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The Top 5 characteristics of an ideal Blog Post

August 16, 2011

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ideal blog postThis is a guest post by Arba on characteristics of an ideal blog post. You can check out the guidelines for guest posting on our write for us page.

Can you recollect one of those ideal blog post that you have seen in the last few days?

The blogosphere has seen tremendous growth in the last couple of years, so much that you can find a blog on just about any topic, be it the always in demand “online money making”, or the mysterious “Search Engine Optimization”, blogging, business, travel, technology, health, fashion, sports, current affairs, you just name it, and you will find a Blogger covering that topic in detail.

However, as the numbers of blogs and blog posts rise, we are witnessing a steady decline in the quality of the content coming up on the surface of web. To be frank, blogging requires a little more than reasonable writing skills, and a good writer cannot automatically become a good blogger. An ideal blog post needs to have some characteristics, and I am listing them down for those who have just ventured into the field of blogging, and those who are interested to buff up their blog posts’ quality.

Characteristics of an ideal blog post –

There could be a lengthy debate on what an ideal blog post should look like. Though people might have different opinion about the characteristics of an ideal blog post, the guidelines pretty much remain the same. The characteristics could also depend to a large extent on the objective of your blog. An ideal blog post for a “make money online” blog could be different from a personal blog which does not have to look for characteristics.

Remember that these points mentioned below are more important for those who are looking to monetize or popularize their blogs. If you are running a personal blog with your own random mutterings; you probably don’t need to worry about these characteristics or, about writing an ideal blog post.

We will look at an ideal blog post from 3 different aspects.

An ideal blog post must make a point – The Objective:

In spite of the fact that we often refer to a diary when trying to explain what really is a blog, that doesn’t mean you can write all kinds of pointless thoughts that people usually write on their diaries, and call it a blog post. Instead, all blog posts must have a purpose, a message, or a point, regardless of the type of the blog posts (e.g. lists, tutorials, opinionated, etc).

Even when you are sharing a funny or inspirational incident from your life, you have got to end it with something to take home for your readers. In short, a blog post should be a little more descriptive and soulful than a tweet. This is the primary requirement of an ideal blog post.

An ideal blog post must stay true to the title – The Content:

It’s easy to come up with a title that grabs the attention of the web surfers and make them click, but a good catchy title alone can’t make a post stand out in the crowd. You have got to do justice with the title and write a post as catchy as that title. At times, we stumble upon titles that promises big, but the post falls short when trying to fulfill the promise made in the title.

While writing, try to make your post as unique, and as catchy, as the title.

An ideal blog post must be well researched-

You should aim for a post that covers the topic from all angles, and all perspectives. The more angles you can cover, the better it will be for the reader. The better it is for the readers, the more beneficial it will be for your blog. Not to mention that search engines also prefer pages with lots and lots of quality content.

So, instead of covering a topic in several different posts, you should try to cover it expansively in a single post.  Rest assured, this single post will fetch more riches than many short posts combined. Also, a comprehensively covered topic will make it a good resource for readers who will be referring to this single post and your blog in future, instead of trying to keep a tab on many different resources.

An ideal blog post must be up to the minute –

The information in your blog posts must be up to date, especially when you are covering topics that are constantly changing and are eventful, like tech, or fashion, or Search Engine optimization, etc.

For example, it can be quite embarrassing to do a post on a mobile phone launch, which has already been canceled or, postponed by the company, same goes for the topics like Search Engine Optimization where covering a month old development might sound quite out of date.

An ideal blog post must add something new to blogosphere – The Contribution:

A requisite, we often see in the guest posting guidelines is the fact that the post must add some value for the readers. But for some reasons, we overlook this very important element when writing for our own blog.

It is true that you should update your blog on regular basis, but that doesn’t mean you start rewriting on topics which have already covered a hundred times on other blogs out there, an ideal post must add something new to the blogosphere, even if it is a new list, new opinion, tip or trick.

The topic of how an ideal blog post should look like, is one that can start an interesting debate. Tell us your opinion on the characteristics of an ideal blog post by commenting in this post and we can start a debate.

About the author 

Guest Blogger  -  

These posts are submitted by our Guest Bloggers. We accept guest posts on topics that are relevant to our blog like blogging, internet entrepreneurship tutorials, affiliate marketing, social media etc. You can read more about how to submit guest posts by visiting our write-for-us page.

My name is Dilip. I am a fan of the internet and love the many opportunities that the world wide web provides. If used constructively , the internet can give you an opportunity to lead a life free of the 9-5 treadmill and will be able to give more time to your family members. Read about internet entrepreneurship at my blog.

  • Those are all valid points you make Arba. The first one is one that I see it in blogsphere a lot, and it just surprises me how many writers forget the fact that if you do not deliver what your title says, you will lose readers.

  • I started a blog, and the topic is pretty much just a
    chronology of events in my life. Here and there and maybe in between, I’ll add
    discussion or long thought posts concerning other subjects like religion,
    school, social issues, events in the world, and others, to which viewers can
    comment and discuss. Sounds a bit boring in text, but I thought it might work.
    What do you think? I’d like some input.

  • Personal blogs, often do not generate too much of traffic because normally such blogs are oriented towards specific audiences. But if you can include articles on social issues which a viewpoint on these, you will be able to generate traffic from a specific niche of people who will be interested in reading such articles.
    I recommend you go ahead with the plan.

  • With more and more blogs popping up every day in the blogosphere, the quality of content is lost. Not just the lack of connection between title and content, but the lack of relevancy in the topic and content is also one of the aspects haunting blogging today.

  • Arba! I agree with the fact that well researched and up to date blogs are always useful for the readers.  Actually it depends on who write articles. If an expert relevant to the topic writes the article, than that article will be an asset but majority of the blogs are running on the basis of paid content writers. it is not a big deal if the content writer is well researched on the topic he is writing but in fact it is not the case. that is why we unfortuately read  same articles with differet writing styles and with no added information. so, in my view only experts should write articles on the blogs for the sacrecy and credibility of writings on the net.     

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