Guest Post: Daniel Nest - Writing for a Blog: 5 Tips

If you are not reading Daniel Nest's blog, Nest Expressed, you are missing out. It is one of my favorites. He posts fairly regularly, and I absolutely LOVE his sense of humor. I was so excited when he agreed to do a guest blog for me. He is sharing some of his secret blog tips - so take notes! :) The link to his blog and where to connect with him are at the end of his post. 

Writing for a Blog: 5 tips

Alright, listen up ladies and those who aren't. I'm about to tell you something that will blow your mind. Here goes: writing for a blog is different from writing stuff for offline use. Crazy, right? I'll just give you a moment to wrap your head around that visionary statement.

Jokes aside, I'm sure most of you know that reading a book and reading a blog aren't the same experience. Having said that, it can be difficult to keep this fact in mind while blogging. Trust me, I know. I can't look at my very first blog posts without cringing. And that's not only because of my undiagnosed tic disorder.

So today I'm going to give you a few tips for writing on a blog. I'll focus only on presentation and readability, not on content. I assume you're all competent writers with an important message to share.

 

 Maybe not all of you

A disclaimer: I haven't graduated from a blog-writing school or received a fancy diploma in "Online Blogging 101". I'm just a guy with a blog. So take everything I say with a grain of salt (or a cupful of salt, if that's your thing - weirdo). The following tips work quite well for me. And if it works for me, it will automatically work for everyone else, right? Right?

5. Make your post easy to skim

Let’s face it. Most of us, when online, have the attention span of a Chihuahua on amphetamine. We want to be able to skim an article and get the gist of it quickly.

Why not help your readers do just that? You could add descriptive headlines to your post’s sections. You could try to make your key points stand out by making them visually different from the rest of the text.

Alternatively, list-style posts can help your readers get the main idea behind an article before committing to reading it. For an example of a list-style post, please refer to the text you’re currently reading. I try to do list posts often. And that’s not only because of my undiagnosed OCD.

4. Write shorter paragraphs

There's nothing scarier than an endless wall of text. Ok, zombies are scarier, but I've been informed they don't actually exist. Long walls of text are pretty much the reason the acronym TL;DR was invented.

“Meh, too long, didn’t read”

So try to write shorter paragraphs to avoid scaring readers away. I try to keep each paragraph to 3-5 sentences. Also, don’t forget to add that sacred line break after each paragraph.

3. Keep the text area relatively narrow

For some reason people absolutely refuse to turn their head left or right when reading a web page (a fact I just made up based purely on personal observations).Logically though, it is much easier to absorb text when it fits into a narrow column. Going from one edge of the screen to the other can be tiring for the eyes.

So confine your text to a smaller section of the screen. Anyone wearing a neck-brace will love you for it! You can also split your text into several columns to achieve the same effect.

2. Use images and other media

The Internet loves pictures and videos, because the age of an average online user is exactly 6.2 years. How else can you explain the fascination with endless pictures of kittens and videos of people falling off things?

Use those tools to help you keep the reader’s attention. Embed some videos that illustrate your content into your article. Break every few paragraphs with a relevant picture.If done right this will also add to the points you were trying to make in the first place.

OK, so this has nothing to do with anything, but it’s a damn kitten, so…

1. Keep it clean

I don’t mean the language. Take it easy. Nobody’s trying to censor your f-bombs here! I’m talking about keeping unnecessary clutter on your blog to a minimum.Seriously, if you only follow one tip from this post, make it this one!

I know it can be tempting to “spice things up”. There are so many cool things you can do; flashing backgrounds, unicorns galloping across the screen and stars following the reader’s cursor. Where do you draw the line…?

…At “flashing backgrounds”, that’s where you draw the line. Don’t do any of the above! Unless you’re researching the best way to cause epileptic seizures, don’t do it. It’s the surest way to make someone click that “close window” button.

While you’re at it, keep your text and background colours neutral. Black text on a light background works best. Most can live with white text against a dark background. But please, whatever you do, don’t make me read yellow text on a purple background. Those might be your two favourite colours, but my eyes feel like they’ve been set on fire right now. Please spare my eyes

Daniel Nest has a blog and would love for you to follow him on Twitter or Facebook. And that's not only because of his undiagnosed depression and chronic loneliness.