7 tips for writing blogs

New Years Resolutions for Bloggers.

Every year we make them and occasionally we manage to keep to them. New Year’s resolutions often represent our best intentions, which somehow fall by the way side when real life kicks in and we get caught up in the day to day workings of our businesses.

If you’re a blogger, the same can often hold true. You’ve started back in the New Year full of motivation and ideas and plan to blog every other day but…it’s only three weeks into the New Year and you have only managed to write one blog post and partly write another. You might as well throw it all in right?

Wrong – blogging is one of the best tools you can use to spread your message across the web. It’s a powerful marketing tool that relays messages and information to the right people and can bring in some serious business.

So hold onto your hats (or flat caps – if your from Yorkshire like us!) for these seven great tips to get you back on track.

Tip 1. Set a blog timetable and be realistic. Once a day was probably overly optimistic so aim for once a week or once every two weeks, put it in the diary and set up an alert.

Tip 2. Plan your content in advance. A simple brainstorm is a start, write a list of subjects and topics that you want to communicate but remember your customers and clients don’t just want to be bombarded with sales messages. Use your expertise in the subject area to give advice, or like us give some tips on a specialist subject.

Tip 3. Adding flesh to the bones. When your alert goes off and you take a subject from your list, start to add some detail, jot down some keywords and keyphrases and start writing.

Tip 4. Create a compelling title. Titles draw traffic so be creative. Not only do they capture the attention of potential readers, but those search engines love blog titles.

Tip 5. Keep it simple. It doesn’t have to be an essay, so don’t get caught up in the length of your post, just make sure that it is interesting.

Tip 6. Use a guest blogger. This is great way of  getting extra content for your blog. Ask an employee or a specialist in the subject you are blogging about. Use the web and quote experts in the field by all means, but make sure you attribute their quotes.

Tip 7. Use Images. There are plenty of sites out there that offer free images for blogs. Take a look at this list of 53 free image sources for blogging.

Thats mine done for this week,  now it’s your turn.