Thoughts.com

There are over 50 million blogs on the internet today, and that number rises every hour! Creating your own blog may seem pretty intimidating if you want it to stand out against the millions of others. The good news is that creating a unique and exciting blog is certainly not impossible and it can even be a lot of fun. We are here to help you learn how to create a quality blog that will draw in readers and keeping them begging for more.

Make it Original

As mentioned earlier, there are millions of other blogs out there and there is no doubt that most of those blogs are discussing the same few topics: life choices, careers, celebrities, sports, music, television, science, religion, and politics. If your blog is going to be concentrating on one of these topics then you’re going to have to put in twice the effort to make your articles stand out. Just because you’re talking about the same subject as other people doesn’t mean it has to read the same way.

For example, there are countless novels about vampires out there, but what separates them from each other is the style and manner of writing. Where Stephanie Meyer decided to write her Twilight series in a high school drama-rama sort of way, Anne Rice wrote her Vampire Chronicles in a very dark and sinister romance way. Both series of novels were about vampire romances, but they drew in different audiences and held different atmospheres within the writing. This is the kind of thing you must work towards: your writing style atmosphere. Do you want to approach your subject with an intellectual air, or would you rather be witty and sarcastic about your topic? Take some time to experiment with your writing style. Do some research on established blogs that talk about the same subject that you want to, and see what styles they use and what kind of audience they pull in, as well as how popular that style of writing seems to be. You already know what people want to read about, but you have to find out what style they want to read it from.

Keep it Interesting

How many times have you flipped through TV stations, only staying on each station for about 5 seconds to see what’s interesting only to decide that there’s nothing good on TV? Readers do the same thing with blogs which is why it is of the utmost importance to write with pizzazz if you want your blog to be popular. One of the best writing tools to use when writing an article is called the “Hook.” The hook is the first one or two sentences in your article that catches the reader’s attention and get’s them wanting to read the whole thing. The rest of your article is completely dependent on those to sentences. Imagine those sentences being the 5 seconds of airtime that your TV show has to catch the channel surfer in time. Obviously, what you hook says is up to you but some good ideas is to have an informative statement that wows your audience or makes them feel connect to you, or offer them a great quote that summarizes your article, or start with a question. Anything that will make the reader think “I really need to read the rest of this.”

After you create your fantastic hook, you need to think of other ideas that will keep your readers interested in the whole article. You may want to try the approach that makes the reader feel that you are personally talking with them one-on-one. Many readers enjoy feeling apart of the story or connected to it or the author. Emotive writing is a powerful tool that you can use to appeal to your audience. Emotive writing involves using emotionally appealing words that your reader can connect with. As an example, which sentence catches your attention more, “Bob was injured after a group of people hit him,” or “Bob was in agony after a mob ruthlessly attacked him.” Emotive writing can be as simple as change a few words after checking your thesaurus, or as complex as creating an entire emotional theme to your article (such as making it a tear jerker, or something that has people rolling with laughter).

Also, make sure to keep your writing clear and understandable. You want your audience to be able to read your blog easily, not feel that they have to force their way through a few paragraphs to digest one idea.

Research

Research can be important for your blog, especially if it is more scholarly or informative rather than entertaining. A well-researched and documented political blog will stand out from the other numerous political blogs that are filled with nothing but opinionated rants. However, some readers enjoy well educated rants that are Bill Maher-esk and those are few and far between. If you can find a way to combine styles like that, then you may be able to draw in readers from two different fields!