5 simple steps for making your blog posts kick ass

Blogs are lame, right? Everyone on earth has had a blog before. At one point your auntie from the sticks had a blog. Except it was just a Word document that she had been typing in and she kept referring to it as a “blob”. Anyway, the point is, you feel like you shouldn’t start a blog because it has been done before.

But, if you chose not to do things just because people on the internet said it was lame, or had done it before, you would never get anything done.

Here are five ways to make sure that your blog does not join the ranks of banal blogs relegated to the back of the internet’s mind:

1. If you must write about your daily life, make it interesting
If you are posting things like “OMG just ate SO MUCH chicken might die LOL”, you are not blogging. You are providing people with a list of reasons to hate you. Even if you are writing about daily activities, there is no reason not to craft and hone the storytelling as finely as you would a piece of fiction.

Remember, when someone reads your blog, they are giving you their time. Make it worth it for them by doing more than laundry-listing your day-to-day. People in the market to read, whether in a bookstore or trawling the internet, want something good.

If your blog centres on your personal life, make sure that the content is engaging, and that the pictures are good. You could create a thrilling narrative through posting about the ordinary, as long as you have made an effort to write well.

2. Take advantage of the absent editor…
You can say anything on the internet. This is a truly beautiful thing. There is no filter, no editor. No one telling you what to say or how to say it. Even your most creative and ambitious experiments can find a place on the internet, as you don’t have to pander to the preferences of an editor.

3. …But do not abuse him
The lack of regulation is a blessing and a curse. People can say whatever they like on the internet, and the great tragedy of it all is that so many say so very little of worth. Be brave in your subject choice every now and again. Be controversial and opinionated, writing a stirring piece can get reactions, and reactions are what attract readers.

4. Find a focus
Great people are generally only great at one thing. And this is good. You want your surgeon to be good at surgery; you don’t really care if he’s a great cook, too. The same principle applies to blogging.

Keep your blog cohesive. If you write a baking blog, write the best baking blog out there. Not the alright-ish baking, fashion, literature, politics and music blog. There are a few exceptions here, of course, but stick to what you’re good at, at least while you are making a name for yourself.

5. Have a really cute cat and take pictures of it
People never get tired of cats.