DECIDING UPON CONTENT

5 Types of Blog Posts

(Long Island, N.Y.) For many business owners, the main challenge of maintaining a blog is deciding upon content. If you’re responsible for creating the content for your blog, considering the different types of posts may help spark ideas.

Lists – “5 Ways to Lower Your Heating Bills” , “5 Types of Blog Posts”, “6 Social Media No No’s”

The mainstay of service-oriented consumer magazines for decades, this form of how-to articles attract lots of traffic (and newsstand sales). They’ve been around for so long because they work – only the delivery medium has changed.

Personal Experience – If you’re a business owner seeking to make a personal connection with your readers, you can do so by sharing your personal experience and tying it into something significant in your industry. Did you recently attend a seminar or trade show? Hold a corporate event? Encounter a problem your industry knowledge helped you solve? Don’t be afraid to get a little personal with your readers – as long as it’s related, in some way, to your company. That’s one of the benefits of having your own blog!

How-to – This post is the most straightforward, and often the most helpful. “How to solve a problem for your readers.” When you write a how-to post, remember to think like a beginner , not the expert that you are. Go step by step for your readers, leaving nothing out, even if it seems obvious to you because you’ve been doing it for years. You’ll find tons of examples of how-to articles (to see how they’re written) at www.howtodothings.com.

Industry News – To be seen as a leader in your field, you want to be “the source” your readers turn to for industry news. If you’re not the first to break a story (and if you’re not the Associated Press or another major news agency, you probably won’t be) offer a unique perspective – a viewpoint your readers won’t find elsewhere.
You can also take mainstream news and discuss its finer implications on your industry. These are some of the more challenging – and emotionally rewarding – posts to write.

Link Love – Linkbacks to (and from) reputable sites help your SEO ratings. Linking to a popular site is also a good way to get on a specific blogger’s radar. Plus, it’s good karma. And it establishes you as an authority -- someone who’s been around the Web and knows the best places to go. There’s really no downside to link love posts. Make them a staple of your blog every few months. Deep links (links to content pages, not just a website’s home page) have the most value, for readers and to search engine rankings.

Dawn Allcot

January 23, 2010 12:58 PM Eastern

E-mail This Page | Follow Us | Return to My Column

You can Bookmark & Share this article by clicking here: