Jan 1, 2015 / Beginner

Getting Your New Blog Off on the Right Foot: Thinking Content

2015 is here. What content should you tackle first on your new blog? Here are some ideas.

Image by D. Sharon Pruitt (CC BY 2.0)

In this post from The Daily Post archives, we focus on the content you should devote attention to from the get-go to make sure you blog is ready for the new year.

It’s the first day of the year. Time to roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath, dive head-first, grab life by the horns, and use up all known clichés about fresh new starts.

With that out of the way, it’s also time to blog. Yesterday, Michelle started you off with some tips on making your blog personalized, inviting, and easy to navigate. Today, it’s time to think about the content itself — let’s walk through the basic building blocks you’ll need to make sure your readers have something to chew on when they come for a visit.

Bear in mind that this checklist is the equivalent of a quick cheat sheet for new and returning bloggers alike. If you’re looking for a detailed, step-by-step introduction to blogging, consider joining our Blogging 101 course, which starts on Monday, January 5.

Intro post

Hitting the “Publish” button will never be scarier than the first time you do it. Which is all the more reason to get it over with and click away: that’s what an intro post is all about. (Writing an intro post is also the first assignment on our Blogging 101 — come join us and other bloggers to see what’s next!)

Some bloggers feel like diving right into a specific post they’ve been thinking about for a while. For the rest, a good place to begin is simply to tell the story behind your decision to start a blog. You can also share whatever information about yourself you feel like, and explain how the person you are (a student, a retired chef, an expecting parent, an expat in Siberia…) affects the blogging you intend to do.

About page

Unlike posts, pages are static: they don’t get pushed down your blog as you add new content (posts are always shown in reverse chronological order). This makes writing an About page a great idea. It’s a place where visitors who just stumbled upon your homepage — or a specific post — can get a better idea of who you are, and, equally important, what your blog’s about.

You can use the About page to tell your story, show a photo of the cats you constantly blog about, or simply give a one-sentence motto for your blog: your house, your rules. Visitors can then decide whether they want to keep reading, follow your blog, or even interact with you about your shared interests.

Tags

A good habit to acquire as early as possible is to add tags to each and every post you write. Tags serve multiple purposes, but the most important one is making your content visible and findable to users looking for blogs on the WordPress.com Reader. As you write your post, think about the best words to describe its topic — a handful of terms, both broad and specific, is best — and add them as tags.

Tags are not only for your readers — as you develop your content, you’ll start seeing patterns emerge and discover the topics that engage you (and your readers) the most. For bloggers who start out without a clear niche, that can be a very productive process — even if you end up staying a general-interest blogger.

Media

Readers love posts that go beyond mere text — these are often easier to digest, and allow you to branch out by incorporating great content from around the web. You’ll have plenty of time to learn about the many types of media you can embed in your posts, from YouTube clips to SoundCloud playlists. It’s a good idea, though, already to master the simple task of adding images to your posts.

Images enhance and complement the written word, and give a visual break to your readers’ eyes. If you’re ever short of images of your own, a Creative Commons image search is sure to help you find some that you can use (make sure you give others’ images proper attribution, of course). There are many other online resources offering free images for your use.

Links

As you probably know already — if not, you’ll quickly find out — blogging is a community endeavor. To make the most of this incredibly rich network of smart, engaged people is to join in a discussion with others. This means referring and responding to others, which, in blog-land, often entails linking to other bloggers’ posts (as well as to content from the web more generally).

Adding a link to another post opens up your blog to a larger community, makes your writing more grounded and richer, and, if the other blogger is also on WordPress.com, sends a signal (called a pingback) to the original author that the post has been mentioned elsewhere. This sign of appreciation can often launch an interesting exchange (and, sometimes, long-lasting friendships). As your own pool of posts grows, you can also link to older posts you’ve written, as this adds depth and a sense of history to the discussion in which you’re engaged.

Feeling ready to jump in and write your next post? Go right ahead! Or, if you’d like to ease into blogging life more gradually, come join our Blogging 101 course. Either way, be sure to visit The Daily Post regularly: with daily prompts, weekly challenges, and a constant stream of tips, ideas, and information, you’ll be a pro in no time.

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    1. Write things they want to read!

      More seriously, the best way to attract people to your own blog is to be an active member of the blogging community — reading, following, and commenting on other blogs brings people back to your own.

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    1. I just replied to someone else with this, but it bears repeating:

      the best way to attract people to your own blog is to be an active member of the blogging community — reading, following, and commenting on other blogs brings people back to your own.

      Focus on building the best blog you can, and spend time regularly engaging with other bloggers. It’s not a guarantee of overnight success, but it’s absolutely the best way to gradually build an audience.

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  5. Hi, I’m new to the blogging thing too. I’m wondering if every blog has to be about personal outpourings or whether there are bloggers who use blogs for more professional reasons? I’m an educator and want to share insights from a new course I’ve recently put together. Granted they will be “my personal” insights but I try to not let my biases sway my teaching. Are there places/organizations/online groups for professional bloggers? Any help would be greatly appreciated. And I’m learning a lot about the mechanics of blogging here.

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    1. Absolutely, there are many people whose blogs have a professional bent — your blog can be whatever you want it to be, and personal musings are just one option. As for groups for professional bloggers, I’d imagine that those are niche-specific; you’d want to look for organizations of education bloggers and start there.

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    1. You know, I was wondering the same thing. This is my first time blogging and I want to make sure that it doesn’t end up sounding like some teenagers diary LOL.

      Liked by 2 people

  12. For new bloggers, your site is a great resource….. and lots of useful tips for those of us that think we know what we are doing too…. thanks

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  15. I don’t know if this is the perfect place to request this information but if you can help or if you can direct me to the right place, that would be great. When I started creating blogs for the first time, I created a few names but now I’m hosting my blog with my domain name. I’m participating in the blogging 101 but it keeps redirecting my post to the blog with wordpress.com lastname that I’m not using. How can I change this so that I only use my main site to participate in blogging 101? I was afraid that if I deleted the site, it might affect my current blog? Please advice. Thank you so much!

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