Create a structure for your blog posts

Do your blog posts have a Corporate Design?
Do you follow a checklist when finalizing an article before publishing?

Create specific article style rules

In addition to 7 Easy Tips To Maximize Your Blog Posts by Ryan and several other articles on pperformancing.com and the Internet about creating a good blog post I would like to add some advice for fresh bloggers.

Beside having an easy to understand template design (Header, navigation, content, footer, sidebar) you should also optimize the outline of your articles.

Create an outline checklist if you think you have a well written and well designed article.

Basic structure

Having no structure simply looks amateurish!

1. Title
2. First paragraph
3. Headline 1
4. Paragraph 1
5. (…)
6. Additional information

This example looks pretty boring but many bloggers will already forget to have an introducing first paragraph and the additional information. The typical article structure seen on simple blogs is in many cases:

1. Title
• Two or three sentences
• A blockquote
• A link out

Those elements are wildly mixed in order from article to article. Additionally wildly spread ads and sidebar elements confuse the reader focus. This way a regular follower will have an uncomfortable feeling because every article looks different.

Easy enhancements

1. Title
2. Sub title
3. First introducing paragraph and the important first sentence
4. Headline 1
5. Paragraph 1
6. Sub headline 1
7. Paragraph 2
8. (…)
9. Additional information

Adding a sub title adds an eye catcher and draws the reader into the article. The sub title can include a personal comment to give the rough direction.

The first sentence following the sub title should be fact rich like a one sentence abstract of the following. Do not emphasize on personal expressions like “Yesterday I thought I should write this article but my mother in law ordered me to her house to paint the wall. In the evening bla bla bla…”

Sub headlines offer orientation points in your text. Reading text online which has no orientation marks will make the reader exit the article before the end because scrolling and keeping the focus at the same time is difficult.

The title, the sub title and the first sentence are the most important article entries which will motivate the reader to read on!

Content elements

Also the order and existence of content elements for certain types of articles is important. Checklist examples:

• Easy example: Writing book reviews should be accompanied by i.e. Amazon ads on top and/or bottom.
• More advanced: If writing a restaurant tip an embedded map is a good enhancement. Before publishing the article make sure that the map is embedded.
• More advanced: If you are embedding videos make sure that you have some surrounding content and not only “Heh, heh, how funny. Watch this:”. Add some comment quotes below the video. Add the video info quote above the video. Add links to the publisher or quote interesting comment snippets from some other blog.
• Very advanced: Switch subject in the article. Let’s say you want to transport some very dry information about election computers and their risks. How about tying in some death valley hot juicy content before that death valley dry information part? Here my example: Texas Legislation. Taking the funny & fitting story of the video made it possible to come to the main content later. It’s kind of a camouflage or better mimicry technique to draw readers attention.
• Very easy but very often forgotten: Add a links and bookmarks section at the end of an article. Advanced: Fill that paragraph from your i.e. del.icio.us RSS feed (on my to-do list since, well, long).

To-Do – Your content structure

The above examples are only scratching the surface. Develop your own design rules for different article types. Reviews, personal notes, link lists and articles in general will all need their own set of rules. The rules should be in form of a ordered checklist. The checklist will make sure that you do some quality control before publishing.

• Develop your own structure
• Make it a corporate blog design rule
• Write it down as a checklist
• Before publishing the article: Double check the content elements
• Before publishing the article: Lean back and ask yourself “Can I add something else?”

If you love word processing then create forms in your preferred software.

In my blogging experience it was very helpful for creating content rich articles to develop such checklists. My first articles were a mess and badly structured. After starting to write into my outlines and doing content element checks I knew that my articles are OK even if I have a bad day.