I am back!! I know some of you probably missed me while others probably didn’t notice. I was away for about two weeks due to my wife having our first child. Anyways I figured it was time to jump right back into where we left off in my series about running a successful blog. Today we are going to talk about one of, if not THE, most important part of your blog… the content. Why is the content so important? The only way to keep visitors coming back to your blog is to have quality content.  If you don’t get visitors, you will more than likely get frustrated and give up – which we don’t want.

So let’s tackle some of the tough questions you may have about writing blog posts.

How long should my content be?
A blog post should be long enough to get your point across; although there is no real set number of words you need to aim for when writing. Some say “more is better” but if your content just drags on with no real point, you will bore your readers and they may never come back to your blog. On the other hand, don’t keep your posts so brief that the reader feels like they got nothing out of it. I’d say a good rule of thumb to follow is around 150-400 words in your post.

Also, don’t forget to break up your content with images or video. How many times have you gone to a blog site and just looked at a wall of text…not fun is it. So don’t do the same to your readers. Give them something to look at that corresponds to the point you are trying to get across.

What should it be about?

We semi tackled this question back with finding the right niche for you blog. You are going to want to write about whatever your blog is about. If your blog is about movies you are going to want to write about movies and not elevators. If you went the route of having a general blog then you can pretty much go any direction you chose. So write about something you care about or what you are thinking about at the time.

How do I write content people will like?

This is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Even now with me sitting here writing this blog post for you do I know if people will like it? Hate it? No feeling what-so-ever? When writing content you don’t always have to go the route of making it so people love your content, there are plenty of writers out there that go for the opposite just to stir things up. You need to decide how you want to fit in. Think about the blogs you regularly read from top to bottom. That writer did their job, whether you agreed with them or not and it got you thinking, maybe even got you to leave a comment. Think about that type of stuff when you are writing your own blog post. Also remember, not everyone is going to love your content, even if the majority do, there are still people out there that thrive on trying to knock you down (also known as trolls). Don’t let them get to you and just brush it off. Remember any readers are better than no readers at all.

Well I hope some of this helped, keep a look out in the next week or two for the next post in the series about running a successful blog. As always I would love to hear from all of you and get your thoughts, comments, or maybe some recommendations you may have for other readers that will help them run a successful blog.