Launching a blog is both exhilarating and terrifying. Unlike your website—which gives the appearance of objectivity—a blog sets forth your opinions, your perspective, your individual voice. Push the envelope, and it’s your brain disrobed for all the world to see.
Last March, we gave some tips on how to write a blog that’s buoyant, honest, and springs from joy. Now we’d like to give you some pointers on WHAT to blog about.
- Tackle topics you know. If you sell African masks and statuettes, write about fertility rituals, or how African art influenced Pablo Picasso. You’re out to teach, enlighten, and make your authority clear.
- Reject broad-brush topics. Instead, rally your readers with more angular strokes. Instead of summer travel ideas, write about five-star treehouse resorts.
- Similarly, focus on attracting niche audiences within a wider market. If you create mobile apps, write about the plethora of iPhone SAT prep tools.
- Play both hard-nosed reporter and memoirist: serve up the facts (the main course) with your distinctive perspective (the spice). For instance, identify the most popular food trucks, while evaluating which among these are the best deals.
- Limit your thoughts. We shoot for between 250-300 words—no more. Make 3% of these your keywords, which increase your visibility on Google and other search engines. See how we seasoned blog ghostwriters are doing it here?
- Simultaneously, go deeper. If you blog about a frequently asked question, write a whole post about this single question. Keep your exposition organized but compelling.
- Maintain a list of blog topics to avoid lulls in posting.
Take note of these rules, and you’ll master those first-sentence and first-post trepidations in no time—and have a blast in the process. Good luck.
