Setting Up A Blog – The Basics
Welcome to part two of our You Tube Series on Blogging for your Business. In this episode we will be looking at some basics for successfully setting up a blog. Moreover we briefly look at the various websites you can use to set up your blog (WordPress/ Blogger). In addition, we look in detail at how to make your new blog attractive and easy to use for viewers. You see the look of a blog is crucial for gaining readership and improving your search engine rankings.
To help you further these are my top tips to make your blog readable; after all there is no point setting up a blog if no one reads it.
5 tips for writing readable blog posts
- Focus on your audience – are you setting up a blog for children or adults, what is their reading age and what language do they speak? By that i mean are they all about jargon and buzz words or do they prefer plain english.
- Tip 1: Write clear paragraphs. Paragraphs break up articles in to digestible chunks so the read stays with your topic. Therefore, good writers dont have more than four sentences to a paragraph.Most importantly though, start every paragraph with your most important sentence.
- Tip 2: Write short sentences. Short sentences are easier to read than long ones. Moreover, when you write a shorter sentence you should have less grammatical errors in it. Sentences of 20 or more words are considered long when writing in English. Finally, only have one long sentence per paragraph.
- Tip 3: Limit difficult words. You have to try and write for the lowest IQ audience you can so everyone has a chance to understand and enjoy your work. Words with four or more syllables are considered difficult, so avoid them where possible. Try and write so an eight year old child can read your Blog. Finally, its worth noting that difficult words make bad keywords as few search for them.
- Tip 4: Use transition words. These exciting little words bring your writing to life and keep the reader awake. They are like putting cement between sentences and give direction to your readers. They show readers interesting information is coming up.
- Tip 5: Mix it up! You want your reader to stay awake and engaged with your writing to mix it up. use transition words, long and short sentences etc for variety. Include images for illustration and to underline key points. I often think writing is like music and needs to be melodic to be enjoyable.
With only 3-5 seconds to grab a new viewers attention so we hope the tips in the video will help you setting up your blog.