you can always pretty it up later).
3. Pick a topic and write 500 or so words.
4. Be interesting, have something useful to say, even be provocative.
5. Pay attention to your key word tags. Make sure you tag all your posts to your key words
6. Spell check – particularly if this is for business or career change purposes. People will think more highly of you if you get the basics right.
7. Add the occasional pic (people like the visual stimlation of a good pic or video or poll for that matter)
8. Make sure that you publicise your posts on twitter, linkedin and facebook and anywhere else you use. There are plug ins that you can use that will automate that process, but if you’re new – just start with the writing and use social media the ‘old fashioned’ way.

If you’re in the writing mood, write a couple of posts and schedule them to be published over a couple of weeks. I usually suggest to clients that they start slow – as their readership will be low and there’s no point wasting good content. But if you’ve already got a good following on social media – you’ll have traffic from the first post. So write away.

The key thing with a blog is consistency. Write one, write another and write one every week or so. Anyone who writes for a living will tell you, it’s 1% inspiration and 99% just getting it done.

9. Keep a list of the random ideas you’ll have (I promise) about great things to write about. It makes sitting down to write so much easier than having to think of your topic AND write at the same time.

Before long, you’ll have generated a raft of great content.

10. Once you’ve got a good body of work, go back and see if you can create links between the pieces – google likes that.

11. Finally, make sure you’ve filled in your ‘about’ page, so people can learn more about you and include some kind of contact details too (just in case that new business, new dream job or hollywood to knock on your door).

Of course, if it all gets too hard, you can always outsource your blog writing.

Happy blogging! My thanks to Drew Barrett who inspired this post with his LinkedIn question.

Kristin Austin is a marketing & communication strategist and trainer who’s been doing the marketing ‘do’ for almost 20 years. She can be found hanging out in social media land – for her clients’ benefit of course. You can follow her @glitteratichic or click on the LinkedIn icon on the right handside to connect there.