The Absolute Beginner’s Guide on How to Start A Successful Blog: Creating Good Content Day In and Day Out

Writing an awesome blog post isn’t really an exact science, it is more like cooking: everyone has their own special recipe and cook up some great content in their own way. But there are a few basic ingredients that are always the same.

For starters, you should always pick a topic you love and know quite a lot about, that goes without saying. When you’ve chosen a topic and are about to roll up your sleeves and do some serious typing, remember what your audience expects from you.

The Three E’s

Educate– provide new information, a new perspective, broaden a topic and bring something new to the table, something that will make your readers go “Oh, I didn’t know that”.

Entertain– even the most serious of subjects can be approached with a dose of humor, and if humor is not appropriate, entertain the readers with your language and your thoughts, but always leave them wanting to read and know more.

Enlighten– remember that people do not only read to get new information, if that were true, we would all be out of business, or in the business of making spreadsheets and pie charts. Sure, you’ve got the data, you’ve got an opinion, but what you need to do is make that opinion and info matter to your audience. Why and how does this relate to them? Make it personal and make it count.

Calling The Muses

Well, now that we’ve figured out what are the basic ingredients, we should move on to the topic. If you are writing a blog on a regular basis, for yourself or a client, you know that coming up with some great content, topic and ideas or a novel approach isn’t always easy. Sometimes you need some inspiration, and none of the nine Greek Muses covers blogging. So instead of brushing up on your ancient Greek and trying to invoke them, you should focus on the many endless sources of inspiration you have at hand.

Browse through the latest news: technology, politics, entertainment, everything goes- you never know where you can find inspiration. I know what you are thinking- but I don’t write about technology,/politics/entertainment, so what’s the use? For one, you will broaden your horizons and hopefully, find new ways to talk about the same topic you’ve been blogging about for months now.

Also, go out in the world and take it in. Watch a superhero movie and you might get a new idea on how to write about a great conference you’ve attended, go out for a walk so you can compare your love to a summer’s day (I’m sure Shakespeare went out to get a little sun on his face and ended up with a whiff of inspiration instead).

Current Topics, Current Events

But most of all, always know what is going on around you and be up to speed- when your posts relate to current events, your traffic will skyrocket. Timing is not everything (I would never demote good content to the second place), but it does make a whole lot of a difference.

Have your newsfeed well fed, keep an eye on those social networks, which are always a hubbub of action and don’t forget to keep your calendar updated. Is it holiday time already? Fibonacci day? Pancake month? There is always something going on and you just have to jump on the bandwagon. Don’t take me wrong, you should never switch from writing about whatever you write about to blog about Christmas ornaments just because the holidays are around the corner, but do try to incorporate what is going on into your writing.