Jump Start Your Blog: Simple Blog Post Formula plus 5 Posting Styles

Did your good intentions of making regular posts to your website fall short last year? Making this year’s New Year resolution of writing more blog posts a reality is easier than you think. Dust off your keyboard and jump start your blog by following our simple blog post formula combined with one of the 5 featured blog posting styles to produce articles that deliver traffic to your site.

Simple Blog Post Formula

Remember in school when you learned the formula to write a persuasive essay? A post is a streamlined version of that essay designed for your readers to easily scan. Here is our simple blog post formula:

Headline: Hook your reader’s interest with a headline that grab’s their attention. PR Leap’s 25 Action Words for Writing a Newsworthy Title and Copy Blogger’s  9 Proven Headline Formulas will get you on track.

Introduction: Make your first sentence count. Engage your reader with a question, a brief story, or a strong statement. Then explain the value of the post. State your key point with supporting details. Break this section into 2 paragraphs if over 3 sentences long.

Content: Write your supporting text here: details, tips, examples. Break them up for easy web reading using subheadings to order your ideas, placing items into bullet point lists and keeping your paragraphs 2 to 3 sentences in length.

Conclusion: Close with a statement and a call to action.

5 Popular Blog Posting Styles

To get you started we have plugged in the formula into 5 popular postings styles incorporating our favorite tips and resources.

1. Repost Post

Easy | Max times per week 2 | Interaction Index 1

Republish content from an article or post from another site or source (Newsletters, Magazines, Newspapers, etc.) with additional limited original content.

Headline: Write your own compelling headline for the article rather than copy the article’s original headline.

Intro: Introduce your subject and the article you have chosen to support your key points.

Content: Best Practices

• Quote interesting portions of the article rather than the whole article
• Add your own ideas on the topic
• Always include a link to the article and the author
• Never paste a photo directly from another website directly into your post editor – besides violating copyright laws, this causes hot-linking which steals the bandwidth from the original post site
• Use your own images see Rick’s Tips: 5 Favorite Low Cost or Free Image Sources for WordPress Blog Posts
• Rick’s Tip: WordPress Users combine Press This with best practices for lightning fast results.

Conclusion: Sum up the benefit of you sharing this valuable information with your call to action.

Example:

Keeping residents happy…and apartment profits up!

Move Up in the Google Search Rank

Resource Links:

Social Fresh How to Use Content from Other Blogs without Violating Copyright

2. Contact Post

Easy | Max times per week 2 | Interaction Index 2

Build connections with a person, business, or website by writing about them.

Headline: Relay an honest, enthusiastic testimonial: “Recommended: …” or “…Excellence: …” or “Introducing…” or “Thanks to …”

Intro: Introduce the contact and state the key point on why you are writing about them.

Content:

• Build on the key point with details about the contact.
• Describe how the contact benefits, skills, are of value to you and your readers.
• Keep the tone enthusiastic and honest.
• Need more info? Connect to your contact and ask for more info for the article you are writing on them.

Conclusion: Repeat your key point and the main benefit this contact offers to your readers. Add a call to action if appropriate.

Examples:

Introducing FAD: The Official Unofficial Facebook App Directory

Thanks to Share Gilbert & TICOR Title

Multifamily Excellence: Princeton Property Management

3. Series Post

Medium | Max times per week 7 | Interaction Index 4

A posting series allows you to zero in on a topic in your niche and are great for developing authority and traffic. Articles within a well written series can become go to “pillar” posts in Google searches for your niche. An easy quick start is to break a list post into a series of posts by breaking down each point in the list into a topic.

Headline: Use the headline to organize the posts into a set: “When to Make Multifamily Investments…” “Facebook Basics: …”

Intro: Let your readers know that this is part of a series of posts. Successful posts and series address a need people have. Focus on highlighting how this post will fulfill and support the need being addressed in the series.

Content:

• Use descriptive subheadings with keywords to organize the content.
• Break up the content into short 2-3 sentence paragraphs.
• Use keywords to interlink posts and interlink all references to previous posts.

Conclusion: Add a teaser for the next post in the series. List all the posts in the series with links.

Examples:

Facebook Basics – Personalizing Your Profile

When to Make Multifamily Investments – Recovery – Part 2 of a series

Resource Links:

Pro Blogger 10 Steps to Writing a Successful Series on Your Blog

Wizzley Why a Blogger Should Write a Blog Series

4. List Post

Medium | Max times per week 5 | Interaction Index 5

Readers love list posts and are more likely to bookmark this type of post than any other. List posts provided key information about a subject in an easy to read format.

Headline: Begin with “Top 10…” or “5 Steps…” or “6 Tips…” or “7 Secrets…” then add some drama and hype to catch reader interest “5 Must Take Steps to Successful…”

Intro: Catch the reader’s interest with a bold statement and make the scope of the list clear. Your list should contain at least 5 items. Consider making a series of posts if your list is over 15 items.

Content:

• Number each item and be consistent in presentation.
• Be sure each item contains real content of value.
• Keep each item short. Use a sentence or a short paragraph to cover the point.
• Order the list with the strongest items first, second and last.

Conclusion: Encourage readers to add to the list in the comments.

Examples:

Rick’s Tips: 5 Favorite Low Cost or Free Image Sources for WordPress Blog Posts

Rick’s Top Ten Ways to Get Facebook Fans – Likes for Your Page

Resource Links:

Pro Blogger 10 Steps to the Perfect List Post

Website in a Weekend 7 secrets for creating successful list posts

5. Regular Feature Post

Medium | Max times per week 2 | Interaction Index 4

A regular feature post is part of a collection of posts assigned to a reoccurring feature category. A popular regular feature increases both brand recognition and site subscriptions.

Headline: Combine your feature category name with your headline to brand your post: “Rick’s Tips: ….” or “One Minute Tips: …” “1031 Exchange of the Month…”

Intro: Ask the reader a question. Tell them how this post will offer a solution. Use a reoccurring catch phrase to enforce the brand.

Content:

• Develop a “logo” style thumbnail for feature category.
• Use a consistent visual styling for the posts in your feature category.
• Keep the post similar in length and tone.

Conclusion: In addition to inviting readers to read more posts; invite readers to post on the same theme in their site with a link back to your original post.

Examples:

Rick’s Tips: Using Facebook Lists to Target a Post to a Specific Group of Friends

One Minute Tip: Create a Facebook List for the Pages Your Like

1031 Exchange of the Month-November/December 2011

Resources: Your favorite magazines, journals, news papers, and news/magazine TV shows regular features.

Our formula combined with popular blogging styles with your creative touch and useful info equals high quality posts for your blog this year. We will be covering more writing and SEO tips this year, what would you like to know about in these subjects?

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Sue Surdam | Artizon Digital | WordPress Specialist and Social Media Solutions | 503-577-1035 | Email