Five Ideas for Writing Great Blogs
I’ve often talked about how blogging is a great way to get yourself known and establish a lot of credibility with your readership. The thing is, however, that to really make the most of your blog, you need to be posting at least once or twice a week. If you don’t post enough, people will lose the incentive to come back time and time again.
People who are just starting out will often struggle to come up with enough ideas to allow them to blog this frequently. If you face this problem, check out my new TV episode on yourBusinessChannel where I describe nine different popular subjects for blogs. The show is available to watch for free by clicking here.
To give you something to think about, here are the first five ideas from the show:
1. Write a “how to” blog (much like this one). Share your best tips about how to do something you know all about.
2. Lists. For some reason, people absolutely love to read lists. Think of a topic relevant to your field of expertise (“The Top Five Faux Pas of Networking,” for example) and start listing.
3. The Straw Man argument. Set up a premise and then argue against it. This always makes for interesting reading, and you get plenty of blog comments if you choose a controversial subject.
4. Case studies. Discussing case studies from your professional work and the lessons you’ve learned from them makes for a great blog. Just watch the word length. Ideally, blog posts shouldn’t be much more than 500 words, so split the case study over two posts if you need to.
5. Interviews. Have you interviewed anyone knowledgeable or well-known recently? What did they say? Write about it.
I share the rest of my tips in the show–take a look.
Great blog Ivan. You’re absolutely right about people loving to read lists. I enjoy looking at them myself and coming up with them. Here’s my list of the Top 10 Strangest Things said by People when Invited to a BNI Meeting:
#10: “I don’t need any more business”.
#9: “I don’t have time for BNI”.
#8: “I’m in Rotary- I don’t need BNI”.
#7: “I’m looking to network with CEOs”.
#6: “My buddy was in BNI and it didn’t work for him”.
#5: “I’m way beyond BNI”.
#4: “”How could a skin care consultant ever have a referral for me”?
#3: “You guys are too structured”.
#2: “I already joined another networking group- I like it because I DON’T HAVE TO BE THERE”!
and #1: “Did you say 7 A.M.”?
By the way, these are all statements that I have heard! Scary, huh?
Shawn McCarthy BNI ED Ventura County, Ca.
THANX A LOT… I love lists and people read them a lot. Case
studies are good as well but I still need to try the interview. Thanx again…
Great blog. I’ll have to try the straw man technique on my blog.
I appreciate all the information as I’ve just begun to get started with blogging. Thanks for all the great ideas!
Hello Ivan,
Great post – so very true. My blogs with lists get the most hits. I feel with blogs, people just want to see immediately what is relevant to them and scan the rest. Your article about “I refuse to participate in a recession” has been inspiring for me this year. I have adopted it as my moto and business is thriving! I am a year long member of BNI (Cork City Chapter – no 1 in Ireland!) now and it is very much working for me or rather I have figured out how to make it part of my business. Lots more to learn I am sure.
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language 😉
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo