Have you ever thought, "Wow! That was a long post. Maybe I should have broken the post up and shared part of the post today and the rest
of the post tomorrow"? What stopped you from breaking up your post?
Whatever the reason, it’s important to understand that blog posts are meant to be short and sweet. In fact, breaking up a long post has
several advantages, such as:
- Building reader suspense.
- Increasing readership: readers will want to come back on a regular basis.
- Improving your search rankings: the more posts you have, the more ways Internet searchers can find you, link to you, and recommend
you.
When putting a blog series together, take the time to follow these simple steps:
- Pick a topic.
Choosing a topic isn’t hard when you know your subject. (And your blog does have a niche subject, doesn’t it?) But let us assume you’ve
hit writer’s block and can’t think of another thing to write, let alone an entire series. Where do you go for inspiration?
Your inspiration should come from the world around you. Visit your blog’s statistics, read what commenters have to say about previous
posts, visit forums to discover what questions aren’t being answered and what’s being talked about a lot, interview industry experts,
read newspapers, study industry magazines, and don’t forget to ask your friends in the blogosphere what they’d like to read more of.
- Write your outline.
An outline is essentially a group of sentences designed to help you stay on topic. Your outline should identify the main topic, break
your main topic down into broad categories, and then provide support information for each of your categories.
Your outline is also a great place to write notes on background information you’ve located, people you want to interview, sources you
want to quote, etc.
- Write your article.
Yes, it’s true. Blogs have posts not articles. But when you’re working on a blog series, it’s important to think of the initial post as
an article. Articles are often longer and more detailed than traditional posts, therefore making them easier to break up and turn into a
series.
- Break your article up into smaller posts.
The idea behind breaking your article up into smaller, more digestible posts is not to increase the size of your blog, or trick the
search engines into thinking you have a lot of great content. Its main purpose is to allow your readers the opportunity to read your
blog without taking up too much of their time. (Think lunch breaks and baby naps.)
While a 1,000 word article could be broken up into five 200-word posts, your readers will appreciate it more if you broke your article
up into two 500-word posts or three 333-word posts. And whenever possible, break your posts up by themes or categories.
- Write an introduction sentence.
An introduction sentence helps visitors, to your blog, understand that they’ve just come into the middle of a conversation. Your
introduction sentence should include a link to your previous post, allowing your visitors to “catch up” on the conversation.
An introduction sentence can be as simple as “In part one of this series, we discussed…in part two we’re going to tackle…” or “Last
week, we discussed the importance of…today we’re going to continue the discussion by…”
- Write an ending sentence.
Each post should contain an ending sentence that builds anticipation for the next post. Once the next post is live, go back to the
previous post and provide a clickable link to the current post.
An ending sentence can be as simple as “Come back on Friday as we continue this series” or “Come back tomorrow as we finish up our
discussion on…” or “Come back in six hours as we discuss part three in our series on…”
- Write a closing post.
Your closing post sums up your thoughts in relation to the series you just posted.
It should be followed by a bullet
point list that provides links to each post in the series. Your bullets could also include a brief overview of what each post
entails.
- Publish your series.
Publication of your series should not take place until you’ve actually completed the entire series, unless of course, you’re covering
breaking news as it happens. By completing the series beforehand, you prevent life and work from distracting you, you make sure you
have enough background information to make the series valid and complete, and should you get sick, your readers aren’t left wondering
what happened to the series.
If your blogging service doesn’t offer an “advance posting feature”, hire a web designer to install one for you. For a under $100 you
could have a system in place that allows you to upload every post, give each post a day to go live, and then move on to more important
tasks—such as writing your next series!
Finally, consider placing a link to the closing post of your series on the sidebar so that it doesn’t get buried and lost among all your new posts. And if
you really want to get mileage out of your series, consider sharing the series with like-minded blogs, placing it in an article
distribution directory, or selling it to smaller publications for a reprint fee.
About The Author:
Alyice Edrich is the author of Tid-Bits For Making Money With E-books.
Learn how you can earn $10,000 a year or more selling information you already possess—from the comfort of your own home. Visit
http://thedabblingmumpress.com to order a copy today!
* This article is available for your publication, for a F-E-E.
This article may NOT be reprinted without monetary compensation and written permission from the author.
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