How to structure a Blog Post

Remember in high school when you were taught that an essay consists of 3 parts:
1. the introduction with a summary of your main 2 or 3 arguments
2. Your arguments separated into one or 2 paragraphs each with supporting arguments, and
3. You conclusion with a summary of your arguments?

Well, blogging ISN'T high school.

When you are putting together a blog post, your structure needs to be as follows:
1. An introductory teaser, or funny statement
2. 2 to 3 paragraphs on a SINGLE topic
3. Closing statement, or call to action if you are monetizing your blog, and a teaser for your next topic.

Yes, each blog post should cover only one topic. Remember the goal of your blog is to get people to read it. Since about 90% of visitors to your blog will come via Google, the Google-spider needs to know how to classify your post. In order for that to happen, your blog as a whole should be about one topic, and each post should be about a specific subset of that topic, centered around key search phrases.

In order to keep your readers coming back, blog posts should be short - 400-600 words each - about 1 to 2 minutes read. After 2 minutes you will lose about 50% of your readers every 10 seconds. If your call to action is in the final paragraph (as I suggest it should be) most of your readers will be gone before they even see it!

If you have been reading this blog since the beginning, you should now be ready to start blogging. You should have your topic and first 20-30 posts outlined.

Next post will be about choosing keywords and how to write around them. If you can't wait and need to start blogging now my favorite resource is Rob Benwell's Blogging to the Bank 2.0. The best $50 I ever spent (especially since it taught me how to make about $50 a day from blogging!).