It’s true! There are some rules of blog writing. Following these rules and guidelines will help you in crafting the perfect blog post that will:
- Get more recognition online.
- Help score more search traffic.
- Convert reader to paying customers or subscribers.
If you write academically, you will still need to follow these rules of blog writing. Formal writing is different from casual content writing.
In this blog post, I will walk you through all of these rules and help you successfully take your blog to the next level.
In addition, I have also highlighted some most common issues and how to solve these issues while crafting a piece of content.
Before I start, I am assuming that you can speak, write and understand the English language. To follow this guide, you must have a firm grasp of English.
That said, you don’t need to be an expert writer or a native English speaker.
01. Rules of blog writing: Proofreading & corrections.
Bloggers often forget the importance of proper proofreading and correction before uploading the content to their blogs.
Improper use of grammar may turn off your readers and present you as an unreliable entity.
Not to mention, most people will not be convinced by your statements if they find errors in them.
So, make it a habit to proofread several times before posting any content online.
However, is there any checklist?
Yes, you can follow many checklists. Plus, if you want to take help from a cloud-based grammar tool, Grammarly can help you proofread like a professional writer.
If a typical proofreading session takes around 2 hours, you will be able to complete your proofreading session within 30 minutes.
02. Format your blog posts
Formating doesn’t mean just spacing out paragraphs and sentences. Formatting refers to the use of various font styles, text styles, and other editing-centric punctuations.
If you are not a native English speaker, you might not effectively format your blog posts.
To get around this issue, you can opt for a premium blogger or content writing course.
Nobody can teach you the art of writing. So, take some premium courses and practice.
03. Rules of blog writing: Short paragraphs
Nobody likes to read a long paragraph. It looks dull and overwhelming.
Most marketing bloggers recommend breaking long paragraphs into multiple short sections to help with readability.
You don’t have to trim your paragraphs. Break them down into smaller sections.
04. Small sentences.
According to much readability-related research, it is found that if a sentence is longer than 20 words, it is considered relatively difficult to read.
A blog post that’s difficult to read will not be able to make an impact online.
Even some WordPress SEO plugins recommend using short sentences instead of long ones, indirectly affecting search engine rankings.
05. Use headings and sub-headings.
Additionally, if you have to use large sections of texts, you can use headings and sub-headings to divide them into bite-sized sections.
But don’t use too many headings or sub-headings. It will look unprofessional.
You can use images to add a flair to your sub-headings.
06. Rules of blog writing: Use credible links and citations.
Linking to credible resources online will help you rank well on Google and help build some credibility with your readers.
To properly optimize your blog post for search engines, many top SEOs recommend inserting relevant external and internal links.
However, if you add too many links, your article might look a tad bit spammy.
You should not use more than 16 external links and more than ten internal links as a rule of thumb.
07. Rules of blog writing: Update with new information.
Most blog posts that you will publish throughout your blogging journey will get outdated. But you can’t just delete these articles and start publishing new content.
You will lose the Google ranking, and it will negatively impact the SEO and web traffic coming to your website.
What’s the workaround?
You can update your old blog posts with new information and retain your search engine rankings and search traffic.
08. Use bullet lists.
Bullet lists help you in showing a list of items inside a document. If you don’t use a bullet list, all the information will be added in a regular sentence and look crowded.
You can use lists to display multiple information related to a specific topic.
For example;
These are the best fonts for blogs:
- Roboto
- Open Sans
- Proxima Nova
- Sans Serif
If you want to share such information inside your blog post, it is advised that you use list items.
It gives your blog post structure and character.
09. Rules of blog writing: Use responsive fonts.
We all know what fonts are. But what are responsive fonts?
There are different units of measurement that you can use when building a website.
Here are the most widely used units:
- REM
- PX
- EM
PX (pixels) measurement is static and will not scale concerning the screen size. In contrast, REM and EM measurements are responsive. If you use these two measurements, your fonts will respond based on the screen size.
Why is it essential to use a responsive font these days?
With a static font, you might have to zoom in or out on specific visual elements. When using REM or EM values, you don’t have to deal with such issues.
The browser-based automatically scales texts on mathematical calculations.
10. Use a fast WordPress theme.
A fast WordPress theme or a fast WordPress is essential for the survival of your blog.
Nobody likes a slow-loading website. Google has made it pretty clear that it is a red flag if your blog takes more than 5 seconds.
Most websites today try to get their websites loaded within 2 seconds. There are other page loading-related metrics that most agencies spend hundreds of thousands of hours optimizing.
You don’t have to go through such a tedious process.
You can find fast WordPress themes online easily today.
But if your WordPress website is slow and needs some optimizing, you can use CloudInnovare to get the job done.
If you think your WordPress theme is fast, use our speed-checking tutorial to determine the page loading time of your website.
Please note: Most premium themes have a lot of visual elements enabled. So, naturally, the theme demos will be slower. If you plan on purchasing a premium theme, your website might not take that much time.
11. Rules of blog writing: Use relevant images.
A picture speaks a thousand words.
It’s such a powerful statement that most of us must have heard of at least a thousand times.
No pun intended.
Although I use multiple images on my blog posts, some blog posts don’t necessarily need images.
For those blog posts, I create graphics using Canva. I insert the sub-heading and treat the graphic as a section image instead.
It helps in highlighting the section and retaining the attention of the reader.
However, using too many images inside a blog post will increase the page load time of your website.
So, what’s the workaround?
You must resize your images and compress them before uploading them to your website.
Furthermore, using some next-generation multimedia formats such as SVG and WEBP will help in retaining the quality while sporting a relatively more minor file size.
12. Publish blog posts regularly.
If you want to present your blog as a reliable source of information and content online, you should publish blog posts regularly.
An article by Marketing Insider Group suggests that consistently blogging will increase search traffic and lead generation.
So, start churning out content regularly.
Remember, publishing garbage content will not do you any good.
So, draft at least ten quality content with market-breaking information and publish them once in three days.
Here’s my content publishing checklist:
- Find the keyword for the topic in mind.
- Scrape the internet for relevant information related to the topic.
- Find related keywords.
- Create a timeline of the content.
- Write the first draft.
- Insert images.
- Proofreading.
- Reviewing.
- Publishing.
Although this process looks time-consuming, I only spend about four days from discovery to completion.
PSSST… If you want to score well on Google and other search engines, you should publish long-form content. Long-form content has all relevant information and can be referred to as a complete piece of content.
13. Rules of blog writing: Make proper use of whitespace.
From logo design to web design and everything inbetween, whitespace plays a crucial role and importance.
The same goes for blog writing.
Proper use of space will help you in retaining the attention of your readers.
You don’t have to spend a million dollars on web design research to find the apt amount of whitespace.
Just put enough space between each text element on your blog post.
For example; Give at least 25PX padding at the top and bottom of each element that appears inside the content of your blog post.
Also, increased margins to your website’s separate header, main content area, and footer section.
14. Rules of blog writing: Work on your storytelling.
Apart from list articles, most blog post works best if it follows a story.
But storytelling is not everybody’s cup of tea. It requires years of writing knowledge and expertise.
Not to mention the amount of research and thought that goes into publishing a story online.
- You have to write around a topic strictly.
- Focus on the timeline of events.
- Reinforce your claims using inline citations.
- Avoid adding fluff.
In short, if your blog post feels like a story, it will get more social shares and conversion rates.
Additionally, if you have excellent storytelling skills, you will be able to sell consultation services. You can use Trinitio for your calendar booking and schedule planning tasks.
15. Improve the blog post readability.
Readability refers to the readability score of your blog post. If you use complicated vocabulary and compose harsh sentences, it will have a poor readability score.
When publishing casual blog posts online, you need to understand your audience, and your audience needs to know what you are trying to convey.
An ideal blog post sports simple vocabulary and casual writing style that a 7th-grade student from an English-speaking nation understands.
Replace complex terms with simpler variants, trim down your long paragraphs and make each of your text segments shorter than 300 words.
16. Rules of blog writing: Use web design graphics and visual elements.
Gone are the days when you could post a bunch of text and expect millions of people to fall in love with your piece.
Now, people have a shorter attention span.
If they see a large chunk of text without any image, they will be bored and feel overwhelmed.
Due to this, users might click away and read a more engaging article.
As mentioned earlier, you need to use graphical elements such as:
- HTML5 Cards
- Accordions
- Images
- Videos
- GIFs
- Section background colors
Design matters a lot.
If you go to Backlinko.com and visit any blog post, you will notice that they have spent many hours designing their blog posts.
Their blog posts contain tons of information, but they also have a beautiful design that gives an impression that the author cares about the reader.
Conclusion: Rules of blog writing.
In this article, I walked you through the 16 golden rules of blog writing. You can use this framework to eliminate grammatical errors, make your content more readable and attract qualified search traffic from Google.
To summarize:
Focus on crafting well-balanced content that’ll create an impact online.
Remember, you are not writing for yourself. There’s a human being on the other side of your computer screen who’s going to spend their valuable time reading your content.
They might not be an English scholar. So, use simpler words and bite-sized sentences.
Whenever I publish a piece, I make sure that it is packed with relevant images, looks well-balanced in terms of whitespace, can be read by a 7th grader, and helps people solve a particular problem.
Furthermore, Google doesn’t need to send search traffic your way all of a sudden. But gradually, you will see your search rankings rise, and your newsletter subscribers increase over time.
So, follow these rules and churn out quality content regularly.
Which out of these rules of blog writing did you like the most. Drop your valuable opinions in the comment section below.