So consider each blog post an invitation. Will your visitors accept the invitation, or click away? Here are a few quick tips for making your posts more inviting.
- Use a picture.
Hey, we're all becoming more visually oriented. We need to play to that. Choose a picture that relates to your content and gives people a glancing sense of what you are going to talk about. But be careful: don't spend hours on this, and be sure that you give attribution. The best practice is to use only Creative Commons licensed pictures, because people have given explicit permission for them to be used. Like this photo (courtesy of UglyKitty on flickr). Even better: supply your own photo. Pictures of people are more inviting than other sorts. Think about that.
- Keep it Brief
Concision is crucial. Have a lot to say? Consider breaking that up across several independent posts. But it's okay to write longer blog posts. You just have to prepare people for it. This is how that works. Write like a journalist, giving a general summary of all the key info "above the fold," as it were, in the first paragraphs of your post. Then, use the "read later" function in your blogging platform (like I did just before this numbered list). Here's how to find the menu item for that within Blogger:
- Break it Up
Don't just compose a huge block of text! Use paragraphs! Insert more pictures! Use a quotation (it's easy with the blockquote button, also on the Blogger menu bar)! Embed other media! Use lists (like I'm doing) or use subheadings. Make it possible for skimmers to skim by providing them lots of visual cues to work their way down through your blog post. Of course, this can go too far. If you busy up your post with multiple font sizes and colors or too many bells and whistles, it will look like that high school Myspace page that you were right to shut down.
Well, there are more tips for making blog posts inviting. What do you suggest?
