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Last Updated: January 23, 2024

The Actual Life of a Blogger in 2022 [What Do Bloggers Do?!]

What do bloggers do all day? What’s a blogger’s life really like? Check out this guide to life as a blogger to find out!

Danny Newman

Interested in the life of a blogger? I hope this post helps!

What does a blogger do?

Like, really .

How do they spend their days? What’s their routine like? How do they make money?

Simply…what does the life of a blogger look like?

If you’ve been asking yourself these sorts of questions, then I really don’t blame you.

I mean, we’ve all heard about bloggers. I think most people even have a sense of what they do (“they just write about stuff online, don’t they?”).

But the nuts and bolts remain a mystery.

And that uncertainty can be tough when you’re interested in starting a blog but yet to take the plunge. Unlike other “jobs”, you don’t really know what lies in store!

So, having been at this blogging thing for a few years now, I thought I’d try to make myself useful.

In this post, I’m going to detail everything I know about life as a blogger!

Read on to discover exactly what bloggers do.

What do bloggers do? Let’s find out!

Want to be a blogger? You might also like these…

•   How to Choose Travel Blog Names
• 200 Catchy Travel Slogans
• How to Find Travel Topics to Write About
• 100 Ideas to Grow Your Travel Blog
• 150 Top Travel Blog Post Ideas

What Do Bloggers Do? [The Short Version]

Short on time and want the abridged version of this post?

Look no further. Here’s a rapid-fire run-down of everything most of the bloggers I know do each day (in no particular order):

FYI, most bloggers won’t do everything on this list. Yet every blogger will do most things on it…

• Find topics to write about
• Write about those topics
• Create a content calendar to organize future articles
• Edit old blog content to make sure it’s up-to-date and still relevant
• Groan out loud that they didn’t learn about SEO sooner
• Write articles (for free!) for other websites to gain exposure and backlinks
• Contribute to other blogger’s articles in return for exposure and a backlink
• Pitch big media outlets for even greater exposure and paid gigs
• Pitch brands to gain paid deals and sponsored opportunities
• Drink lots of coffee
• Respond to endless emails (ignoring the countless spammy ones)
• Create automated email campaigns to send out throughout the week/month/year
• Respond to comments on past blog posts
• Post and engage on social media
• Schedule future posts on social media
• Network with other bloggers (both online and in-person)
• Do/Try cool stuff that’s paid for or otherwise provided by brands in their niche
• Complete the terms of their deal with said brand (e.g. writing an article about whatever they did or received and/or posting on their social media profiles about their experience)
• Write e-books
• Edit photos
• Record and/or edit videos to post on YouTube or TikTok
• Create pins for Pinterest
• Moderate and interact in the Facebook groups they run
• Educate themselves on the ever-changing blogosphere

Truth be told, it’s actually quite hard to describe a day in the life of a blogger! Here’s why…

Life as a Blogger – A Caveat

Before I dive into this post, I should point out that life as a blogger is genuinely hard to pin down. Why?

Because it’s different for everyone!

Sure, there are definite similarities (hence the following section…).

But the reality is that no two bloggers’ lives will look exactly the same.

All sorts of factors come into play, like:

• Where they are in their blogging journey
• How many blogs they run (many bloggers have more than one!)
• The blogging niche they’re in, and
• How they make money from their site (if they do!).

People have varying intentions for their blog as well.

Some treat it as a hobby – a creative pursuit done in their free time. For others, like me, it’s a business. We want to monetize our blogs to earn a living.

Oh, and personalities have an impact too.

Blogger A might be super laid back and take things as they come. But Blogger B might be a total workaholic!

For all of these reasons (and more), life as a blogger can sound very different, depending on who you ask.

Nicely, there’s no a “right” or “wrong” way to be a blogger.

Ultimately, it’s up to each individual to figure it out for themselves…

Regardless of the individual differences, there are still many elements of a blogger’s life that’ll be similar for everyone. More on this next!

A Day in the Life of a Blogger – Key Features

Having given you that entire spiel, though, there are definitely things most bloggers have in common with their schedules, habits, and routines!

Likewise, I suspect anyone reading this post is interested in a particular type of blogger:

The ones who do it full-time and earn a living from it.

If that’s the case, then this section should help. Here are the key features of a typical day in my life as a blogger:

1. The Day Job

Did you know that only 10% of bloggers make over $10,000 each year?

Crazy, right?

It’s not as much as many people think when they first start blogging!

Don’t get me wrong, making money from your blog is 100% possible, but it can take years to build it up to a full-time source of income.

As a result, most bloggers I know (including yours truly!) have a “real job” to pay the bills while they work on their site on the side.

So, because I’m a professional content writer, the brunt of my day is actually spent writing for other peoples’ websites!

For the last 2+ years I’ve been working on What’s Danny Doing in the afternoons, evenings, weekends…and whenever else I can squeeze it in.

This definitely isn’t the case for every blog owner out there though!

Some of the biggest earn hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

I’m guessing their days look very different to mine!

When you’re starting out though, expect to spend a big chunk of your time simply doing your day job, just like everybody else.

2. Research and Writing

When I’m not putting posts together for other peoples’ websites, my main focus is writing them for mine.

Upon starting a blog, though, you soon realize you can’t just write anything you want!

Well…you can .

But nobody’s going to read it (apart from your friends and family).

With hundreds of millions of blogs on the internet, you’d have to be crazy lucky to land on page 1 of Google and start welcoming readers your site! Sure, social media is an option, but you need a big following to get web traffic from it.

The secret to success?

You have to find what people are searching for online first and then create a blog post on that specific topic.

Check out this article to learn more about this aspect of blogging (and 99 others).

Only when you have the topic do you set about writing.

And the writing part can take aaaages, depending on the length of your article.

I type fast, but I could still spend an entire afternoon researching and writing a 2,000 to 3,000 word post!

What does a professional blogger do? Alongside everything else, they respond to countless emails!

No article on the life of a blogger would be complete without mentioning the emails.

I probably get a dozen or more each day (not including the ones going straight into my spam folder).

And I’m one of the lucky ones.

Some bloggers get huuuundreds .

Now, it’s awesome when you get emails from people who have read your stuff and want to thank you.

Those emails are different – I’d be stoked if my inbox was full of them!

Unfortunately, the majority are from companies who want something from you. The persistent ones even send 3, 4, or 5+ different follow-up emails over the course of a week!

I ignore the vast majority.

I skim my inbox each day for messages that matter, respond to any that do and then turn a blind eye to the rest.

That might sound harsh, but there are so many better ways to spend your time than replying to spammy emails that I tend to let myself off the hook on this one.

Other bloggers won’t have that luxury, though – especially if they rely on brand deals and sponsorships (that often come through via email) to make a living.

My best guess?

I reckon most bloggers spend 1-2 hours or more each day sending and replying to emails.

4. Marketing

Another major part of running a successful blog is marketing it .

With no marketing team to do it for you, it’s up to you, the blogger, to find ways to promote your content to the world.

From posting on social media and attending blogging meetups to emailing other bloggers, pitching major publications for exposure, and creating SEO content for Google, there are lots of options here.

Yet each marketing method has one thing in common:

They take time.

In fact, many bloggers devote much more of their days to marketing their content than writing it in the first place.

5. Other Content Creation

Most bloggers don’t just write a blog.

They take their own photos, have a TikTok account, a YouTube channel, post to Pinterest and record a podcast too, among others.

So, what’s that?

6 different types of content altogether?

…Photography…short and long-form videos…pins for Pinterest…audio recordings…and all alongside their articles.

When it comes to the everyday life of a blogger, then, you’re often either creating or editing one form of content or another.

What does a blogger do? For many, they get sent all sorts of cool stuff from brands to try out and review/promote on their sites!

6. “Proper Blogging Stuff”

When I picture the life of a blogger in my head, I think about people going on trips paid for by big brands, receiving fancy gear for free, and writing up their experiences to share with their audience afterward.

And that 100% happens for many bloggers.

However, that’s definitely not my experience of blogger’s life!

I’ve had a few small offers of this nature from businesses, but I’ve never taken them up on it.

Because that’s not my primary purpose for running a blog.

Remember, every blogger’s different! For me, I want to share inspiring content about travel, escaping the rat race, and living an awesome life.

And I also want my blog to earn passive income!

So I don’t necessarily want the trips, or the gear, or the responsibility of being an influencer.

…For me, it’s all about time .

I’m trying to do everything I can to build this blog to a point where it grants me full financial freedom.

That’s why I ditch the “classic bloggers life stuff” and write, write, and write some more (because that, in my experience, is the quickest way to build a lucrative, passive-income-earning blog).

In other words, I spend my life as a blogger doing things that align with my goals.

I imagine every other blogger does the same.

I saw a quote once that went something like:

“For art to imitate life, you have to have a life.”

…It reminds me to step away from my computer!

I mean, there comes a point when you think, “I should probably go and do stuff so I have something to write about.”

After all, a big part of this blog is about travelling and taking control of your time.

So it’s a little ironic that I can spend my entire day sat in one spot, staring at a screen, all in a bid to grow the blog!

Alongside everything else, then, bloggers live their lives .

They do normal everyday stuff.

And then they do cool blog-related stuff too (e.g. a travel blogger exploring a new destination so they can write an itinerary for it).

Last but not least, here’s a quick note on how life as a blogger changes over time…

Blogger’s Life and How It Changes

Two final things to keep in mind on this topic:

First, a blogger’s life’s full of variety.

At a micro level, it’s rare for two days to be exactly the same (at a macro level, you might just be on the computer all the time…)!

It all depends on your specific to-do list for your specific blog; what you have planned and what needs to be done.

Second, all bloggers are on a journey.

They move from the early days of creating their site to (after years of hard work) turning it into an established business with a big audience.

Naturally, how they spend their day changes with it!

The larger their blog gets, the more help they’ll need to run it, which might mean hiring assistants, writers, and marketing pros.

They’re also likely to be offered lucrative brand deals more frequently, which means less writing and more doing that “cool blog stuff” I mentioned before.

They might start selling products through their sites too (e.g. blogging courses, apparel, and e-books…), which opens the door to all sorts of new and interesting projects!

Keep this in mind as you continue looking into the life of a blogger.

Like I said at the start, it really is different for everyone…

A Day in the Life of a Blogger

There you have it, then: an in-depth rundown of the life of a blogger.

As you can tell, there’s slightly more to a blogger’s life (and a lot more hard work) than many people think!

For what it’s worth, though, it’s an awesome thing to get your teeth stuck into, especially if you a) enjoy writing and b) get kicks from sharing your thoughts, experiences, and insights in the hope of making other peoples’ lives easier.

Are you interested in starting a blog of your own?

Make sure you check out this post for 200 original blog name ideas!

Writing an Effective Blog Post

Use the guide below to learn about the elements of a blog post and how to gain an audience.

What blog posts can do Elements of a blog post Why having an audience matters and how to get one

What blog posts can do

Blogging, or writing short entries on a website, can allow you to offer opinions, share ideas, or do independent reporting, but most importantly, blogging can help writers have conversations with readers. What makes blogs so different from journalism, as the authors of The Elements of Blogging: Expanding the Conversation of Journalism suggest, is the discussion between writer and reader. Blogs can be a forum for writers to get feedback on half–formed ideas and emerging stances, and through comments, readers can talk with and back to writers and build communities. But what draws readers in? Read through the material below to learn how paying attention to a range of blog elements (including clear headlines, engaging pictures, and distinctive ledes) will help you build an audience.

Elements of a blog post

In The Elements of Blogging, Mark Leccese and Jerry Lanson dissect blog posts in order to identify and examine their key parts. Below are some of the elements they highlight as well as some examples from local blogs.

Headlines (Titles)

A headline or title not only helps draw in readers’ attention with an interesting hook, but by containing keywords that Google and other search engines use, the right headline can bring anyone to your blog. As Leccese and Lanson note, search engines work by creating indexes of the words they find on the web. By using keywords in your headline, there is a greater chance that more browsers will find your blog. Headlines, however, are more than just keywords. They need to be short, 10 words or less, and intriguing. Look at the headline on this article from University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Center for Limnology’s blog .

Through this blog, the Center for Limnology communicates with university colleagues, Madison residents, and students about current fresh water research and reflections. In this post center staff member Adam Hinterthuer writes about the presence of an invasive species in Lake Mendota. The post’s clear, engaging title uses keywords so that this post appears in the first several search results for anyone looking for information about “zebra mussels” and “lake mendota.” When possible, your headlines should be in the present tense, and you shouldn’t repeat the headline in the first lines of the post.

The first sentence of a post should have a conversational tone and articulate the main point of the blog post. Internet readers can easily navigate away from a post, so making your lede interesting and to the point is important. Look at the opening lines from University of Wisconsin–Madison Antrhopology professor John Hawks’ blog post “Bringing together climate and ancient DNA to look at a micro–instance of extinction”:

Ed Yong describes the results of a cool new study of mammoth extinction on Saint Paul Island, in the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia: “The Lonely, Thirsty, Final Days of the Doomed Alaskan Mammoths”.

Hawks’ post opens with his main point: how scientists determined when and how mammoths went extinct on the island and why it is a interesting case study of extinction. The assessment of the study as “cool” is conversational, and immediately mentioning this study suggests to the reader that this post will both summarize and highlight the methods scientists used. The title of the study itself is intriguing, invoking a dramatic scene. Even though both the study’s title and the content of the post could easily be in hyper scientific jargon, Hawks’ opening sentence previews his particularly accessible approach for talking to the public about science.

Pictures not only break up text on a page, but they can also help make your point clearer. Pictures tell stories, but they need to be part of the discussion. Include captions by your images that explain how the image adds to the point you are making. For example, look at these two images from Professor Elizabeth Hennessy’s post “Global Visions: Rethinking the Globe and How we Teach it” published by University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Edge Effect digital magazine:

The blog post is an instructor’s reflection, summary, and analysis of an environmental humanities course and the resource website developed by the students as a final project. These images effectively communicate what the blog is saying about our knowledge of the world, which in greatest part is from maps. In teaching this class, Hennessy strove to have her students consider that “global space is a historical product rather than a planetary scale,” and thus, global space needs to be understood from the stand point that the “global” is produced by “histories of exploration and imperialism, uneven economic development, scientific inquiry, and environmental change.” The 17th century map that opens the blog and the telegraph cable map embedded further into the text emphasize history and imperialism’s role in thinking about what “global” means.

Hennessy’s caption for the telegraph map not only connects the image to her point, but it also provides copyright information. If you use photos on your blog you must give credit to the source. The Creative Commons on Flicker and Wikimedia Commons both have public domain images you can use while giving the photographer credit.

The photo on the above Center for Limnology post is interestingly composed and serves as an object lesson for the post as a whole.

Links give extra information to your readers. In Hennessy’s post, she often links to the site her students created and to the specific syllabi that encompass each of the four frames for understanding “the global” that her class analyzed. Having links that provide a direct route to information and resources allows your blog to make the most out of being on the web.

Block quotes

Block quoting gives readers’ eyes a break and bolsters the author’s credibility. Using a source’s words instead rephrasing shows that your points are well supported.

Final Words

Writing a good take–away can, as Leccese and Lanson point out, help readers remember and engage with your post. For the most part, Hawk’s blog summarizes and applauds the study of mammoths on Saint Paul Island, but he ends the post by saying:

However, I hesitate on one point. I would not so quickly assume there was never a short or intermittent presence of humans on the island, and that humans may have been involved in the mammoth extinction.

Questioning the study and the impact of humans is a provocative alternative view. It makes readers think more critically about the study and develop their own opinion, and in doing so, Hawk’s post invites a conversation.

A Note on Organization

Effective posts make at most two or three focused points and provide evidence to support them. Each of the three examples offered exemplify clear, brief points. “Global Visions” reflects on the class and the four frames of understanding “the global” the class used. Numbering in your post can help you as a writer limit your points and can help your reader understand the organization of your post. By clearly identifying what you want to analyze or argue and by providing support for your main points with research, anecdotes, or examples, you can establish a clear focus.

Why having an audience matters and how to get one

Blogs have the unique capability to allow readers and writers to interact. Thinking carefully about how to not only get readers to your blog, but also how to foster community and conversation are important elements of writing a blog. People often find blogs on the web through social media. UW–Madison student Ashley Hampton’s Raw in College lifestyle and food blog has reached nearly a million hits in part because it is linked to Hampton’s twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Once readers have found a blog, they might check it once a week to see what’s new, but posting on Facebook about recent entries will help establish an audience.

Allowing comments on your blog will bring readers back because by engaging in conversation you build a network of people who are interested in your blog’s topic and want to continue thinking about it with others. Sometimes it can be hard to build up your comment section, so don’t be afraid to ask friends or family members to comment and get the discussion going. You could also end your post in a question.

Happy blogging!

Works Cited and Consulted

Lanson, Jerry. Writing for Others, Writing for Ourselves: Telling Stories in an Age of Blogging. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011.

Leccese Mark, and Jerry Lanson. The Elements of Blogging: Expanding the Conversation of Journalism. Focal Press, 2016.

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Marketing tips

How to write a good blog introduction

A content marketer shares her four-part formula for writing introductions—and creating more effective content..

The pressure is on. 

The spotlight is blazing, the microphone is on, and everyone is watching me expectantly. 

No, it's not an open mic night at the local coffee shop. It's just the inside of my brain every time I write a blog post introduction (like this one). Getting someone hooked from the get-go is essential if you want readers to see the content you worked so hard on to the end. 

At times, though, coming up with an interesting introduction feels like fishing in a dried-up well. For times like those, it helps to have a few formulas or thought starters up your sleeve to kickstart the process. 

Let's explore tips you can use the next time your creative brain has its OOO autoresponder on. 

What a blog post introduction needs to achieve

Understanding what an introduction needs to do helps you gauge whether you've hit the mark (and can call a draft "done"). I have three goals each time I start a blog post:

Excite readers and give them a reason to read more

Introduce a new perspective on the topic

Set expectations about what a reader will learn

Keep this in mind, though: your blog post intro should achieve these goals quickly. After you've written your introduction, read it through again and see if you can delete any sentences—or even paragraphs—without losing any meaning or effect.

A 4-part formula to make writing introductions easier

I've broken down the intro-writing process into four components. Review these best practices, try using the formula, and then adapt it to your writing style. 

First up: a line or two to catch someone's attention. If you struggle to come up with a great first sentence, wait until the draft is ready. Then write something that plays off an angle in the content.

Do use a personal story or analogy to make it interesting.

Don't state the obvious. Sentences along the lines of "We've all seen…" or "X is a well-established trend…" are redundant. 

Next, you need to let readers know why they should care about what you're about to say. Describe the issue, make a relatable joke, include an expert quote, or give some background on how the problem came to be. 

Do think about who will read the post and how the topic affects them. 

Don't lean on worn-out, over-dramatic, or outdated stats to build up the problem to be bigger than it is. 

3. Solution

Now it's time to address the reason someone would read your blog post in the first place—a solution. Set up the antidote to the problem, and go ahead and work your primary keyword in here. 

Do opt for clarity over cleverness here.

Don't abuse your keyword privileges by stuffing every search term into a sentence. 

4. Expectations

Finally, I like to include a sneak peek of what's coming up. Ideally, you can state what a reader will be able to do once they're through with reading. Readers want actionable content. 

Do focus on the positive outcome for the reader. 

Don't slip into the "five-paragraph essay" trap of saying "Today, I'll be writing about X,Y, and Z." 

Example blog post introductions

So far, we've just been talking the talk. It's time to see how four-part blog post openers work in the wild, putting my own writing under the microscope. 

Storytelling with ConvertKit

ConvertKit helps creators build their businesses, so I always try to put myself in the reader's shoes in the introductions . 

My goal: Help creators see themselves in the story and say "hey, that's me!"

What I wrote: "Your podcast downloads are climbing up and up every week, and you just landed a dream guest. It feels like your podcast is growing—and that's a wonderful feeling."

My goal: Have readers think critically about their business. 

What I wrote: "Do you know what's really making all the difference, though? Could you pinpoint what percent of customers converted because of your podcast? Are you aware of which promotional channels are bringing in the most listeners?"

My goal: Reassure readers since it could be a sensitive or frustrating topic.

What I wrote: "If you don't, you aren't alone. Making sense of how your podcast helps you grow your business doesn't come easily for podcasters both new and experienced. You deserve to understand how your efforts are paying off, though. That way, you know what to double down on—and what to cut loose."

Expectations

My goal: Reiterate that the post wouldn't just be a list of metrics without any next-step guidance. 

What I wrote:  "With a little strategy and set up you'll be on your way to tracking podcast success like the savvy creator you are."

Ideal outcomes with Great Question

The brief for this blog post noted that customer research recruitment is a roadblock for teams, so I aimed to illustrate that "catch."

My goal: Explain what you gain with research instead of saying "research is valuable."

What I wrote: "Customer research can offer a gold mine of insights. You gain new perspectives, confirm hunches, and get feedback on developments before you're too far down the rabbit hole."

My goal: Tease the ideal reality they could have, and introduce the monster standing in the way of the quest. 

What I wrote: " There's a catch, though—you need to have enough people participate."

My goal: Position research incentives as the hero in the story. 

What I wrote: "It would be great if customers wanted to be a part of your UX research out of the goodness of their hearts. Since that isn't a universally applicable strategy, we use customer research incentives to boost participation."

My goal: Preview upcoming sections that outline which incentives are best for various scenarios. 

What I wrote: "Instead of blindly throwing cash at a project, it's helpful to consider what type of incentive is best for your audience. Here's what you should know."

Intro inception with Zapier

My goal: Address the pressure I was feeling during writing that readers can relate to. 

What I wrote: "The pressure is on. The spotlight is blazing, the microphone is on, and everyone is watching me expectantly. No, it's not an open mic night at the local coffee shop. It's just the inside of my brain every time I write a blog post introduction (like this one). Getting someone hooked from the get-go is essential if you want readers to see the content you worked so hard on to the end."

My goal: Use imagery in place of saying "writing is hard."

What I wrote: "At times, though, coming up with an interesting introduction feels like fishing in a dried-up well."

My goal: Introduce the way to work around a mental block. 

What I wrote: "For times like those, it helps to have a few formulas or thought starters up your sleeve to kickstart the process."

My goal: Help people understand when the information could come in handy. 

What I wrote: "Let's explore tips you can use the next time your creative brain has its OOO autoresponder on."

The best way to improve your writing is to write more

If you don't read your blog posts from two years ago and cringe a little, you aren't pushing your writing forward enough. You wouldn't be here if you weren't a passionate content marketer, so now all that's left to do is get out there and write.  

Related reading:

Content refreshing: How to update old content and boost your traffic

How to write SEO-driven blog content

How to create a content brief (with template)

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Steph Knapp

Steph Knapp is a freelance B2B + SaaS content marketer that loves educating and empowering curious humans. When she's not typing away, you'll find her volunteering at the animal shelter and obsessing over a new hobby every week.

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How to Write a Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Guide [+ Free Blog Post Templates]

Review a step-by-step guide plus useful templates to learn how to write an effective blog post for your target audience and customers.

6 FREE BLOG POST TEMPLATES

Save time creating blog posts with these free templates.

Updated: 04/03/24

Published: 04/03/24

Anyone can connect with their audience through blogging and enjoy the myriad benefits that blogging provides: organic traffic from search engines, promotional content for social media, and recognition from a new audience you haven’t tapped into yet.

If you’ve heard about blogging but are a beginner and don’t know where to start, the time for excuses is over. Not only can you create an SEO-friendly blog , but I’ll cover how to write and manage your business's blog as well as provide helpful templates to simplify your blogging efforts.

What is a blog post?

How to start a blog, writing your first blog post, what makes a good blog post, blog post examples, how to write a blog post.

Let's get started with an important question.

Blogging may mean different things depending on your niche — so let’s begin with this definition.

A blog post is any article, news piece, or guide that's published in the blog section of a website. A blog post typically covers a specific topic or query, is educational in nature, ranges from 600 to 2,000+ words, and contains other media types such as images, videos, infographics, and interactive charts.

Blog posts allow you and your business to publish insights, thoughts, and stories on your website about any topic. They can help you boost brand awareness, credibility, conversions, and revenue. Most importantly, they can help you drive traffic to your website.

But in order to begin making posts for a blog — you have to learn how to start one, first. Let’s dive in.

• Understand your audience.
• Check out your competition.
• Determine what topics you'll cover.
• Identify your unique angle.
• Name your blog.
• Create your blog domain.
• Choose a CMS and set up your blog.
• Customize the look of your blog.
• Write your first blog post.

1. Understand your audience.

Before you start writing your blog post, make sure you have a clear understanding of your target audience. To do so, take the following steps.

Ask yourself exploratory questions.

To discover your audience, ask questions like: Who are they? Are they like me, or do I know someone like them? What do they want to know about? What will resonate with them?

Jot down your notes in a notepad or a document. This is the time to brainstorm audience attributes from scratch, no matter how out of left field they may feel. You should also think about your audience's age, background, goals, and challenges at this stage.

6 Free Blog Post Templates

• "How-to" Post
• "What is" Post
• Listicle Post

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Carry out market research.

Doing market research sounds like a big task, but in truth, it can be as simple as accessing a social media platform and browsing user and blog profiles that match with your potential audience.

Use market research tools to begin uncovering more specific information about your audience — or to confirm a hunch or a piece of information you already knew. For instance, if you wanted to create a blog about work-from-home hacks, you can make the reasonable assumption that your audience will be mostly Gen Zers and Millennials. But it’s important to confirm this information through research.

Create formal buyer personas.

Once you’ve brainstormed and carried out market research, it’s time to create formal buyer personas . It’s important because what you know about your buyer personas and their interests will inform the brainstorming process for blog posts.

"Buyer personas aren’t just for direct marketing. They can be a handy way to keep a human in mind while you’re writing. If you’ve got other marketing or sales teams handy, coordinate your personas," says Curtis del Principe, user acquisition manager at HubSpot. "Chances are that your existing customers are exactly the kind of people you want to attract with your writing in the first place. Your sales and service teams can also have great insight into these people’s needs and pain points."

For instance, if your readers are Millennials looking to start a business, you probably don't need to provide them with information about getting started on social media — most of them already have that down.

You might, however, want to give them information about how to adjust their social media approach (for example — from what may be a casual, personal approach to a more business-savvy, networking-focused approach). That kind of tweak is what helps you publish content about the topics your audience really wants and needs.

Don't have buyer personas in place for your business? Here are a few resources to help you get started:

• Create Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free Template]
• Guide: How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business
• [Free Tool] Make My Persona: Buyer Persona Generator

2. Check out your competition.

What better way to draw inspiration than to look at your well-established competition?

It’s worth taking a look at popular, highly reviewed blogs because their strategy and execution is what got them to grow in credibility. The purpose of doing this isn’t to copy these elements, but to gain better insight into what readers appreciate in a quality blog.

When you find a competitor’s blog, take the following steps:

Determine whether they’re actually a direct competitor.

A blog’s audience, niche, and specific slant determine whether they're actually your competitor. But the most important of these is their audience. If they serve a completely different public than you, then they’re likely not a competitor. That is why it’s important to define your buyer personas before taking other steps in the blog creation process.

Look at the blog’s branding, color palette, and theme.

Once you determine that they’re your competitor, it’s time to take note of their techniques so that you can capture a similar readership. Colors and themes play a huge role in whether you seem like part of a niche — for instance, a blog about eco-friendly products should likely use earthy tones instead of bright, unnatural colors such as neon yellow or pink.

Analyze the tone and writing style of the competition.

Take note of your competition’s copywriting. Is it something you feel like you can successfully emulate? Does it ring true to the type of blog you’d like to create? What do readers most respond to? For most, creating a tech blog might be an excellent idea, but if journalistic, review-based writing doesn’t work for you, then that might not be a good fit. Be aware of what you can feasibly execute or hire freelance writers.

3. Determine what topics you’ll cover.

Before you write anything, pick a topic you’d like to write about. The topic can be pretty general to start as you find your desired niche in blogging .

Here are some ways to choose topics to cover.

Find out which topics your competitors often cover.

One easy way to choose topics for your blog is to simply learn what other blogs are writing about. After you determine your competitors, go through their archive and category pages, and try to find out which topics they most often publish content about. From there, you can create a tentative list to explore further. You might find, for instance, that a competitor only covers surface-level information about a subject. In your blog, you can dive more deeply and offer more value to readers.

Choose topics you understand well.

No matter what type of blog you start, you want to ensure you know the topic well enough to write authoritatively about it. Rather than choosing a topic you’ll need to research as you write, think about those that come most naturally to you. What has your professional experience been like so far? What are your hobbies? What did you study in college? These can all give rise to potential topics you can cover in depth.

Ensure the topics are relevant to your readership.

You may find that you hold deep expertise in various topics, but how relevant are they to the audience you understood back in step one?

Del Principe suggests checking in with sales and service teams as well. "What kinds of things do they wish customers already knew? What kinds of questions do they get asked a thousand times? What kind of objections come up from potential customers, and how do they address them?"

If you’re not serving their needs, then you’d be shouting into a void — or, worse, attracting the wrong readership. For that reason, after identifying the topics you can feasibly write about, ask yourself whether those are subjects your audience would like to explore.

Do preliminary keyword research.

Keyword research is the process of searching for topics using a keyword research tool , then determining whether there is demand by looking at each topic’s (or keyword’s) search volume. If you found the perfect topics that are the perfect cross between your expertise and your reader’s needs, you’ve struck gold — but the gold will have no value unless people are searching for those terms. Only then can you capture the audience that is waiting out there.

4. Identify your unique angle.

What perspective do you bring that makes you stand out from the crowd? This is key to determining the trajectory of your blog’s future, and there are many avenues to choose in the process.

Here’s how you can find your unique selling proposition in crowded blogging niches:

Write a professional and personal bio.

Knowing your own history and experience is essential to determine your unique slant. To get started, write a professional bio that explains, at length, who you are and which experiences most inform your blogging efforts. While I could write a lengthy exposition about my childhood, that history isn’t essential unless I’m launching a blog about raising children.

What unique experience makes you a trusted expert or thought leader on the topic? You can use your answers to that question to find your angle. Use this information to populate your “About me” page on your blog and share more about yourself.

Determine the special problem you will solve for readers.

Your readers won’t trust you or return to you unless you actively help them solve a problem. As you try to find your angle, think about ways you can help your audience surmount challenges typically associated with the topics you’ve chosen for your blog. For instance, if you’re creating a blog about sustainability, then you might help readers learn how they can compost organic materials in their home.

Choose an editorial approach.

Will you share your opinions on trending debates? Teach your readers how to do something? Compare or share original research? The editorial approach you choose will in part be informed by the topics you cover on your blog and the problems you’re helping your readers solve. If your blog is about marketing trends and your goal is to keep marketers up-to-date on the latest changes, then your editorial approach should be journalistic in nature. This is only one example of how to choose a technique.

5. Name your blog.

This is your opportunity to get creative and make a name that gives readers an idea of what to expect from your blog. Some tips on how to choose your blog name include:

Keep your blog name easy to say and spell.

No need to get complicated at all with your name, though it might be tempting, since there are so many blogs out there. While choosing a unique name is essential, it’s also important to choose one that is easy to memorize for readers. It should also be simple to remember as an URL (which will come into play in the next step).

Link your blog name to your brand message.

The more related your blog’s name is to the topics you cover, the better. For instance, DIY MFA is all about writers doing their own Master of Fine Arts in writing at home. The brand’s message is all about delving deep into one’s writing practice without needing a formal degree. Try to do something similar for your own blog name: Alluding to your blog’s message, value proposition, and covered topics in one sweep.

Consider what your target audience is looking for.

Your blog name should tie directly into what your readers want to achieve, learn, or solve. DIY MFA is about writers who don’t have the money for graduate school, but who still want to develop their writing skills. The HubSpot Marketing blog is — you guessed it — about marketing trends and tips.

It’s okay if your blog name feels “too straightforward.” Straightforward names accurately communicate what you’re about and effectively attract the right audience.

If you still need more assistance, try using a blog name generator . One last tip: Make sure the name you come up with isn’t already taken, as it could lessen your visibility and confuse readers looking for your content.

6. Create your blog domain.

A domain is a part of the web address nomenclature someone would use to find your website or a page of your website online.

Your blog‘s domain will look like this: www.yourblog.com. The name between the two periods is up to you, as long as this domain name doesn’t yet exist on the internet.

Want to create a subdomain for your blog? If you already own a cooking business at www.yourcompany.com, you might create a blog that looks like this: blog.yourcompany.com. In other words, your blog's subdomain will live in its own section of yourcompany.com.

Some CMS platforms offer subdomains as a free service, where your blog lives on the CMS, rather than your business's website. For example, it might look like this: yourblog.contentmanagementsystem.com. However, to create a subdomain that belongs to your company website, register the subdomain with a website host .

Most website hosting services charge very little to host an original domain — in fact, website costs can be as inexpensive as $3 per month when you commit to a 36-month term.

Pro Tip: You can connect your custom domain to free hosting with HubSpot’s free CMS or in premium editions of Content Hub. This includes access to built-in security features and a content delivery network.

Here are five other popular web hosting services to choose from:

7. Choose a CMS and set up your blog.

A CMS (content management system) is a software application that allows users to build and maintain a website without having to code it from scratch. CMS platforms can manage domains (where you create your website) and subdomains (where you create a webpage that connects to an existing website).

HubSpot customers host web content via Content Hub . Another popular option is a self-hosted WordPress website on a hosting site such as WP Engine . Whether you create a domain or a subdomain to start your blog , you'll need to choose a web hosting service after you pick a CMS.

Pro Tip: You can get started for free with HubSpot’s free blog maker . Our free CMS offers everything you need to get started– including hosting, a visual editor, and hundreds of free and paid themes to choose from.

Start using HubSpot's Free Blog Making tool to publish blog posts.  

8. customize the look of your blog..

Once you have your domain name set up, customize the appearance of your blog to reflect the theme of the content you plan on creating and your brand.

For example, if you're writing about sustainability and the environment, green might be a color to keep in mind while designing your blog.

Image Source

If you already manage a website and are writing the first post for that existing website, ensure the article is consistent with the website in appearance and subject matter. Two ways to do this are including your:

• Logo : This can be your business‘s name and logo — it will remind blog readers of who’s publishing the content. (How heavily you want to brand your blog, however, is up to you.)
• “About” Page : You might already have an “About” blurb describing yourself or your business. Your blog‘s "About" section is an extension of this higher-level statement. Think of it as your blog’s mission statement, which serves to support your company's goals.

9. Write your first blog post.

Once you have your blog set up, the only thing missing is the content. While the design and layout are fun and functionally necessary, it's the content that will draw your readers in and keep them coming back. So how do you actually go about writing one of these engaging and informational pieces?

You’ve got the technical and practical tidbits down — now it’s time to write your very first blog post. And nope, this isn’t the space to introduce yourself and your new blog (i.e. “Welcome to my blog! This is the topic I’ll be covering. Here are my social media handles. Will you please follow?”).

Start with “low-hanging fruit,” writing about a highly specific topic that serves a small segment of your target audience.

That seems unintuitive, right? If more people are searching for a term or a topic, that should mean more readers for you.

But that’s not true. If you choose a general and highly searched topic that’s been covered by major competitors or more established brands, it’s unlikely that your post will rank on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs). Give your newly born blog a chance by choosing a topic that few bloggers have written about.

If you need help, you can also use AI to help you create a blog post quickly. 

1. Choose a topic you’re passionate and knowledgeable about.

Before you write anything, pick a topic for your blog post. The topic can be pretty general to start. For example, if you're a company that sells a CRM for small-to-enterprise businesses , your post might be about the importance of using a single software to keep your marketing, sales, and service teams aligned.

Pro tip : You may not want to jump into a “how-to” article for your first blog post.

Your credibility hasn’t been established yet. Before teaching others how to do something, you’ll first want to show that you’re a leader in your field and an authoritative source.

For instance, if you‘re a plumber writing your first post, you won’t yet write a post titled “How to Replace the Piping System in your Bathroom.” First, you’d write about modern faucet setups, or tell a particular success story you had rescuing a faucet before it flooded a customer's house.

Here are four other types of blog posts you could start with:

• List (“Listicle”) : 5 ways to fix a leaky faucet
• Curated Collection : 10 faucet and sink brands to consider today
• SlideShare Presentation : 5 types of faucets to replace your old one (with pictures)
• News Piece : New study shows X% of people don't replace their faucet frequently enough

If you're having trouble coming up with topic ideas, a good topic brainstorming session should help. In the post I’ve linked, my colleague walks you through a helpful process for turning one idea into many. Similar to the “leaky faucet” examples above, you would “iterate off old topics to come up with unique and compelling new topics.”

This can be done by:

• Changing the topic scope
• Adjusting your time frame
• Choosing a new audience
• Taking a positive/negative approach
• Introducing a new format

And if you’re still stuck, let’s take a look at some first blog post idea examples.

First Blog Post Ideas

The difference between [niche topic] and [niche topic], explained by a [niche expert].

• The Difference Between SEM and SEO, Explained by a Marketing Expert
• The Difference Between Sedans and Coupes, Explained by a Car Mechanic
• The Difference Between Baking and Broiling, Explained by a Professional Baker

The 10 Best and Worst [Niche Tools] for [Niche Activity]

• The 10 Best and Worst Writing Software for Fiction Writing
• The 10 Best and Worst CRMs for Nurturing Prospects
• The 10 Best and Worst Family Cars for Cross-Country Roadtrips

8 [Niche Activity] Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)

• 8 Non-Fiction Writing Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)
• 8 Salmon Broiling Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)
• 8 Car Maintenance Common Mistakes (+ Ways to Fix Them)

9 Proven Tips for [Niche Activity]

• 9 Proven Tips for Checking Plumbing Problems under Your Kitchen Sink
• 9 Proven Tips for Writing a Non-Fiction Bestseller
• 9 Proven Tips for Doing DIY Car Maintenance

Why We/I Switched from [Niche Tool] to [Niche Tool] (Comparison)

• Why We Switched from Pipedrive to HubSpot (Comparison)
• Why I Switched from Microsoft Word to Scrivener (Comparison)
• Why We Switched from iMacs to Surface Studio (Comparison)

[Niche Tool] vs [Niche Tool]: Which [Tool] is Best for You?

• Zendesk vs Freshcaller: Which Call Software is Best for You?
• Air Fryer vs Convection Oven: Which One is Best for You?
• Mazda Miata vs Toyota Supra: Which Sports Car is Best for You?

The Ultimate Roundup of [Niche Activity] Tips and Tricks

• The Ultimate Roundup of Novel Writing Tips and Tricks
• The Ultimate Roundup of Macaroon Baking Tips and Tricks
• The Ultimate Roundup of Solo Traveling Tips and Tricks

Want some real examples of blog posts? See what your first blog post can look like based on the topic you choose and the audience you're targeting.

2. Target a low-volume keyword to optimize around.

Finding a keyword with low searches in Google (I recommend sticking to about 10 to 150 monthly searches). These topics offer less competition and should therefore allow your new blog post to rank more easily.

To choose a topic, you can either do a traditional brainstorming session or carry out keyword research. I suggest the latter because you can actually see how many people are looking for that topic.

Now, don’t be intimidated by the term “ keyword research .” It’s not just for marketers, but for new bloggers, too. And it’s really easy to do.

To jumpstart your keyword research, first begin by identifying the general topic of your blog.

Say you’re a plumber. Your general, high-level topic might be “plumbing” (67K monthly searches).

Next, put this term into a keyword research tool such as:

• Ubersuggest
• Wordtracker

When you run this term through the tool, a list of related keywords will appear. Scan the list and choose one with a lower search volume. For this example, we’ll use “under sink plumbing” (1.4K monthly searches).

Run that keyword in the keyword research tool again. Look at the related keywords. Find one with a lower search volume. Do that again.

For this example, we’ll settle on “plumbing problems under kitchen sink” (10 monthly searches). That’s the topic for our first post.

TLDR ; Choose a low-volume, low-competition keyword that will ensure your first post ranks.

For more help on keyword research, here are more resources you can use:

• How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide
• How to Perform Keyword Research and Rank
• Top Tools For Finding Long-Tail Keywords

3. Google the term to understand your audience’s search intent.

You’ve got your topic — now, you need to check that the user’s search intent would be fulfilled by a blog post.

What does that mean?

If someone is looking for “plumbing problems under a kitchen sink,” they might be looking for a tutorial, a diagram, an article, or a product that can fix the issue. If they’re looking for the first three, you’re good — that can be covered in a blog post. A product, however, is different, and your blog post won’t rank.

How do you double-check search intent?

Google the term and look at the results. If other articles and blog posts rank for that term, you’re good to go. If you only find product pages or listicles from major publications, then find a new topic to cover in your first post.

Consider the term “under sink plumbing bathroom” (30 monthly searches). It seemed like a perfect fit because it had low monthly searches.

Upon Googling the term, I found product carousels, product pages from Home Depot and Lowes, and guides written by major publications. (You’ll also want to avoid topics that have been covered by major publications, at least for now.)

TLDR ; Before writing your first blog post about a low-volume topic, double-check the user intent by Googling the keyword. Also, don’t forget to take a look at who’s written about that topic so far. If you see a major brand, consider writing about another topic.

4. Find questions and terms related to that topic.

You’ve got a highly unique topic that’s been covered by just a few people so far. It’s time to flesh it out by covering related or adjacent topics.

Use the following tools:

• Answer the Public : When you place your keyword into this tool, it will give you a list of questions related to that term.
• Google : Google is your best friend. Search for the term and look under “People also ask” and “People also search for.” Be sure to touch upon those topics in the post.

You can also use these keyword research tools we mentioned above in step one.

5. Come up with a working title.

You might come up with a few different working titles — in other words, iterations of approaching that topic to help you focus your writing.

For example, you may decide to narrow your topic to “Tools for Fixing Leaky Faucets” or “Common Causes of Leaky Faucets.” A working title is specific and will guide your post so you can start writing.

Let's take a real post as an example: " How to Choose a Solid Topic for Your Next Blog Post ."

Appropriate, right? The topic, in this case, was probably “blogging.” Then the working title may have been something like, “The Process for Selecting a Blog Post Topic.” And the final title ended up being “How to Choose a Solid Topic for Your Next Blog Post.”

See that evolution from topic, to working title, to final title? Even though the working title may not end up being the final title (more on that in a moment), it still provides enough information so you can focus your blog post on something more specific than a generic, overwhelming topic.

6. Create an outline.

Sometimes, blog posts can have an overwhelming amount of information — for the reader and the writer. The trick is to organize the info in a way so readers aren‘t intimidated by length or amount of content. This organization can take multiple forms — sections, lists, tips — whatever’s most appropriate. But it must be organized!

Featured Resource: 6 Free Blog Post Templates

Download These Templates for Free

Let's take a look at the post, " How to Use Snapchat: A Detailed Look Into HubSpot’s Snapchat Strategy. " There‘s a lot of content in the piece, so it’s broken up into a few sections using descriptive headers. The major sections are separated into subsections that go into more detail, making the content easier to read.

To complete this step, all you really need to do is outline your post. This way, before you start writing, you'll know which points you want to cover and the best order to do so. And to make things even easier, you can download and use our free blog post templates , which are pre-organized for six of the most common blogs. Just fill in the blanks!

7. Write an intro (and make it captivating).

We've written more specifically about writing captivating introductions in the post " How to Write an Introduction ," but let's review, shall we?

First, grab the reader‘s attention. If you lose the reader in the first few paragraphs — or even sentences — of the introduction, they’ll stop reading (even before they've given your post a fair shake). You can do this in a number of ways: tell a story or a joke, be empathetic, or grip the reader with an interesting fact or statistic.

Then, describe the purpose of your post and explain how it will address a problem the reader may be experiencing. This will give the reader a reason to continue reading and show them how the post will help them improve their work or lives.

Here‘s an example of an intro I think does a good job of attracting a reader’s attention right away:

“Blink. Blink. Blink. It's the dreaded cursor-on-a-blank-screen experience that all writers — amateur or professional, aspiring or experienced — know and dread. And of all times for it to occur, it seems to plague us the most when trying to write an introduction.”

8. Build out each section of your outline.

The next step — but not the last — is actually writing the content. We can't forget about that, of course.

Now that you have your outline or template, you're ready to fill in the blanks. Use your outline as a guide and expand on all points as needed. Write about what you already know, and if necessary, conduct additional research to gather more information, examples, and data to back up your points, while providing proper attribution when incorporating external sources. When you do, always try to find accurate and compelling data to use in your post.

If you‘re having trouble stringing sentences together, you’re not alone. Finding your “flow” can be challenging for a lot of folks. Luckily, there are a ton of tools you can lean on to help you improve your writing. Here are a few to get you started:

• HubSpot's AI Blog Writer : Tools like HubSpot's AI Blog Writer can be a valuable asset for beginners and seasoned bloggers alike. It simplifies the process of creating SEO-friendly and engaging blog content, which is crucial for connecting with your audience and enjoying the benefits of blogging.
• Power Thesaurus : Stuck on a word? Power Thesaurus is a crowdsourced tool that provides users with a number of alternative word choices from a community of writers.
• ZenPen : If you're having trouble staying focused, check out this distraction-free writing tool. ZenPen creates a minimalist “writing zone” designed to help you get words down without having to fuss with formatting right away.
• Cliché Finder : Feeling like your writing might be coming off a little cheesy? Identify instances where you can be more specific using this handy cliché tool.

You can also refer to our complete list of tools for improving your writing skills . And if you're looking for more direction, the following resources are chock-full of valuable writing advice:

• Copywriting 101: 6 Traits of Excellent Copy Readers Will Remember
• How to Write Compelling Copy: 7 Tips for Writing Content That Converts
• How to Write With Clarity: 9 Tips for Simplifying Your Message
• The Kurt Vonnegut Guide to Great Copywriting: 8 Rules That Apply to Anyone
• Your Blog Posts Are Boring: 9 Tips for Making Your Writing More Interesting

9. Publish and promote your first post any way you can.

As a new blogger, you likely don’t have a social media following yet. Thankfully, you don’t need a huge following before you can create a promotion strategy.

A promotion strategy is your master plan for how you create, post, and engage with your social media content. It helps you take advantage of social and digital technologies to share your business, or in this case, your content. Having a solid promotional strategy offers your audience from different marketing channels more ways to find your blog posts.

Here are more blog post promotion resources:

• 12 Tried-and-True Ways to Promote Your Blog Posts
• 10 Sites You Can Use for Free Blog Promotion
• 9 Link Building Email Outreach Templates That Actually Work
• Inbound Link Building 101: 34 Ways to Build Backlinks for SEO
• 11 Creative (But 100% White Hat!) Ways to Earn Backlinks

Before you write a blog, make sure you know the answers to questions like, “Why would someone keep reading this entire blog post?” and “What makes our audience come back for more?”

To start, a good blog post is interesting and educational. Blogs should answer questions and help readers resolve a challenge they're experiencing — and you have to do so in an interesting way.

It‘s not enough just to answer someone’s questions — you also have to provide actionable steps while being engaging. For instance, your introduction should hook the reader and make them want to continue reading your post. Then, use examples to keep your readers interested in what you have to say.

Remember, a good blog post is interesting to read and provides educational content to audience members.

Want to learn how to apply blogging and other forms of content marketing to your business?

Check out HubSpot Academy's free content marketing course .

Now, let's dive into some formatting guidelines to use before you publish your blog posts.

Blog Format Guidelines

• Include H2s to arrange ideas.
• Center your Images.
• Add alt text.
• Keep your sentences clear and concise.
• Use media with purpose.

1. Include H2s to arrange ideas.

When you begin typing your blog content, it’s important that you divide paragraphs into sections that make it easier for the reader to find what they need.

If you’re just starting out, then focus on the overarching H2s you want to talk about, and you’ll be able to branch off into subheaders and more naturally as you continue.

2. Center your images.

This is a simple practice that can help your content look more professional with little effort. Centering your images keeps the reader’s attention drawn to the subject — not searching for elsewhere.

Centering also looks better when translating from PC to mobile devices. As formatting transitions to small screens or windows, a centered image will remain the focal point.

3. Add alt text.

So those images you centered earlier, make sure you have descriptive alt text for them, too.

Image alt text allows search engines, like Google, to crawl and rank your blog post better than pages lacking the element. It also leads readers to your blog post if the keywords included are what they searched for in the first place.

Besides SERP features, image alt text is beneficial to readers by providing more accessibility. Image alt text allows people to better visualize images when they can’t see them, and with assistive technology, can be auditorily read aloud for people to enjoy.

4. Keep your sentences short and concise.

When you begin working on the body of your blog post, make sure readers can clearly understand what you’re trying to accomplish.

You shouldn’t feel pressure to elongate your post with unnecessary details, and chances are that if you keep it concise, readers will derive more value from your work.

5. Use media with a purpose.

Break up the monotony of your blog post with some multimedia content where seen fit.

Your reader will enjoy visiting a blog page with images, videos, polls, audio or slideshows as opposed to a page of black and white text.

It also makes it more interactive and improves your on-page search engine optimization (SEO).

Now, do you want some real examples of blog posts? See what your first blog post can look like based on the topic you choose and the audience you're targeting.

• List-Based Post
• Thought Leadership Post
• Curated Collection Post
• SlideShare Presentation
• Newsjacking Post
• Infographic Post
• How-to Post

1. List-Based Blog Post

List-based post example: 17 blogging mistakes to avoid in 2021, according to hubspot bloggers.

List-based posts are sometimes called “listicles,” a mix of the words “list” and “article.” These are articles that deliver information in the form of a list. A listicle uses sub-headers to break down the blog post into individual pieces, helping readers skim and digest your content more easily.

As you can see in the example from our blog, listicles can offer various tips and methods for solving a problem.

2. Thought Leadership Post

Example: how hubspot's customers are shaping the next normal.

Thought leadership posts allow you to share your expertise on a particular subject matter and share firsthand knowledge with your readers.

These pieces — which can be written in the first person, like the post shown above — help you build trust with your audience so people take your blog seriously as you continue to write for it.

3. Curated Collection Post

Example: 8 examples of evolution in action.

Curated collections are a special type of listicle blog post. Rather than sharing tips or methods for doing something, this type of blog post shares a list of real examples that all have something in common in order to prove a larger point.

In the example post above, Listverse shares eight real examples of evolution in action among eight different animals — starting with the peppered moth.

4. Slide Presentation

Example: the hubspot culture code.

HubSpot Slides is a presentation tool that helps publishers package a lot of information into easily shareable slides. Think of it like a PowerPoint, but for the web. With this in mind, SlideShare blog posts help you promote your SlideShare so that it can generate a steady stream of visitors.

Unlike blogs, slide decks don't often rank well on search engines, so they need a platform for getting their message out there to the people who are looking for it. By embedding and summarizing your SlideShare on a blog post, you can share a great deal of information and give it a chance to rank on Google at the same time.

Need some slideshow ideas? In the example above, we turned our company's “Culture Code” into a slides presentation that anyone can look through and take lessons from, and then promoted it in a blog post.

5. Newsjacking Post

Example: ivy goes mobile with new app for designers.

“Newsjacking” is a nickname for “hijacking” your blog to break important news related to your industry. Therefore, the newsjack post is a type of article whose sole purpose is to garner consumers' attention and, while offering them timeless professional advice, prove your blog is a trusted resource for learning about the big things that happen in your industry.

The newsjack example above was published by Houzz, a home decor merchant and interior design resource, about a new mobile app that was launched just for interior designers. Houzz didn‘t launch the app, but the news of its launching is no less important to Houzz’s audience.

6. Infographic Post

Example: the key benefits of studying online [infographic].

For example, when you're looking to share a lot of statistical information (without boring or confusing your readers), building this data into a well-designed, even engaging infographic can keep your readers engaged with your content. It also helps readers remember the information long after they leave your website.

7. How-to Post

Example: how to write a blog post: a step-by-step guide.

For this example, you need not look any further than the blog post you‘re reading right now! How-to guides like this one help solve a problem for your readers. They’re like a cookbook for your industry, walking your audience through a project step by step to improve their literacy on the subject.

The more posts like this you create, the more equipped your readers will be to work with you and invest in the services you offer.

8. Guest Post

Example: your bookmarkable guide to social media image sizes in 2021 [infographic].

Additionally, these posts give your blog variety in topic and viewpoint. If your customer has a problem you can't solve, a guest post is a great solution.

If you begin accepting guest posts, set up editorial guidelines to ensure they're up to the same standards as your posts.

So we’ve gone through the different types of blog posts you can make, but how do you consistently make quality blog posts that your viewers will enjoy?

• Draw from your buyer personas and what you know about your audience.
• Pull from your content strategy and/or brainstormed topics.
• Identify what's missing from the existing discourse.
• Choose what type of blog post you're writing.
• Generate a few different titles and choose the best one.
• Create your outline and designate keyword-rich H2s and H3s.
• Write your blog post!
• Proofread your post.
• Add images and other media elements to support your ideas.
• Upload your post into your CMS.
• Determine a conversion path (what you want your audience to do next).
• Add calls to action to guide your audience to take action.
• Link to other relevant blog posts within your content.
• Optimize for on-page SEO.
• Publish and promote the blog post.
• Track the performance of the blog post over time.

1. Draw from your buyer personas and what you know about your audience.

Before you start writing your blog post, make sure you have a clear understanding of your target audience.

Ask questions like: What do they want to know about? What will resonate with them?

This is where the process of creating buyer personas comes in handy. Consider what you know about your buyer personas and their interests while you're coming up with a topic for your blog post.

For instance, if your readers are millennials looking to start a business, you probably don't need to provide them with information about getting started in social media — most of them already have that down.

If you haven’t developed buyer personas yet, I’ve found that it’s easiest to get started by gathering the information you already have about your audience and looking for trends. Sending out feedback surveys and interviewing followers can also be helpful.

Does your blog attract a specific age group? Does your audience live in a certain region? How do readers typically discover your content? Finding answers to these questions can help you get a better idea of who your buyer persona is.

2. Pull from your content strategy and/or brainstormed topics.

If you already have a pre-existing portfolio to look back on, it would benefit you to pull from those brainstormed post ideas or previous content strategy.

One thing that’s been helpful for me is specifically looking at content performance data when brainstorming ideas. In doing this, I’ve discovered which topics tend to resonate with my audience (and which ones don’t) and created content around them.

By focusing on your core blog topics, or clusters , you can establish yourself as a thought leader, gain the trust of your audience, rank better on search engines, and attract new readers.

3. Identify what’s missing from the existing discourse.

Fill in the gaps of the existing discourse in the topic of your choosing.

You want to meet a need that hasn’t already been met in your topic cluster. Otherwise, you run the risk of writing content for topics that are already over-saturated.

It’s hard to beat saturated search queries when you’re trying to rank against high authority publications — but not impossible if your content is answering the queries the competition hasn’t.

To discover what’s missing within a topic, I conduct a competitive analysis to see what my competitors offer in their content and how I can make my blog post better. Here are some things to look out for:

• Unanswered user queries
• Content depth
• Content freshness
• Media richness
• User experience

If your competitors are lacking in any of these areas, you can use that to your advantage and focus on them when writing your blog post.

Another way to differentiate your blog is by offering original data, quotes, or perspectives. Some of my best performing posts have come from getting a unique quote from an industry expert.

4. Choose what type of blog post you’re writing.

There are several types of blog posts you can create, and they each have different formats to follow.

Six of the most common formats include:

• The List-Based Post
• The “What Is” Post
• The Pillar Page Post (“Ultimate Guide”)
• The Newsjacking Post
• The Infographic Post
• The “How-To” Post

Save time and download six blog post templates for free.

5. Generate a few different titles and choose the best one.

Your blog title should tell readers what to expect, yet it should leave them wanting to know more — confusing, right?

This is why when you’re coming up with a blog post title that you should brainstorm multiple ones instead of just one. I find it helpful to share these titles with a couple coworkers to get their feedback and see which one is most engaging to them.

I’ve also enlisted the help of ChatGPT to generate sample blog post titles by inputting a prompt like, “Write a list of blog titles about [topic].” Even if it doesn’t give you exactly what you want, it can still get ideas flowing.

6. Create your outline and designate keyword-rich H2s and H3s.

When outlining, you need to center your main ideas with keyword-rich H2s and H3s. These are going to be your headers and subheaders that readers typically search for, and the information that Google crawls when indexing and ranking content.

I use keyword research tools, like Ahrefs and Semrush , to find the best words for my blog post. To find the right keywords, I focus on the following elements:

• Relevance to topic and search intent
• How authoritative my blog is on the topic
• The amount of search traffic my blog could gain

Remember, your outline should serve as a guide to make writing your blog post easier, so make sure you include all the important points you want to discuss and organize them in a logical flow.

7. Write your blog post!

I already told you how to build out your outline earlier in the post, so we'll quickly go over the main points once more.

You‘ve already outlined your main headings and subheadings, so now’s the time to add the body.

Write about what you already know, and if necessary, conduct additional research to gather more information, examples, and data to back up your points, while providing proper attribution when incorporating external sources. When you do, always try to find accurate and compelling data to use in your post.

This is also your opportunity to show personality in your writing. Blog posts don‘t have to be strictly informational, they can be filled with interesting anecdotes and even humor if it serves a purpose in expressing your ideas. It also factors into creating and maintaining your blog’s brand voice .

Don‘t be discouraged if you’re having trouble stringing sentences together, you're not alone. Finding your “flow” can be challenging, but there are many tools to ease the process. Software such as HubSpot's Free AI Blog Writer can help you generate copy for your blog post. You can even use it to outline and generate title ideas.

8. Proofread your post.

The editing process is an important part of blogging — don't overlook it. I tend to self-edit while I write, but it’s essential to get a second pair of eyes on your post before publishing.

Consider enlisting the help of The Ultimate Editing Checklist and ask a grammar-conscious co-worker to copy edit and proofread your post. I also really enjoy free grammar checkers, like Grammarly , to help proofread while I’m writing.

If you're looking to brush up on your self-editing skills, turn to these helpful posts for some tips and tricks to get you started:

• How to Become a (Better) Editor: 13 Editorial Tips
• How to Become a More Efficient Editor: 12 Ways to Speed Up the Editorial Process
• 10 Simple Edits That'll Instantly Improve Any Piece of Writing

9. Add images and other media elements to support your ideas.

When you're finished checking for grammar, shift your focus to adding other elements to the blog post than text. There’s much more to making a good blog post than copy, here’s some following elements to add in support of your ideas:

Featured Image

Choose a visually appealing and relevant image for your post. As social networks treat content with images more prominently, visuals are more responsible than ever for the success of your blog content.

For help selecting an image for your post, read " How to Select the Perfect Image for Your Next Blog Post " and pay close attention to the section about copyright law.

Visual Appearance

No one likes an unattractive blog post. And it‘s not just pictures that make a post visually appealing — it’s the formatting and organization of the post, too.

In a well-formatted and visually-appealing blog post, you'll notice that header and sub-headers are used to break up large blocks of text — and those headers are styled consistently.

Here's an example of what that looks like:

Screenshots should always have a similar, defined border so they don‘t appear as if they’re floating in space — that style should stay consistent from post to post.

Maintaining this consistency makes your content look more professional and easier on the eyes.

Topics and Tags

Tags are specific, public-facing keywords that describe a post. They also allow readers to browse for more content in the same category on your blog. Refrain from adding a laundry list of tags to each post. Instead, put some thought into a blog tagging strategy.

Think of tags as “topics” or “categories,” and choose 10-20 tags that represent all the main topics you want to cover on your blog. Then stick to those.

10. Upload your post into your CMS.

You filled out your blog post with all the optimized content you can, now is the time to publish it in your content management system.

I also use this step as an opportunity to double check my post for any errors that were potentially missed during the proofreading process. It’s especially important to preview your post before publishing to make sure there aren’t any formatting issues.

You can opt to post your content immediately, save it as a draft, or schedule when you want it to be posted live in case you adhere to a posting schedule.

11. Determine a conversion path (what you want your audience to do next).

A conversion path is a process by which an anonymous website visitor becomes a known lead. It sounds simple enough, but creating an effective conversion path requires a clear understanding of your target audience and their needs.

Having a conversion path is important because when you share your content on the web, you should have an idea of what your audience should do next, or in other words, provide them with a path forward.

The HubSpot Flywheel model is a great example of this as it shows how our organization gains and maintains leads.

12. Add calls to action to guide your audience to take action.

Call to action (CTA) are a part of a webpage, advertisement, or piece of content that encourages the audience to do something. You can add them to your blog post to guide your reader with “next steps” or a conversion path.

Different types of call to actions include asking readers to:

• Subscribe to your newsletter to see when you publish more content.
• Join an online community in your blog domain.
• Learn more about a topic with downloadable content.
• Try something for free or discount to convert readers to customers.

To get a better idea of how to make a CTA that readers want to click, we have a whole list of effective call to action examples for you to check out.

13. Link to other relevant blog posts within your content.

When you’re completing your blog post, you should link relevant content throughout it. An effective way to do this is to link within the same content cluster.

One thing I do to make finding relevant links easier is going to my search browser and typing “site:website.com: keyword.” By doing this, you can find all the posts you have published on that topic.

Keeping relevant content throughout your post can provide your readers with more helpful information, and potentially boost search engine rankings with corresponding longtail keywords .

But we’ll talk more about how to improve your ranking in the next step.

14. Optimize for on-page SEO.

After you finish writing, go back and optimize the on-page elements of your post.

Don‘t obsess over how many keywords to include. If there are opportunities to incorporate keywords you’re targeting, and it won‘t impact reader experience, do it. If you can make your URL shorter and more keyword-friendly, go for it. But don’t cram keywords or shoot for some arbitrary keyword density — Google's smarter than that!

Here's a little blog SEO reminder about what you should review and optimize:

Write your meta description.

Meta descriptions are the descriptions below the post‘s page title on Google’s search results pages. They provide searchers with a short summary of the post before clicking into it. They are ideally between 150-160 characters and start with a verb, such as “Learn,” “Read,” or “Discover.”

While meta descriptions no longer factor into Google‘s keyword ranking algorithm, they give searchers a snapshot of what they’ll get from reading the post and help improve your clickthrough rate from search.

Optimize your page title and headers.

Most blogging software uses your post title as your page title, which is the most important on-page SEO element at your disposal. But if you've followed our formula so far, you should already have a working title that will naturally include keywords or phrases your target audience is interested in.

Don‘t over-complicate your title by trying to fit in keywords where they don’t naturally belong. With that said, if there are clear opportunities to add keywords you‘re targeting to your post title and headers, feel free to take them. Also, try to keep your headlines short — ideally, under 65 characters — so they don’t get truncated in the search engine results.

"The first component of a good title is that it needs to be scannable. People aren’t reading every word of your thoughtfully crafted headline. If you’re following a search-focused strategy, make sure to include the keyword at the beginning," Del Principe says.

Consider anchor text best practices as you interlink to other pages.

Anchor text is the word or words that link to another page — either on your website or on another website. Carefully select which keywords you want to link to other pages on your site because search engines take that into consideration when ranking your page for certain keywords.

It‘s also important to consider which pages you link to. Consider linking pages that you want to rank for a specific keyword. You could end up getting it to rank on Google’s first page of results instead of its second page — and that isn’t small potatoes!

Write alt text for all of your images.

Alt text conveys the “why” of an image as it relates to the content of your blog post to Google. By adding alt text correlating to the topic clusters and keywords of the post, Google can better direct users’ searches to you.

Check that all images are compressed for page speed.

When Google crawls different websites, a page’s load speed holds weight in page ranking. Make sure the images you include throughout the page aren’t unnecessarily large to shorten the duration it takes to load.

Use apps like Squoosh to minimize the size of your images without losing the quality.

Ensure that your blog post is mobile friendly.

More than 60% of organic visits are carried out on a mobile device. As such, having a website with a responsive design is critical. In addition to making sure your website‘s visitors (including your blog’s visitors) have the best experience possible, optimizing for mobile will score your website some SEO points.

15. Publish and promote the blog post.

Share your post across all the marketing channels in your repertoire. The further the reach, the more of a possibility that readers will find it.

Channels to expand your blog post promotion strategy include:

• Social Media Marketing : Sharing your content on the most popular social media networks like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc.
• Email Marketing : Sharing the newest post with your email subscribers to find.
• Boosted Posts or Paid Ads : Allocating budget toward advertisement on search engines inorganically.
• Word of Mouth Marketing : Actively influencing people to read your content organically.

16. Track the performance of the blog post over time.

Your post is published for the world to see, make sure you’re keeping an eye on its performance over time so you can see if your blog post strategy is working well enough for your goals.

Here are some blog KPIs I like to keep track of:

• Total traffic per post
• Average CTR
• Average SERP position
• Traffic source breakdown
• Number of search queries per post
• Average comments per post
• Social shares per post
• New blog leads
• Conversion rate

There’s a plethora of website traffic analysis tools that you can take advantage of to better understand your audience’s behavior on your blog posts.

Quick Blog Writing Tips

If you’re feeling stuck as a new writer, don’t give up. It gets easier with practice. Whether you’re struggling with writer's block or wanting some ways to add depth to your content, here are some quick tips I compiled to help take your blog writing to the next level:

If you don’t know where to start, start by telling a story.

When you’re facing writer’s block, start with what you know. Not only will sharing personal anecdotes help you get ideas flowing, but it can also keep your readers engaged with what you’re saying.

Stories can simplify complex concepts and make your content more relatable. Plus, they add a human touch and help set the tone for the rest of your blog post.

Include interesting quotes or facts for emphasis on the subject.

When you back up your ideas with unique, expert quotes or share facts from reliable sources, it shows that your blog post is well-researched and trustworthy.

If you don’t know where to start with finding quotes, think about the people you know and their expertise. For example, I’m lucky enough to have incredibly knowledgeable coworkers here at HubSpot that I can reach out to if I need a quote.

I’ve also reached out to connections on LinkedIn to see if they can provide a quote or know someone who can. HARO can also be a great resource if you need a quote in a pinch.

Make your content skimmable; break it into digestible chunks.

There’s nothing that turns readers off more than opening an article and seeing a large wall of text. Think about it: most internet users have a short attention span and tend to skim through content rather than reading every word.

That’s why I recommend breaking up your blog post into smaller chunks to make it more digestible. You can do this by utilizing subheadings (H2s, H3s, H4s, etc.), bullet points, and short paragraphs.

Not only does breaking up your content make your blog post more visually appealing, it also helps readers quickly find the information they’re looking for without getting lost in a sea of text.

Paint a full picture with images, graphics or video.

Aside from aesthetic appeal, visuals can help convey complex ideas in an easier way and help readers remember the information you share.

I recommend reading through your blog post and putting yourself in your reader’s shoes. Is there anything you wrote about that would be better explained with the support of an image or graphic?

For instance, whenever I write about the pros and cons of something, I like to create a graphic that shows those pros and cons in a side-by-side comparison.

I also look at search engines results when determining what images to add to my post. Does the SERP for the keyword you’re targeting have an image pack? See if you can add in images and optimize them with alt text to increase the chances of appearing in those results.

Each sentence should convey a single idea.

Keep it simple, stupid. There’s no reason to write overly complex sentences that confuse your readers. Instead, opt to convey your message in a simple and accessible manner. At the end of the day, readers just want to find the answers they’re looking for, and writing in a straightforward manner can effectively meet this need.

I like to use the Hemingway App to make sure that my writing doesn’t get too dense.

Use active voice.

Although your writing should captivate the reader, you should avoid overwhelming them with fluff. Using active voice can help keep your writing clear, concise, and energetic while still getting your point across.

For example, instead of saying something like “the product was loved by customers,” write “customers loved the product.”

Ready to blog?

Blogging can help you build brand awareness, become a thought-leader and expert in your industry, attract qualified leads, and boost conversions. Follow the steps and tips we covered above to begin publishing and enhancing your blog today.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Blog Examples for Beginners: How to Write Your First Blog Post

Back in 2009, with fingers shaking, I hit publish on my very first blog post. I was fearful of what people would think. Would I get a negative comment? That left me with many questions.

It was hard enough figuring out how to start a blog , but now I had to find a way to share my thoughts consistently.

Would anyone find what I had to say valuable? Was I just contributing to the noise online? Did my message matter?

Maybe you have some of those same fears and doubts. If so, you’re in the right place. I have a simple first blog post template you can use. Follow these four simple steps and launch your blog to the world.

First Blog Entry Examples (with Template)

Before we get into the 4-step first blog post template, we need to answer two important questions first:

• Question 1. What tool will I use to start writing my blog posts?
• Question 2. How can I come up with a good idea to make a great post?

Where to Write Your Blog Posts

So, let’s talk about some blog writing tools you can use. It doesn’t matter where you write your blog posts as long as you have a simple repeatable process to follow. Here are six of my favorite writing tools.

1. Directly in WordPress

If your blog is powered by WordPress , you can always write your blog articles there. It keeps things easy and less complicated for you. Regardless of which writing tool you use, you’re going to need to eventually copy it into WordPress. Since you are just getting started, WordPress might be the best tool to begin with.

2. Google Docs

The nice thing about writing in Google Docs is that you have another place where your content is stored. That way if you ever lost your work , you have a backup. I also like to use Google Docs because it makes it easy to collaborate with others.

Google Docs is a great writing tool if you want to use add-on tools to make your writing easier. For example, I personally like to use two add-ons. The first one is Grammarly , which will check your grammar and spelling as you write. Even though I have an editor that combs over every blog post, it’s nice to have a built-in grammar checker as you write your draft post.

The second add-on is the SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant.

While outside the scope of this post, learning SEO (search engine optimization) is a great skill to learn as a blogger. It can give you a competitive edge over your competition. SEMrush’s add-on offers keyword suggestions I might want to include in my article to get more search engine traffic.

3. CoSchedule

I’ve been a fan of CoSchedule for a few years now. I even wrote a blog post review on my experience with it. Basically, it’s an all-in-one calendar for content, social media, email marketing, and more.

It can be a bit expensive for bloggers just starting out, but if you want to manage all of your projects in one place, it’s a great tool.

Have you heard of Kajabi ? It’s not just a blog writing tool but has many other powerful functions to support your blog business. I primarily use Kajabi to host all of my online courses, membership site, landing pages, and online store. If you want to sell digital products and build a blog, you can do both with Kajabi.

Kajabi would replace your monthly hosting cost and WordPress. Blogging on Kajabi is straight forward. As you can tell from the image below, you have a title and body section. Create your headline, write your blog entry, and hit publish.

5. Microsoft Word

This is the tool of choice for many bloggers when starting out. Most people are familiar with Word since it was the tool they used to write their papers in school. One word of warning: be careful about using copy and paste into WordPress. Sometimes the formatting doesn’t transfer correctly. Always paste your text into the text side (or HTML side) and not on the visual editor.

6. Evernote

Another popular writing tool is Evernote . The benefits of Evernote are two-fold. First, you can access it online and offline. If you are flying on a plane, you can work on your blog post even without internet access. Later, your document will automatically sync with the cloud.

Secondly, you can easily share it with others. Similar to Google Drive, you can share a link to your note or notebook in Evernote and collaborate together.

Remember this. Writing your post can happen anywhere. You can start with one of the six tools mentioned above, or go with your own. It comes down to personal preference. Whatever tool helps you be consistent with your writing is what matters most.

Blog Post Ideas for Beginners

Maybe your challenge is not where to do your writing, but what to blog about . Regularly coming up with blog post topics doesn’t have to be difficult. I believe your first blog post ideas should come from a place of passion.

Set a timer for five minutes. Write out as many answers as you can think of to the following series of questions:

• Why am I starting this blog in the first place?
• Who do I most want to help?
• What lessons from my own life can I share with others?
• What are the top three to five things someone should know in my niche in order to be successful?
• How will this blog help others?

The 4-Step Blog Post Template for Your First Blog Entry

After working with thousands of new bloggers, I’ve created a simple 4-step template to help you write your first blog post fast. Those four steps are:

• Step 1. Create a catchy headline
• Step 2. Write the outline before you start writing
• Step 3: Edit your blog post draft
• Step 4: Promote your blog post to the world

Step 1. Create a Catchy Headline

Post titles are super important for any blogger. Treat them like newspaper headlines. A headline on a newspaper makes or breaks the sale of that paper. Your headline should be catchy, interesting, and leave just a bit of curiosity.

When it comes to deciding on a headline, choose one of the following three strategies:

• The magic of list posts
• The power of “how-to” posts
• The blog announcement post

The magic of list posts. It’s been proven over time that we love lists. We want to know not only what’s on the list but what didn’t get included. We click on the headline because we know the article is scannable and we can see what is included in the list.

Here are a few examples you can use to create your own headline:

• 5 Quick Tips for __________
• 10 Things You Should Never Do When _________
• 5 Ways to __________ (without being pushy)
• 5 great things to do with __________
• 7 ways to be a ________ ninja
• 10 Reasons Not to _____
• 7 _____ Danger Signs
• 7 things _____ Should Never Do
• 21 Secrets the _____ Experts Don’t Want You to Know
• 10 ______ Facts You Need to Know

The power of “how-to” posts . Another strategy that will give you tons of blog post ideas is to cover the most important “how-tos” in your niche. Readers love practical posts that lead them to action. It feels like time well spent if I can take concrete action on something I just learned.

A few examples might be:

• How to recover from a _____________
• How NOT to get ____________
• How to Get _____ in Half the Time
• How to Beat the Fear of _____
• How _________ Will Save You Time, Money, and Stress
• How to clean ____________
• How to maintain _____________
• How to take care of _____________
• How to repair the __________________

The blog announcement post. The last strategy I want to share with you is a post you would typically only write once. This post will be a foundational article you will refer back to for years to come.

The two early strategies (list posts and how-to posts) are the formats I use 90% of the time week in and week out. You’re welcome to start with one of them to get your first post published if you would like.

The blog post announcement post is easy enough to write because it doesn’t require much guesswork. In a moment, I will share with you a simple writing outline you can use.

As far as a headline, go with something like: “How (name of your blog) Will Help You (insert the goal, promise or purpose of your blog).”

If you are still at a loss of how to create a catchy headline, then consider using the headline analyzer tool from CoSchedule. This tool will analyze your headline and give you a score. Don’t worry about trying to score a 100 on your headline. I usually try to get at least a 70.

Step 2. Write the Outline Before You Start Writing

Many aspiring bloggers are excited until it’s time to sit down and write. Why does it feel like all of my energy and creativity gets sucked about when it’s time to write?

See Post: 4 Proven Ways of How to Start a Blog Post

Other bloggers say they just want for inspiration to strike before they sit down to write. If that was true for me, I’d be waiting a long time.

Don’t wait till you feel like writing. Most writers I know don’t like writing, they like having written . There’s a big difference. Never forget the words of Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner who said:

“You’re more likely to act yourself into a feeling than feel yourself into action.”

If you’ve successfully accomplished the last step of deciding on a headline, it makes writing much easier. The headline creates the outline for you. Once you’ve nailed down the outline, all that’s left is to fill in the text.

Let’s look at how to create an outline from each of our three examples above.

Create an outline for your list post. If you’ve chosen a list post headline, then you must first decide how many make your list. You can do as few as three or as many as 101. It really comes down to the purpose of the post.

I usually start by opening up my writing tool of choice and brainstorming as many examples as I can think of. Once I’ve created the list, I have my number and I have my outline.

Create an outline for your how-to post . If you decided to go with a how-to post, then the process will be slightly different. First, start with a beginner’s mind. It’s easy to skip a few steps because you think they are assumed.

We all have the curse of knowledge. We simply forget what it’s like to be a beginner.

When outlining a how-to post, you want to think in terms of steps. What’s the very first step I should take? Once I complete that step, what’s next? Repeat the same process until all of the steps are out of your head and on paper (or screen).

Now, you may end up combining steps and that’s okay. A how-to post will have a minimum of three steps. The maximum number of steps depends on the topic you have chosen.

Create an outline for your blog announcement post. If you chose option number three, then there is a specific format you should follow.

WARNING : Be careful not to make your first blog post about you .

Yes, you will be introducing yourself and maybe even sharing your story. But never forget that your blog is for others. You want to help, serve, or inspire.

The good news is that I already have an outline you should follow. The body of your blog post will include these subheadlines:

• State the goal of your blog
• How this blog will help
• Who you are

The opening of your blog post should state the goal of your blog . Why are you starting this blog in the first place? Is there a mission or cause behind your desire to start this blog?

Next, talk about how your blog will help the reader. What are some of the specific ways you plan to help others? Will you be publishing a weekly blog post? Will you launch a podcast? Will your blog include videos?

Finally, fully introduce you and your story. Always remember that you are not the hero of the blog. Your target audience is the hero. You are just the guide. Because of that, we don’t lead by touting our credentials or why we are qualified to help.

Still, people will want to know who is behind the blog so feel free to share your story. But lead with serving and helping first.

Once your outline is ready, just focus on writing a paragraph or two for each point in your outline. Once you do, you have a rough draft ready to go. Now, it’s time to edit.

Step 3. Edit Your Blog Post Draft

Blogging is a different way of writing than when you were in English class. It’s more conversational for starters. Also, we break a few of the rules along the way.

Follow this list of basic guidelines and you’ll be a pro in no time:

• Use bullets – My number one tip is to break up your content to make it easy to consume on the computer or mobile device.
• Subheadings – We already covered this in the outline section, but add lots of subheadings
• Short sentences – Keep your sentences short. Enough said.
• Short paragraphs – Notice how many of the paragraphs in this blog post are two or three sentences, max. Make your content easy to scan.
• Relevant Images – Add images to your post to make it more engaging
• Look for grammar errors – I like to use Grammarly to help me with my grammatical construction.
• Add a call to action – Add ways for readers to join your email list sprinkled throughout your blog posts.
• Publish your post – Get your blog post out to the world! Don’t worry about mistakes! You can always come back and fix them later.

Step 4. Promote Your Blog Post to the World

Once your post is live, it’s time to share your post with the world. I know this can be a scary feeling when first starting out.

My best tip is to not focus on yourself, but focus on how your blog will help others.

An ideal place to start is social media. What social media accounts are you already using? Share your blog post there first. Remember, you can do it in a non-pushy way.

If you’re not sure what to write, a have a sample script below you can use:

“Hey friends, I’ve decided to start a blog with the goal of helping others. I’ve just published my first post!

It would mean the world to me if you would click the link, read this post, and then come back here and share your thoughts with me. Thanks!”

Now, you don’t want to hit up your social media newsfeed daily to push people over to your blog post. We want to be helpful, not annoying.

You can also enlist some friends to help get the word out. Come up with a list of 10-20 friends who you would consider to be supportive. Be sure this list includes friends and not just acquaintances. Otherwise, this exercise will not work.

Send them a message on Facebook Messenger. Let them know you recently launched a blog and it would mean the world to you if they would share it on social media.

To make this easy for them, you’ve already typed up a script they can post. It goes like this:

“Hey, guys! My friend Sally, just launched a blog designed to help overwhelmed moms claim back control of their lives. You should check it out here: LINK”

The point of all of this is to get referral traffic to your site. They have friends you don’t have. They can reach people you cannot reach.

Blog Post Examples

Congrats on getting your first blog post published! Would it be helpful to see a few examples? Let’s take a look at a few first blog post examples.

Example #1: CPA Career Coach

My first blog was launched in 2009 and it was designed to help accounting and finance professionals find meaning in their work. My first post had three parts.

Part 1. An Opening Story

Part 2. The List Post Outline (4 Major Points)

Part 3. How This Blog Will Help You & Who I Am

Let’s take a look at one more example.

Example #2: Personal Branding Blog

A few years later, I launched JonathanMilligan.com. The goal of the new blog was to help people discover their purpose and be more productive. Here’s the outline I used:

Part 1. Who This Blog is For

Part 2. How This Blog Will Help You

Part 3. Who I Am

There you have it! You should now be well on your way to blogging your passion and sharing your message with the world. You got this!

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Blogger Expertise Essays: Part I

This year, I put out a call to bloggers asking them to write about an area of expertise other than writing or blogging. Over two blog posts by 12 bloggers, you’ll discover their hidden talents, receive some crucial advice, and learn how these bloggers spend their time outside of their computer screens. After reading their essays, be sure to check out their blogs (all links will open in a new tab). Then, share your areas of expertise, something you’ve spent 10,000 hours or more mastering, or something you are working on mastering, in the comments below!

Escape Room Level: Expert

By: renata leo.

Blog: buffalosauceeverywhere.com

I completed my first escape room in November 2018, and I was immediately hooked. Escape rooms were just the perfect activity for someone like me. I loved how immersive the experience was and how much fun it was to solve the clever clues. As an extrovert, I also love an activity that I can do with others!

After that fateful day when I did my first room, I couldn’t get enough. My fiancé and I completed as many rooms as we could in the tri-state area. Any time we went on vacation, we would find a local escape room that we could complete. At this point, we’ve done 25 different ones!

Since I’ve done so many different escape rooms, I not only have tips on successfully completing a room, but I also know what types of things that I do and do not like when completing them. I’ve gone to rooms with all different kinds of themes, game masters, and groups of people.

I’ve written extensively about escape rooms over on my blog, but here are some pointers in case you plan to do an escape room in the near future!

• Make sure to bring people with different skills to the room with you.
• Double check each other’s work when things aren’t going correctly — you might have found the right answer but typed it in incorrectly (I’m guilty of this!).
• Pee before you go into the room! Sure, you can come out in the middle and pee, but that’ll run out your clock, and playing while you have to pee is too distracting.
• Don’t allow your team to lose steam early. If you can’t solve something in the first 20 minutes, get a hint from your game master. Getting a hint early is better than losing morale early!

The Sport of Parenting

By: david metzger.

Blog: www.nursepapathebook.com

If parenting were a sport, it would certainly be classified as full contact. Fully physical. Fully emotional. Fully psychological. Fully frustrating. Fully joyful.

If my family of four humans are a team playing this sport, I wonder what roles we would all embrace. At one smug point in this parenting journey, I was confident that we parents were team owners, and the kids, athlete subordinates. We started this organization. We bank rolled this team with money, sweat, and thousands of compostable diapers. Often though, our kids seem to run the show. We bend to their needs. We answer to their desultory demands.

So, if we aren’t the owners, perhaps we’re coaches. There are many moments when our know-how matches our children’s willingness to take it in. Usually though, our didactic pleas are lost to the ether. There is too much crying, fighting, whining, huffing, and puffing for us to have a meaningful exchange.

These kids don’t want to play the game how we’ve taught them. They storm the field naked, without padding. They run backwards around the bases. It seems that we’re just here to patch up the boo boos and brush off the butts.

If we aren’t owners and nothing in our contracts stipulates our roles as coaches, then I guess we are all players on the same dysfunctional team. We all sit in the dugout calling the plays and yelling at the ref. There is indeed a pecking order, but as soon as one player reaches the top, the order changes. We all have to adjust.

Family prepares kids for the game of life. Where else can they strike out, break a bat on their knee, get ejected, and still be invited back for more fun and fracture? Remember, the game of family is almost always a doubleheader.

Garden of Inspiration

By: m. louise pistole.

Blog: https://www.louisepistole.com/

Meandering through my gardens and taking in all the sights and sounds of nature fills my mind and heart with inspiration. Digging in the soil, filling the wheelbarrow with wayward sticks, and pruning bushes are therapy for my soul.

Growing up, my mom had beautiful gardens, and I loved helping her tend to them. Later, she managed a florist for many years, and my love and knowledge for flowers deepened.

And finally, I had my own acre of land to dig, plant, pull, prune and enjoy. There’s a continuous learning curve on what to plant, where it needs to be planted, how much water and sun a plant needs, protecting from insects, and much more.

Anyone who has a lawn also knows there is a delicate balance of seed, fertilizer, and weed killer to maintain beautiful green grass throughout the year.

I have been blessed with experts and good friends who know a lot about plants and are willing to share information. I am also doubly blessed that both my son and his wife majored in horticulture. Their wealth of knowledge guides me along my garden paths.

After all my plants, I was ready to add arbors, a picket fence, and a pergola. Then came angel statues, bird baths, a sun dial and wind chimes.

The great outdoors definitely fills me with inspiration and restores my soul. The beauty of the flowers and trees, the scampering of squirrels and watchful eyes of deer along with the music of water and birds makes my heart soar.

After nearly 50 years of reading, studying, asking questions and seeking guidance, my gardens are finally well established. It is time for me to sit on the porch with a tall glass of tea and ponder life.

Buy a copy of Discover Your Joy by Louise Pistole, and help support local bookstores! This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

Public Speaking: Get Up and Start Talking

By: bill of a silly place.

Blog: https://billswritingplace.wordpress.com

Bill is the author of “A Silly Place,” a blog that he describes as his “journey through the world, and everyone’s welcome to come along.”

Before I get started, many thanks to Laura for the invitation. And now, without further ado…

I can’t tell you how to have a stadium full of thousands and millions more watching on TV mesmerized by your every word. If you want to know that, ask Barack Obama. And I would bet he doesn’t know how he does it, either, at least not that he could explain. It’s just a thing he can do.

Actually, there aren’t too many recommendations I can make for how to be a good public speaker — although lots of deep breaths and envisioning the audience, not in their underwear, but as an amorphous gathering in front of you can help with nerves — but I can tell you the first thing you need to do to be a public speaker: Get up and start talking.

Whether you’re giving a speech to a class in college, talking on the radio, making a presentation at a conference, explaining a concept at a meeting, speaking to a local community group (all of which I’ve done) or whatever reason everyone’s eyes and ears are on you, the first obstacle to overcome in public speaking is the fear of public speaking.

I get it. I understand it. People are afraid of looking or sounding dumb when other people are watching and listening. After all, there’s a reason I don’t do karaoke.

But if you get up and start talking, and nothing bad happens, then you won’t be so afraid to do it again.

And if something bad does happen? You learn from it and take another shot.

Last Stitch Attempt

Blog: www.rosegoldreports.com

What can I do? Staring at the ceiling in crippling pain I lay in bed and wondered: what possible hobby can I do? Becoming disabled due to an energy limiting chronic illness rapidly shrunk my world, leaving me bed bound and struggling with washing and feeding myself. There’s no treatment or cure for ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy, a neurological disease) yet my occupational therapist was determined to find an activity I could do which would help me feel that I wasn’t completely useless and stave off the depression many chronically ill people develop.

I enjoy reading, but it tires me out easily, and she wanted me to have a completely new hobby. It had to be small, lightweight, and relatively easy; it also had to be something that could be dropped at any moment. We settled on crafting.

I tried and rejected several things as too difficult or too messy. Eventually I tried needlework. Cross stitch seemed easy enough. Except for someone who sometimes can’t remember what year it is due to brain fog, counting stitches proved impossible. But I liked the coloured threads and the how lightweight it was. What if I just stitched without instructions or counting?

I’m only a fraction of a way into my 10,000 hours. Some months, my hands are too painful to stich at all, other times I might do 20 stitches a day, several days in a week. I did little things, a flower or a leaf using a small hoop. It took me forever to finish, but I had something to show for my years in bed.

Christmas 2019 I decided my next project would be bigger and something Christmassy. I decided loosely on a robin in a wreath. It took me almost all year, but Christmas 2020 saw me proudly watch as my Mum hung the hoop on the wall opposite my bed. Whenever I feel frustrated at my predicament, I look at my robin and think, “I did that.”

My Secret Superpower

By: cathay reta.

Blog: www.cathayreta.com

What is my superpower? My area of expertise? Well, it’s not easy. Not everyone can do it, or at least not do it well. It’s a talent I’ve crafted and refined over a lifetime . . . and I’ve really honed in on it these past couple of years.

It’s nothing. Not a thing.

This doing “not a thing” gives my mind space to air out. It lets a passing breeze blow out weakened old cobwebs so I can breathe in freshness – fresh scents, fresh feelings, and fresh ideas. It is especially effective when surrounded by nature. The best way to sit and do nothing is to do it in the shade of a tree. Trees – big strong and towering trees with far-reaching limbs are quite the enablers. They multiply this superpower; they increase its effectiveness, joining us together to soak in sun’s vitality and life-giving rays of hope.

Maybe this superpower is really not so secret. People see me do it. It happens in plain sight. Yet it is often misunderstood. Some wonder why I’m wasting so much time just sitting around. Why am I not moving faster? Isn’t there something I should be doing? The untrained eye often mistakes this powerful calm centeredness for laziness. It is quick to label and to discard what it doesn’t know. It doesn’t know that this stillness is the fertile soil in which new ideas germinate, appreciation makes her way to the conscious mind, and tomorrow’s dreams unfold.

It’s nothing. It’s everything. It’s simply being.

Buy a copy of Keep Walking, Your Heart Will Catch Up by Cathay Reta, and help support local bookstores! This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

Check out part 2 here!

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Share your comments

Thanks for including me, Laura! This was great ☺️

Such great hobbies! Mine are more athletic. I spent my 20s and 30s as a competitive figure skater, then turned to marathon running in my 40s, having run 3 of the 6 major races. I was trying to do all 6 in 10 years, but the pandemic tuned me upside down, so it will take a little longer. Oh, well. It just means I’ll have a slower qualifying time for Boston.

• Pingback: Want to be a public speaker? – A Silly Place

It is lovely seeing a diverse range of subjects and stories here! Love that they all come from the heart. <3

Very interesting to read everyone’s stories. Mine would have to be singing. I’m not sure I’m at 10,000 hours but I might be getting close! I have been singing in choirs, and in my car, my whole life. A few years ago, I joined School of Rock and, for the first time, took vocal lessons and had the experience of singing with a band. I loved it and miss it a lot in these pandemic times.

• Pingback: Blogtober 2021 - Cathay O. Reta
• Pingback: The week gone by — Oct. 10 – A Silly Place
• Pingback: Blogtober 2021 Blogger Expert Essays: Part II - Laura's Books and Blogs
• Pingback: 10 Things I’ve Learned After Three Years of Blogging - Laura's Books and Blogs

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• The Minimalists
• What’s Minimalism?
• 30-Day Minimalism Game
• Our 21-Day Journey
• Popular Essays

How to Start a Blog

• Media Praise
• Hire to Speak
• Simplify Everything
• How to Write Better

How to Start a Successful Blog in 2024

Learn how to start a blog in less than an hour. Become a blogger today by following the steps we used when starting our blog, which now has reached more than 20 million people and has been seen in the New York Times , TIME magazine, and on the TODAY show.

You can start a blog in just 5 simple steps.

• Choose your blog name and hosting.
• Build your blog with WordPress.
• Pick your design to make it your own.
• Add SEO and track stats.
• Write compelling content.

Do you want to start a blog fast?

This is a long essay and you may want to start your blog without all the detail.

This is the first how to quickly start a blog guidepost.

To start a blog fast simply:

• Look for these boxes.
• Follow the brief steps.
• Click the link to jump to the next box.

Click here to go to the first step.

How We Started This Blog

Want to create something meaningful? Why not start a blog? Why not become a blogger? Creating this blog is one of the best decisions Ryan and I ever made. After all, our blog is how we earn a living . We make money blogging, but more important it’s how we add value to other people’s lives.

So you’re thinking about starting a blog, but you don’t have any idea where to start, right? Guess what—neither did we! Before we became “The Minimalists,” we wanted to start a blog to communicate our thoughts and express our feelings, but we were overwhelmed with options.

Clueless, confused, and confounded with choices, we had no idea how to start a blog or how to be a blogger. When should we start? How do we register a domain name? What is hosting? Which blogging platform should we use? How do we choose a blog theme? What should we write about? Heck, we could hardly spell HTML, let alone build a blog!

But good news: it turns out that starting a blog is much easier than you think. We’ve learned a ton of lessons during our ascent to millions of readers, and now you can learn from our pain and suffering to avoid much of the tedium involved in setting up a blog.

How to Become a Blogger: Video Tutorial

If you prefer to watch our process for setting up a blog, we’ve created a step-by-step start a blog video, How to Become a Successful Blogger Today , which shows the entire starting-a-blog undertaking. Otherwise, read on.

How to Start a Successful Blog in 5 Steps

• Choose your blog name and get your blog hosting.
• Start your blog by adding WordPress.
• Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own.
• Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats.
• Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love.

While there are other blogging platforms out there like Blogger, Squarespace, and Wix, nearly every serious blogger uses a self-hosted WordPress site because of its creative freedom and flexibility.

It’s not only because it’s the easiest blog to set up. The Minimalists uses WordPress because it gives us greater control over the look and feel of our blog—more creative control than any other platform. Oh, and WordPress itself is free !

These are the exact steps we took when we created this website. If you follow these five steps, you will learn how to set up a blog in less than one hour.

Step 1 Choose your blog name and get your blog hosting

The first thing we did when starting our blog was go to Bluehost and register our domain, which is free with hosting. We’ll explain hosting in a moment, but let’s talk about your domain name first.

Blogging Quick Start – Step 1

In this first step you will choose your blog name (domain name) and buy your blog hosting.

• Go to Bluehost and click the Get Started Now button.
• Select the Basic plan .
• Pick your domain name and enter it into the New Domain box.
• Create your Bluehost account.

Click here to jump to the next step.

Choose your domain name

Your domain name is an important part of your blog because it creates a first impression—it is the name of your blog. Also known as your URL, your domain is also your address on the web. For example, our domain name is www.theminimalists.com.

So, what do you want to call your blog? Maybe it’s YourName.com. Maybe it’s YourBusinessName.com. Or maybe it’s a creative brand name you thought up. If you’re having a hard time thinking of a good domain name, try Wordoid , a wonderful naming tool that will give you plenty of great options. Just make sure you don’t buy the domain from them since Bluehost will give you a free domain. (If you’ve already purchased a domain elsewhere, that’s okay, too, because Bluehost will make it easy to transfer your existing domain during the setup process.)

Set up blog hosting

Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you’ll need to set up hosting for your blog. While WordPress itself is free (see Step 2 below), you need a reliable place to host your WordPress blog (your blog needs to be on a server somewhere on the Internet).

For hosting, we recommend Bluehost for several reasons:

• We Use Bluehost. We personally use Bluehost to host The Minimalists . If you recommend a company, you better be willing to use their product yourself. We also use them to host several other websites of ours.
• Great Pricing. TheMinimalists.com is a Bluehost affiliate partner, which means that in addition to using their service, we also receive a commission for referring new customers. To be fair, though, we would still use Bluehost even if we weren’t an affiliate—we’ve used them for a long time. Ergo, we don’t recommend Bluehost just because we’re an affiliate (every hosting company offers a similar affiliate program); we recommend Bluehost because they are the best, most reliable option. Plus, because we’re a partner, Bluehost offers a more than 50% discount for The Minimalists readers: only $2.75 a month for the first year.
• Free Domain. When you sign up for hosting, Bluehost will give you a free domain name, which allows you to avoid the upfront and recurring fees associated with purchasing a domain on your own. If you’ve already purchased your own domain name, don’t worry; you can still use your domain with Bluehost (it’s just one extra step).
• Money-Back Guarantee. Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk if you change your mind.
• Reliability. Bluehost’s facilities are world class. They have their own custom-built 20,000-square-foot datacenter with enough backup generators to power a city.
• Friends & Family. Many of our friends and family also use Bluehost to host their blogs.

Now that you’re ready to get started, go to Bluehost and click the Get Started Now button.

Next choose your hosting plan.

You’ll see that prices range from $3 to $6 per month, depending on whether you want a basic, single blog hosting plan or a more robust plan that allows you to create multiple blogs.

Once you select your plan you’ll choose or enter your domain name.

If you don’t own a domain name simply enter your desired blog name into the New Domain box.

If you’ve already own a domain name simply enter that into the I have a domain name box.

Click Next .

Finally create your blogging account.

And click Create your password to complete your blog hosting setup.

Just like that you’ve nearly become a blogger!

How to Start a Blog Ebook

Pressed for time? Learn how we started our successful blog using this free ebook.

Step 2 Start your blog by adding WordPress

Next you will install WordPress, which is free. Don’t let the word “install” intimidate you, though. It’s much easier than it sounds and Bluehost does all the work for you.

Blogging Quick Start – Step 2

Next you’ll install WordPress.

• Click the Log In button.
• Click Skip This Step on the Pick a theme screen.
• WordPress is now installed, click Start Building to go to your dashboard.

To begin simply click Log In .

Bluehost provides several blog design options, but simply scroll to the bottom and click Skip This Step (you’ll see why in a moment).

WordPress is now installed. Simply click Start Building to go to your new blogging dashboard and continue to Step 3.

Step 3 Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own

A theme allows you to pick a design for your blog without the need for coding expertise or design knowledge. In other words, a good theme helps you to design your blog exactly how  you  want it to look. If you’re not a coder (I’m certainly not a coder), then a theme makes the design work a million times easier.

Blogging Quick Start – Step 3

Next you’ll choose and install your blog’s WordPress theme.

• Go to BYLT .
• Purchase the theme that fits your style (we use the tru Theme).
• Download and save your theme’s .zip file to your Desktop.
• Return to your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance > Themes .
• Click Upload and then Upload Theme .
• Click Choose File , select your theme .zip file, and click Install Now .
• Click Activate .

Our blog design is from BYLT, a platform created by our good friends at SPYR. They have several beautiful, simple WordPress themes to choose from, and, in fact, you can purchase the same theme we use if you like.

Simply go to BYLT and find the minimalist WordPress theme that best fits your desired aesthetic. Their themes are feature-rich; plus, once you buy your theme, you will have the same team supporting your work that we trust to support ours.

Once you purchase your theme you’ll be able to download your WordPress theme (a .zip file) from your BYLT Dashboard . Save this file to your Desktop because you’ll need to upload it to WordPress in just a moment.

Remember how easy it was to install WordPress? Well installing your blog theme is just as simple.

First return to your WordPress Dashboard.

You should already be logged in, but whenever you are signed out go to my.bluehost.com , enter your new domain name (or username), your password, and click Submit .

From here, go to My Sites and click on Log in to WordPress .

Next, in your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes .

Next, click the Upload button.

Then, click the Upload Theme button followed by the Choose File button.

Find the .zip file you downloaded from your BYLT Dashboard (this is your theme file) and click Install Now to install your new simple blog design.

Finally, click Activate and your blog theme is installed.

Step 4 Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats

Plugins are third-party appendages that add additional functionality to your blog.

Blogging Quick Start – Step 4

In the final setup step you’ll install two plugins that will improve your blog’s features.

• In your WordPress Dashboard go to Plugins > Add New .
• Search for Yoast SEO . Click Install Now followed by Activate .
• Click the Add New button to add one more plugin.
• Search for MonsterInsights and click Install Now followed by Activate .
• Click the Launch the Wizard! button to configure MonsterInsights.

It’s best to keep your number of blog plugins to a minimum and install only the best ones, because too many plugins—as well as unreliable plugins—can slow down your site. We use very few plugins at The Minimalists .

In this section you’ll install and activate the following free plugins:

• Yoast SEO  is the defacto standard SEO plugin for WordPress. For details and everything you’d ever want to know about WordPress SEO read  Yoast’s Definitive SEO Guide .
• Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights  allows you to track your blog’s traffic easily and with lots of interesting data: overall traffic, traffic sources, views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and pageviews.

In your WordPress dashboard go to  Plugins > Add New .

Search for Yoast SEO .

Then click Install Now followed by Activate and your blog will immediately have improved SEO.

Next search for MonsterInsights .

Then click Install Now followed by Activate .

Next click Launch the Wizard! and follow the steps to complete the MonsterInsights setup.

Finally, so people can receive our blog posts via email, we have an email newsletter. For a feature-rich email-subscription service we recommend ConvertKit (affiliate link). (By the way, if you don’t already, subscribe to  The Minimalists’ blog via email .)

Step 5 Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love

Congratulations! You started a blog, and now it’s time to start blogging. This is where the fun begins.

Now that you have your own blog, you get to make it yours ; you get to turn your vision into a reality.

• Content . Start writing and publishing the content for your basic pages: create an About Page, Contact Page, Start Here Page, and any other page you want in the header of your new blog.
• Photo . Add a photo of yourself (pro tip: you can start with a well-lit selfie, but when you get a chance, get some professional photos taken; they’re well worth the cost because people identify with other people more than they identify with logos).
• Logo . Create a basic logo using a program like InDesign, Photoshop, or a text editor (note: even though we have no design skills, we were able to use Apple’s Pages application to create our simple logo after downloading some free vector art  and choosing the typeface that best suited our aesthetic). Or you can find someone on a site like Fiverr or hire a designer like SPYR to create a professional logo.
• Images . Spice up your blog posts with high-quality stock photos and images: Unsplash (free), Library of Congress (free),  iStock  (fee-based), Shutterstock (fee-based).
• Comments . Determine whether or not you want comments on your blog; they are often a useful way to receive feedback and directly engage with your readers.
• Social . Establish a social media presence on X (Twitter) , Facebook , or Instagram (or all three).
• Publish . Start writing new blog posts. Publish at least once a week, especially when first starting a blog, so you can build an audience. Below you’ll also find 20 blogging tips to improve your writing in the How to Blog section, as well as 15 reasons you should start a blog and 3 reasons not to start a blog.

We hope you have loads of fun expressing yourself on your new blog. We’re certain it will be a huge growth experience for you during the coming months. You have now officially become a blogger. Wherever you’re going, make sure you enjoy the journey ahead.

How to Blog: 20 Blogging Tips to Improve Your Writing

We receive many emails asking how to blog, about blog topics, and about creating meaningful content. The bulk of this essay explained how to start a blog, but that’s just the initial step. Now it’s time to start writing and publishing your content.

Here, to answer the frequently asked “How can a beginner start blogging?,” are 20 tips for beginners on how to blog .

• Find Your Niche . You needn’t have a niche, but it helps. When learning how to be a blogger, it’s important to ask yourself what you’re passionate about. Running? Cooking? Being a parent? Have you found your passion? If so, whatever it is, write about that. If not, then you must first find your passion . Note: We generally recommend that people don’t start a blog about minimalism or keto or any other heavily saturated topic. But what we really mean when we say this is: don’t create a blog about something unless you have a unique perspective. If you’ve embraced simple living and have a unique perspective, then by all means have at it.
• Define Your Ideal Readers . Once you’ve found your niche, you need to know who will be reading your blog. For example, we blog about living a meaningful life with less. Thus, our ideal readers are people who are interested in exploring minimalism so they can clear the path toward more meaningful lives. If you want to write about your newborn baby growing up, that’s wonderful: your ideal readers are probably your friends and family. If you want to write about restoring classic cars, that’s cool, too. Tailor your writing to your readers (whether it’s your family or local community or whoever else will read your blog).
• Add Value . Your blog must add value to its readers’ lives. You want to help people solve problems. This is the only way you will get great quality readers to your site (and keep them coming back). Adding value is the only way to get someone’s long-term buy-in. We both learned this after a decade of leading and managing people in the corporate world. With everything you write, it’s worth asking: Is this adding value?
• Be Original . Yes, there are other blogs out there about the same thing you want to write about. Question: So why is your blog different? Answer: Because of you . You are what makes your blog different. It’s about your perspective, your creativity, the value  you add.
• Be Interesting . Write interesting blog posts. Especially if you want people to share it with others.
• Be Yourself . Part of being interesting is telling your story. Every person is unique, and your story is an important one. The important part of storytelling, however, is removing the superfluous details that make the story uninteresting. A great storyteller removes 99% of what really happens—the absorptive details—and leaves the interesting 1% for the reader.
• Be Honest . Your blog needs to be authentic—it needs to feel real—if you want people to read it. You can be your blog, or your blog can be you. That is, do you really embody the stuff you write about? If not, people will see through it.”Be the change you want to see in the world,” is the famous Gandhi quote. Perhaps bloggers should build the blog they want to write for the world.
• Transparency . Being transparent is different from being honest. You needn’t share every detail about your life just for the sake of being honest. Always be honest, and be transparent when it adds value to what you’re writing. (Because everything we write must serve the greater good, you won’t ever see pictures of us using the restroom—that’s simply not relevant.)
• Time . Once you’ve learned how to start a blog, you’ll learn that blogging takes a lot of time, especially if you’re as neurotic as we are. That said, once you have your design set up, don’t tweak it too much. Instead, spend the time on your writing.
• Vision . The reason our site design looks good is because we have a great host , we have a great theme , and, most important, we had a vision of how we wanted our blog to look. Once we had the vision, we worked hard to make that vision a reality. (Note: neither of us had any design experience before starting a blog.) It’s hard to create a beautiful blog if you don’t know what you want it to look like.
• Find Your Voice . Over time, good writers discover their voice and their writing tends to develop a certain flow, one that is appealing to their readers. Finding your voice makes your writing feel more alive, more real, more urgent. For additional reading, check out our blog post about Finding Your Voice .
• We Instead of You . Use the first-person plural when possible. Statements of we and our are more powerful than you and your , especially when talking about negative behaviors or tendencies. The first person comes off as far less accusatory. Think of it this way: we’re writing peer-to-peer—we are not gods.
• When to Post . Question: When is the best day and time to publish a blog post? Answer: It doesn’t really matter. We don’t adhere to a particular time-of-day schedule, but we do publish at least once a week because consistency is important. You needn’t get bogged down in the details, though.
• Social Media . Yes, we recommend using X (Twitter) , Facebook , and Instagram to help connect with your audience and other bloggers, but don’t get too caught up in it. Focus on the writing first, social media thereafter.
• Ignore Negative Criticism and Stupidity . Sure, we get a lot of negative comments and stupid questions from ignorant people who aren’t really our readers (“You’re not real minimalists!”). We call these people seagulls : They fly in, crap on your site, and fly away. But we pay them no mind, because we didn’t start our blog for them. Delete their comment and move on.
• Research . Spend time researching what you’re writing about. The reason we are able to use so many helpful, relevant links in our essays is because we put in the time to research our topics.
• Keep It Simple . This is where minimalism can be applied to starting any blog, irrespective of its genre. No need to place superfluous advertisements or widgets all over your site. Stick to the basics and remove anything you don’t need—remove anything that doesn’t add value.
• Picture . Put a picture of yourself on your blog. People like to see the face of the person who’s writing the blog. If two goofy guys from Dayton, Ohio aren’t too afraid to put their pictures on their site, then you have nothing to worry about.
• Comments . If you’re going to have comments on your site, then read The Five Words That Kill Your Blog by Scott Stratten.
• Live Your Life . You’re starting a blog about your life (or about certain aspects of your life, at least), so you still need to live your life. There are things that we always put before blogging: exercise, health, relationships, experiences, personal growth, contribution. Simply put, live a life worth writing about.

15 Reasons You Should Start a Blog

We were inspired to research and write this blog post after reading Joshua Becker’s 15 Reasons I Think You Should Blog , in which he discusses 15 great reasons why you should start a blog.

Why is the keyword here. Crucially, Becker writes about the purpose of blogging, not just how to start a blog. That’s what many of these other “blogs about blogging” seem to miss: they miss the purpose— the why behind starting a blog.

Here is a summary of our three favorite reasons from Becker’s list:

• You’ll become a better writer . “At its core, writing is communication. It is about recording thoughts on paper and compelling others to agree with them,” writes Becker. “To that end, writing (just like every other form of communication that has ever existed) improves with practice. Blogging will not force you to become a better writer, it’ll just happen as you do it. And becoming a better writer holds important benefits for the rest of your life—whether you are creating a book, a presentation, a resume, or an anniversary card for your spouse.” Spot on! Writing blog posts is not only a great way to improve your blog writing, it’s a wonderful chance to improve everything you write—from business emails and text messages to that novel you’ve been dreaming of penning.
• You’ll meet new people . “Whether it be through comments, emails, or social media, you may be surprised at how quickly you meet people online,” writes Becker. That’s true! The Minimalists’ blog is responsible for many of the most important relationships I’ve developed over the past decade—long-term business and personal relationships birthed from this very blog
• You’ll become more confident . “Blogging will help you discover more confidence in your life,” writes Becker. “You will quickly realize that you do live an important life with a unique view and have something to offer others.” So true! Writing helps us better understand the lives we live and the consequences of our actions.

3 Reasons You Should Not Start a Blog

So now you have 15 reasons why you should start a blog, and we’ve shown you how to start a blog, step-by-step, based on our personal experience.

But after giving you those detailed instructions, which could save you hundreds of hours of wasted time, we also want to give you some good reasons why you should not start a blog. (Keep in mind that these reasons are just our opinions, and we do not pretend to offer them up as a collection of empirical blogging maxims.)

• Money . You should not start a blog to make money. We need to get that out of the way first. If your primary objective is to replace your full-time income from blogging, forget about it. It doesn’t work that way. Do you think that Jimi Hendrix picked up his first guitar so he could “supplement his income”? No, he didn’t. Rather, he did it for the love of it, for the joy and fulfillment he received, and the income came thereafter—much later actually.
• Notoriety . Don’t plan on getting “Internet famous” right away. Not every site grows as fast as ours did, but that’s okay. The truth is that we kind of got lucky. We found a great domain name, we cobbled together a logo and site design that people liked, we write fairly well, and our content connected with people in a unique way. We didn’t start this site to become “famous,” though. That’d be ridiculous. We started this site to become bloggers and share a message. Our popularity came as a surprise to us, and it was a result of a little luck and a lot of hard, passionate work.
• Traffic . Not all traffic is good traffic , so don’t worry about getting thousands of readers right away. Spend your time producing meaningful creations and eventually the audience will show up if you are helping people solve problems. In other words, focus on adding value, not increasing traffic.

The funny thing is that all these things can happen. You could make a full-time income from building a blog. We do it and so do many others. And you could become an Internet famous blogger like Leo Babauta .

But if these are the sole reasons you start blogging, you’ll be miserable because it will seem like a job. And if it feels like a job, you won’t be passionate about it, so you’ll either hate it or fall flat on your face (or both).

Instead, become a blogger and write because you’re passionate about it…

4 Blogging Resources

If you want to learn more about blogging, publishing, writing, and SEO, then check out these additional resources:

• What Kind of Media Counts?  (Seth Godin)
• How to Publish an Indie Book (Asymmetrical Press)
• How to Write Better: Online Class (Joshua Fields Millburn)
• Some Funny Thoughts on SEO (Exile Lifestyle)

How to Start a Blog Infographic

FAQs When Starting a Blog

How do bloggers get paid do bloggers make a lot of money are blogs still profitable in 2024, how many hours do bloggers work, is blogging hard to do what do bloggers actually do, what does blog stand for what does blog mean, which blogging platform should i use squarespace vs wordpress: what is the best site to write a blog, how do i become a blogger, what’s the difference between a blog and a website, are blogs dead, does anyone read blogs anymore is blogging a waste of time, are blogs still relevant in 2024 is it worth starting a blog in 2024 is it too late to start blogging, should i start a blog or should i start a podcast, do i need a business to start a blog, is blogging a realistic career do careers in blogging have a future is blogging a good career, what has replaced blogging, which blog content is best what should i blog about, what does a good blog look like what is a blog used for what makes a good blog, what makes a blog successful, what kind of blog is most popular which type of blogs are most searched what are popular topics to blog about, how do you start a blog with no money how do you start a blog for free, how often should i blog, what should my first blog post be about, how do you introduce yourself in a blog, why do blogs fail, does bluehost charge monthly or all at once, what is the difference between a blog and a vlog, what does the b in blog mean, do blogs or vlogs make more money, can you make money from a blog alone, what does a blog look like, do you need a license to run a blog do i need an llc to make a blog, do i need to copyright my blog, how do i protect my photos on my blog, how do i register my blog name, do i need to trademark my blog name, is it ok to use stock photos on my blog, can i use google images on my blog, should i use my full name on my blog, should a blog have a home page should my blog be on my homepage what should i put on the front page of my blog, can everyone see my blog, what is an attention grabbing sentence what is a hook sentence for a blog what is a good hook example.

• Do you have a question that we didn’t answer?

• Creations . By building an audience who finds value in our message, we’ve been able to offer our three books and our documentary, Minimalism , to an audience who is willing to support our creative work. Consequently, all three books have been bestsellers and are now translated into more than a dozen languages; and thanks to Netflix, our documentary is available in 190 countries. (For more information about our book-publishing process, read this blog post series: How to Publish an Indie Book .)
• Audience Contributions . Since we refuse to clutter our blog or popular podcast with ads, we depend on audience support to fund production of our podcast. With more than 5,000 supporters on Patreon and many others via PayPal, The Minimalists Podcast is fully funded with audience support, which means we’re able to pay for our podcast producer, filmmaker, and studio space without advertisements on our platforms.
• Speaking . As we built our audience, many organizations, universities, and conferences began contacting us about speaking at their events. At first, we starting speaking for free just to build a name for ourselves. Then, we started charging a few hundred dollars per event. Now, we’re able to charge significantly more money because the demand for our talks is high. So far, The Minimalists have spoken at Harvard, Apple, Google, Allstate, SAP, SXSW, TEDx, and many other organizations. We speak about a wide array of topics, from simple living and “simple work,” to health, relationships, writing, publishing, social media, personal growth, and contribution—and it all started because we started this blog. (Anyone who is interested in hiring us to speak can visit our speaking page for details.)
• Tours . Over the past eight years, The Minimalists, have embarked on eight speaking tours , including 2017’s 50-city “Less Is Now” theater tour, which attracted an average of more than 1,000 people a night, with considerably larger audiences in bigger cities. Our 2014 “Everything That Remains” bookstore tour spanned 119 cities in eight countries and attracted 75,000 attendees.
• Writing Classes . I get countless questions about writing, so I’ve been able to transfer that skillset to help hundreds of students improve their writing over the years. I teach a four-week online writing class designed to improve the writing of people at any skill level—beginner, intermediate, or professional.
• Amazon Links . If The Minimalists recommend a product like this photo scanner , and then a reader purchases that product, we receive a small commission for that sale at no additional cost to our audience. We’re careful about what we recommend, however, because, as minimalists, we want you to consume less and to consume intentionally.
• Affiliate Sales . When we recommend services such as Bluehost and ConvertKit , we receive a referral fee. Once again, though, that’s obviously not why we recommend these services. Virtually every hosting company has an affiliate program, so we think it’s best to recommend the companies we trust.

Through these various means, Ryan and I are able to earn a full-time income through blogging. But it’s worth noting that making money from your blog is not the best place to start.

While there’s nothing wrong with making money—which you can do through affiliate links , advertisements , and your own products and services—the best reason to start blogging is because you have something to express.

If you make money along the way, that’s great. In fact, if you help people solve their problems, you’re all but guaranteed to make money from your blog—eventually. Let’s just remember there are at least four resources that are more important than money: skills, time, energy, and attention.

That said, let’s not kid ourselves by acting as if making money is irrelevant—it’s not. Making money from our blog is simply not the primary driver for our creativity or why we became bloggers. Although people often think of money as the ultimate resource, it is the least important of the five mentioned above.

Money won’t necessarily improve your life, but it will amplify your existing behaviors. If you have bad habits, then more money will make your life considerably worse. And if you’re already a generous person, then more money can help you be more loving, caring, and considerate.

Personally, I write one or two blog posts per week, usually in the evenings, or on weekends, so it doesn’t get in the way of my other activities. That’s the nice thing about blogging: you get to write whenever you want-no one tells you what to do, when to do it, or how much must be done. Within five months of learning how to blog, you’ll find your own rhythm that works for you.

Writing a blog does not require a degree or special training. In fact, all you need is a desire to communicate with an audience. If you have that, then starting a blog is ideal for you.

According to Wikipedia , a blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of “discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts).” The term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. The short form, “blog,” was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog in 1999.

Today, blogs have many shapes and sizes. Many are public journals people use to express their feelings. Others, like this blog, exist to help people think critically and solve problems.

There are blogs that cover nearly every topic, ideology, and interest—from sports and politics to religion and travel and everything in between. Even the world’s largest news organizations—ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC—all have their own blogs.

Here are five reasons WordPress is better than Squarespace:

• Design (Themes) . Squarespace provides some beautiful templates, but they’re limited by the number of designs that are available. Since WordPress is a free, open-source blogging platform, there’s an ecosystem of tens of thousands of themes ready to satisfy every want and need. While this variety is a benefit, we know full well that too many options can lead to a paradox of choice. This is why we recommend starting with the premium themes designed and supported by our friends at SPYR. We’ve worked with SPYR since the early days of The Minimalists and continue to recommend their products and services. (This is not an affiliate link—SPYR just does great work.)
• Features (Plugins) . While Squarespace has a rich feature set, no blogging platform can compare with the immense scale of features that WordPress offers. WordPress has a library of over 54,000 free plugins that can handle any task. While we suggest that you keep the number of plugins on your blog to a minimum, the level of customization provided by WordPress is unmatched. Plugins aside, one key feature that’s built in to WordPress, but not Squarespace, is version control. Version control tracks your changes and allows you to compare revisions and revert back to a version of your Page or Post from any point in time. I use this feature all the time because I know that if I’m unhappy with anything I’ve changed, I can quickly revert back to the previous version. This feature provides a failsafe that allows bloggers to compose, draft, edit, and publish their posts within WordPress itself, making it a complete blogging solution.
• You Own Your Content . Owning your content means that you have full control over what you express on your blog—and complete access to take that content and use it anywhere that you wish. To enable the latter, WordPress provides tools to export your data for use on any hosting provider that you choose to use. With Squarespace you can never truly download a complete copy of your server files or database, but with WordPress you can create an exact replica of your blog, at any point in time. This is most valuable for maintaining backups or in case you choose to restart a blog with a new hosting company . With WordPress you have 100% ownership of your content, files, data, and design—and everything can be backed up.
• SEO . Out of the box, both WordPress and Squarespace are search engine friendly. But with a single plugin WordPress elevates your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). A plugin we recommend for every blogger is Yoast SEO . This free WordPress plugin allows deep customization of your on-page SEO, but, more impressive, it provides automated content analysis. This helps guide you to improve and optimize your content for better readability and improved reach in search engines. While SEO isn’t everything, we all start our blogs in hopes that people will read what we’ve written. Following proper SEO practices can be a differentiating factor in reaching new people.
• Growth . WordPress is extremely robust and customizable. It allows you to build a blog exactly as you’d like. But what happens as your new blog grows? If you outgrow the off-the-shelf option, maybe it’s time to work with a design partner to create a fully custom website that’s tailored to match your brand and image. Since WordPress provides you with complete ownership of the platform, it also provides a designer with the freedom to build and create your blog design without restriction. Nothing is off limits.

The answer is in the question: the only way to become a blogger is to start a blog. This might sound overly simplistic, but that’s because it’s not that complicated. If you follow these steps you’ll become a blogger and start blogging today.

There’s an old truism, “Writers don’t like writing; they like having written.” I think the opposite is true for bloggers: because of the instant gratification of the WordPress “Publish” button, I find that bloggers enjoy writing because they’re constantly sharing that writing with the world.

The barrier to entry is gone, so start blogging if you want to become a blogger. It really is that simple.

While the lines have blurred over the years, the simplest way to put it is that a blog is a type of website, one that catalogues, over time, the personal or professional thoughts and beliefs of a person or organization.

As your thoughts, beliefs, and ideas change, so will your blog. It’s nice to have a time capsule of our thoughts, as they’ve evolved over the past decade.

No, blogs are not “dead.” In fact, blogs are more alive than ever!

As a matter of fact, our blog has grown every year since 2010 and now boasts more than 3.78 million readers and an email list that continues to grow every month.

Millions of people read our blog every year-and our audience continues to grow because, thanks to our blog, new people find our work every day. But it’s not just The Minimalists who are successful. Blogs are popular all over the world, and they are the simplest way to publish content without middlemen or gatekeepers.

Blogging is the opposite of a waste of time. If you have a genuine desire to share your creativity with the world, then it’s one of the best “time investments” you can make. Our blog is simultaneously our practice space-where we share new ideas and writings with the world-as well as an announcement board that keeps our audience abreast of any new developments in the world of minimalism.

Starting a blog is arguably more important than ever. Whether you want to publish your writing, build an audience, open a business, or start a podcast , your blog is the home for your creative projects.

Once you’ve started a blog, you are no longer reliant on other people’s platforms. There’s nothing “wrong” with having an Instagram or TikTok account, but those platforms are ephemeral. If they fall out of relevance, then so do you (remember MySpace). That’s not the case with a blog, though. Because you own your blog, it stays with you no matter where the culture sways.

The best time to start a blog was a decade ago. The second best time is now . If you have an idea you want to share, get started!

You don’t have to pick one over the other. You can start a blog and start a podcast. That’s what we did. After starting our popular blog, which is now read by millions of people, we started a similar podcast, which, at the time of this writing, has more than 100 million downloads. Frankly, our podcast would not have witnessed the same success if we didn’t also have a blog. So if we had to pick one, we’d start a blog. But thankfully, you can choose both if you’re compelled by both creative outlets.

No, you don’t need a business license to start a blog. Even if you start earning money from your blog, you can claim that income on your personal taxes under your name and social security number. It was several years before Ryan and I turned The Minimalists into a limited liability company (LLC).

Blogging is still a career for many people, a great way to make supplemental income for even more people. But Ryan and I don’t look at blogging as a career. Rather, for us, it’s an opportunity to add value to people’s lives. Of course, if you add enough value, income tends to follow. Blogging has also enabled us to showcase our books, podcasts, films, social media, and other projects that add value to our audience.

While new forms of media continue to enter the picture-podcasts, newsletters, social media-nothing replaces having a home for your creative work. The Minimalists have a podcast, an email newsletter, and several social media accounts, but none of them could ever supplant our blog. Instead, we use our blog to point to these additional resources.

We often hear people say that you should blog about what you’re passionate about. That’s great advice if you know what that passion is. Maybe it’s technology, finance, baking, music, or rock climbing. If so, write about that!

If, however, you don’t know what you’re passionate about, don’t worry. Passion isn’t simply stumbled upon; it is cultivated.

Here are six questions to ask yourself to help you determine what you should blog about:

• What are your values? Whatever you write about, you want it to align with your values.
• What excites you? There will always be drudgery, but if you find something that excites you, you will be able to drudge through the drudgery.
• What makes you angry? If you aren’t excited by something, then anger is often a great motivator. If there’s something in the world you want to change, write about that. It will help inform and strengthen your values.
• How can you solve problems? You will feel fulfilled if you can provide solutions to people’s problems. Coincidently, if you write about solving your own problems, that will help other people solve those same problems, too.
• What if money wasn’t important? If money wasn’t a factor, what would you do with your life? Yes, you need to make money, but, just as important, you want to do something meaningful. Write about that.
• Who is the person you want to become? Your writing should help you become the person you aspire to be. Write as if you’re writing to make your future self proud.

A blog is used for two things: to express and to communicate . A good blog is able to marry communicative writing and expressive writing to create blog posts that are informative and entertaining.

When considering how you want to use your blog to communicate and express yourself, ask these questions:

• What message am I attempting to communicate?
• Does the writing express the emotions I want to the reader to feel? What are those emotions?
• Does this sentence serve a purpose?
• Can I cut this line and still preserve my message?
• How can I make this more concise?
• Do I need all these modifiers and qualifiers? (Hint: no!)
• If I killed the first two paragraphs, would this piece be better?
• How could I restructure this sentence/paragraph to make it more climactic?

You get to define what success looks like for your blog. Maybe your goal is to reach a thousand true fans, publish a blog post every day, or build a large audience so that you can sign a book-publishing contract with a major publisher. It is possible to accomplish any of these feats with your blog (I’ve done all three). Blogging has brought me more success than I ever expected: New York Times -bestselling books, millions of readers, international book tours, an Emmy-nominated Netflix film, speaking at Harvard, and much more. None of these achievements fit my original idea of success, but as I added value to an audience, I discovered what was possible.

While it is best to blog about subjects that interest you, these are some of the most searched blog topics:

• Relationships
• Career advice
• Local interests
• Food and beverage

In short, what do you find compelling? Blog about that! Your blog is more likely to become popular if you’re passionate about the topic.

The good news is that starting a blog is free with WordPress. All you need to pay for is hosting, as outlined in the step-by-step instructions above .

There are also other “free” amateur services like Tumblr or Blogger that allow you to start a blog on those company’s platforms. Just be careful, because you may not own your content if you’re posting it on someone else’s website. That’s one of the many reasons why we use WordPress.

When talking to my writing students, I recommend writing every day and publishing a blog post at least once a week. We usually publish two blog posts per week on this blog. Seth Godin blogs every single day.

Whatever you decide, we recommend you stay consistent. Setting a weekly schedule helps you create accountability partners (your readership) so you feel compelled to write even when you don’t want to write.

Avoid grandiosity. Avoid throat clearing. Your first blog post needn’t be a grandiose mission statement. And your first blog post doesn’t have to be a vapid, self-involved introduction to your blog.

Instead, find one thing that interests you today and write about that. Use the prompts in the “What should I blog about” section above.

For reference, you can read the first blog post on this blog, circa 2010: Be on the Mountain .

Don’t worry about introducing yourself in every blog post. Instead, create an “about” page that new readers can reference if they want to learn more about you, your life, and the projects you’re working on. See The Minimalists’ About page as an example. Our friend Derek Sivers also has a wonderful Now page that could work for you.

There are at least three reasons blogs fail:

• Some bloggers have poor expectations. If you start a blog today and expect a million readers overnight, you’re setting yourself up for failure. But if your motivation is sincere-if you want to add value to the world-then you’ll find your expectations shift.
• Some bloggers don’t add value. Instead of metrics like subscribers or follower counts, The Minimalists focus on adding value to our audience. If you help people solve problems, the success will spring from that-not the other way around.
• Some bloggers put money first. There’s nothing wrong with earning a living from your blog (we do), but it needn’t be the main objective. Good blogs make money; great blogs make a difference. Said another way: we allow money to have a seat in the car, but it’s never the driver.

Bluehost bills annually, so when you use our link to receive the discounted rate of $2.75 per month you will be billed for the entire first year.

That said, if for any reason you decide that it’s not right for you, Bluehost offers a 30-day money back guarantee.

A blog (short for “weblog”) is a written communication by an author or creator that is meant to communicate with an audience; a vlog (short for “video log”) is a video version of a blog.

Blogs and vlogs are both excellent ways to reach an audience. However, a blog has a lower barrier of entry (no cameras, lighting, or microphones required), which makes it easier to start blogging today.

The word “blog” is an abbreviation of the term “weblog.” So the B in blog doesn’t stand for anything specific; it is merely a shortened form of the original term.

I’ve made significantly more money from blogging. Yes, The Minimalists create both blog posts and vlogs, but the dynamic nature of our blog has allowed us to reach more people and retain an audience, which is significantly more difficult with vlogging alone because with vlogs you don’t have direct access to your audience like you do with your blog.

It’s worth noting that we also use this blog to share many of our YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok vlogs with our dedicated blog audience, which amplifies our creations much better than social media alone.

Yes, you can make money solely from your blog. There are at least seven ways The Minimalists make money with this blog .

A blog can be as simple or as complex as you’d like. Successful blogs mirror the personality of their authors. For example, this blog is aggressively simple because, well, we are “The Minimalists.” Other blogs deploy bright colors and elaborate designs that mimic the quirky character, style, and disposition of its author. Either way, a WordPress blog grants you and your blog the flexibility to be as ornate or austere as you desire.

You do not need a license to run a blog. However, when you begin earning money from your blog, it can make sense to set up a separate LLC (limited liability company) for your blog. Alternatively, if you don’t want to establish an LLC, you can also claim any earned revenue from your blog under your personal social security number (I did this for the first few years of this blog, before finally registering The Minimalists, LLC).

You do not need to copyright your blog because you already own the intellectual property of everything you create. Your blog and all of its contents, blog posts, photos, images, and written words are already considered “copyrighted” the moment they are published. As long as you can prove that you are the author of a piece of content, a copyright is granted by public law without the need to file additional paperwork.

Unlike other blog and social-media platforms, your WordPress blog allows you to download and save all of your blog contents so that you can protect your photos and written words. Personally, I keep a backup of all my photos and written content on a separate hard drive, as well as a cloud storage account (e.g., Google Photos or Dropbox) for double redundancy. This isn’t required, but it gives me a piece of mind that I can’t get from social media.

Registering your blog name is free and easy. In fact, registration is a built-in part of the simple setup process outlined in the instructions within this blog post.

When you use Bluehost to host your blog, you’ll receive a free domain registration, which allows you to choose any blog name you want. If you can’t think of a good blog name, Wordoid is a free tool that can help you pick an effective name for your blog.

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office , you are not required to register your trademark, but where or whether you decide to register your trademark can determine the scope of your rights. Specifically, you can rely on common law rights or file for state, federal, or international trademark registration.

Because of the monetary and time costs associated with filing a trademark, The Minimalists did not trademark our blog name for the first several years. Once we began selling products using our blog name (“The Minimalists”), it made sense to trademark that name because, according to the USPTO, there are several benefits of trademark registration, including:

• Trademark is listed in USPTO’s database of registered and pending trademarks. This provides public notice to anyone searching for similar trademarks. They will see your trademark, the goods and services on your registration, the date you applied for trademark registration, and the date your trademark registered.
• Legal presumption that you own the trademark and have the right to use it. So, in federal court, your registration certificate proves ownership, eliminating the need for copious amounts of evidence.
• Can use your registration as a basis for filing for trademark protection in foreign countries.
• Right to bring a lawsuit concerning the trademark in federal court.
• May use the federal trademark registration symbol, ®, with your trademark to show that you are registered with us. This may help deter others from using your trademark or one too similar to yours
• Record your registration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They can stop the importation of goods with an infringing trademark.

Yes, it is perfectly reasonable to use stock photos on your blog, as long as they are obtained lawfully from a creative commons website such as Unsplash or Pond5 . Just make sure you credit the photographer.

It is not acceptable to simply use Google Images on your blog; those photos are copyrighted. If you’re not careful, reusing photos from Google Images can lead to a costly lawsuit.

It is a good idea to use your full name and photo on your blog. Why? Because people connect with human beings, not faceless avatars. That’s why I use my full name—Joshua Fields Millburn—on this blog.

Alternatively, if you’re worried about maintaining anonymity because of your job, family, or the divisive nature of your blog’s content, then a pseudonym can be an adequate substitute for your real name. Just understand that blogging pseudonymously can make it more difficult to build trust with an audience. It’s not impossible to connect with others using a fake name, but it is an uphill battle.

While WordPress allows you to establish a home page for your blog, most blogs don’t need a home page because a home page creates one extra step for new readers to read your newest blog content. That’s why we removed our home page on this blog—we want readers to get right to the good stuff without any friction. Then, if a reader wants to learn more about our blog, they can always visit our about page.

Once your blog is public, anyone can see it. This is a good thing. As a writer, you want the opportunity to connect with new readers, even when you’re sleeping. A public blog is the best way to connect with a fervent readership.

However, readers can’t see your unpublished content (drafts, deleted posts, etc.); only your published blog posts are available for everyone to see.

Any sentence that makes the reader want to read the next sentence is a great sentence. The best opening lines force readers to ask questions. For example, how does the following sentence make you feel?

The average American household contains more than 300,000 items.

That sentence might lead to several questions and doubts in the reader’s mind:

Wait, what?

No way, that can’t be true!

Tell me more!

As soon as a reader is hooked, the sentence has done its job. I call this writing technique Narrative Urgency .

More Blogging Questions

Do you have a question about becoming a blogger that isn’t answered above? Post (Tweet) to @theminimalists with your question and a link to this essay.

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Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay

Please try again

By Shelley Wright

As an English teacher, I’ve had numerous conversations with college professors who lament the writing skills of their first year students. But not all writing. Most students are capable of solid expository writing. It’s their skill with persuasive writing that’s the problem. Specifically, they’re weak at writing a thesis statement that can be argued.

I spend three years teaching my high school students how to write a persuasive essay. For many students, it takes that long. (And I’m lucky to have them that long in my school.)

Part of the problem is that our current school systems — and not just in Canada — aren’t great at producing independent thinkers. Without this ability, it’s hard to create a great thesis statement, anticipate the arguments against it, and then compose your own argument in light of what you understand about the pros and cons of an issue.

So for three years, I write for them, and with them. We talk about opening paragraphs, and they learn how to write them with their thesis statement either as the first or last sentence. (The latter requires more skill.) They learn to use transition words, embed quotations to support their argument, consider the advantages of active vs. passive voice, vary their sentences, and many other skills, all in the hope of creating a strong argument.

The truth is lately I’ve come to question the point of much of this. Does the average person, once they leave school, spend a lot of time composing academic essays? Is this the best way for our students to show their learning?  In some places, the academic 5 paragraph essay is hailed as the Holy Grail of non-fiction writing achievement. Yet even if a student can become a great persuasive essay writer, they’re still only semi-literate , at least according to the definition of 21st Century Literacies .

A DIFFERENT BEAST

While traditional essay writing may not help alleviate this situation, I think blogging can. Here’s the problem; Blogging is an entirely different beast. And one of the things I’ve learned about my students is that they don’t necessarily transfer a skill they’ve learned in one area to another without difficulty, or even prompting.

For one, the paragraphing is different. The large, solid paragraphs of prose that can be found in a typical persuasive essay, can feel arduous and cumbersome to all but the most determined reader.

Instead, blog paragraphs tend to be shorter. It allows the piece to feel fluid and speeds up the rate at which your reader reads (often through the glare of a computer monitor or on a phone or tablet screen). And while the effective blogger still uses transition words, as many aren’t necessary to provide the piece with a feeling of fluidity and coherence.

Sometimes a paragraph is one simple sentence, used for emphasis.

Another thing is the thesis statement. Its placement, in a blog, is up for grabs. Did you catch where mine is? Actually, I haven’t written it yet. Huh?!

Blogging also requires a different voice. The way I blog isn’t quite how I talk, but it’s nowhere close to how I write a formal essay. Furthermore, the voice used in blogging needs to be rich, sharp and distinct, to gain an audience. And while some may argue that academic writing could stand to have a bit more color and flair, I’m not sure that’s currently the accepted norm (although I wish it was).

In a formal essay, I would never use a sentence fragment. Ever. In a blog, it provides emphasis. Nor would I use slang in an essay.  But here? Yep. In one of my posts , I double-dog dared my readers.  Could you imagine double-dog daring anyone in an academic essay? If you try it, let me know the result.

Another thing that changes is providing your reader with evidence to support your points. In teaching the typical formal essay, I show my students how to quote directly, indirectly, and using individual words. Blogs still use direct quotes, but an indirect quote can be as simple as a vague mention and a link.

MY THESIS STATEMENT

I think blogging is the new persuasive essay – my thesis, finally.

Truth is, I love writing essays. There’s something satisfying about rendering the chaos of thoughts into an elegant form. But I love blogging more. It feels like playing.

I also find it more useful. While our students will need to know how to write essays to get through university, many won’t use it after that, unless they remain in academia. I think writing and persuasive thinking skills are important. However, I question the current products we require of students as proof of their learning. Most of the essays written by our students likely end up in the garbage or the computer trash can. And most are for an audience of one.

Blogging has the potential to reach and influence many. Furthermore, it has greater potential for being a life-long skill. And isn’t that our goal in education? People from all walks and professions blog for the purpose of teaching, creating, and informing. A number of my recent Masters courses didn’t require papers; instead, they required blogging. Why?

Because blogging is the new persuasive essay.

If we’re trying to prepare our students to think critically and argue well, they need to be able to blog. It allows for interaction. It allows for ideas to be tested. And the best posts anywhere in cyberspace tend to have a point that can be argued.

I think blogging across the curriculum, not just in Language Arts, allows for both formative and summative assessment. Blogs allow us to see the progression in the development of both thinking and writing. It may actually take more talent and skill to create an interesting persuasive post (or series of posts) on the French Revolution than a traditional essay.

BLOGGING AS A SKILL

Students definitely need to understand how and why the mechanics (and style) of blogging are different.

The solution? Blogging needs to start earlier, much earlier. I read recently of a kindergarten teacher who blogs with her students. Great idea. There’s a teacher in my division who does amazing things with her grade one class.

I’m not proposing that you need to do things radically different. Teach whatever you teach for Language Arts, or other subjects, but include a blog component. So if you’re teaching sentence structure, teach your students to create complete sentences while blogging. Blogs, like traditional writing, need great structure. If you’re focusing on capitalization or punctuation, transfer this skill to blog writing as well.

If you’re teaching paragraph structure, teach students the paragraph structure required for traditional essays and that for blogs. They’re different. Explain why. It’s likely they won’t be good at it at first. But there is merit to the quote, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly.”

A middle years teacher at my school used to stress out when we talked about student writing. She wanted to know if she was teaching them enough. My reply: “All  I need them to do is write solid paragraphs. If they can do that, I can teach them all kinds of things.” Really, everything I teach is either an addition to, or a subtraction from, a solid paragraph. My work builds on her work. I don’t need her to teach what I teach.  That’s my job.  But without her previous work, mine becomes much more difficult.

The same is true with blogging. Starting from scratch with blogging in grade 10 isn’t impossible. But we could do so much more if they already had the basics. In order to write well, you need to write a lot.

If you don’t currently teach your students to blog, please start. Our students need you to. And if you already teach your students to blog, keep it up. Because blogging is an important 21st century skill. It’s the new persuasive essay.

Shelley Wright is a teacher/education blogger living in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in Canada. She teaches high school English, science and technology. Her passion in education is social justice, global education and helping her students make the world a better place. She blogs at Wright’s Room . Follow her on Twitter at @wrightsroom .

This post originally appeared on Voices from the Learning Revolution.

How To Introduce Yourself As a Blogger (in Blog and Life)

Written by Ankit Singla

3K Followers

Last Updated on:

by Ankit Singla

Today, I want to write something different.

It’s late at night, I have my tea ready, and my mind is wondering about one thing: 

How to introduce yourself as a blogger?

It sounds like it’s no big deal, but it really is. 

Here’s why: 

Table of Contents

• 1. What do you do for a living?
• 2. How I introduce myself now
• 3. Focus on what you do, not what you’re called
• 4. Introducing yourself in a blog
• 5. Introducing yourself to friends and family
• 6. Introducing yourself to total strangers
• 7. Introducing yourself in an author bio box
• 8. Introducing yourself in an interview
• 9. Additional tips when introducing yourself
• 10. Conclusion

“What do you do for a living?”

When I contemplate how bloggers introduce themselves, I’m not just thinking about  writing an “About Me” page .

In the past, I often felt awkward and weird when talking about my profession to friends and relatives. 

Despite trying to describe blogging as accurately as I can, I almost never liked how people responded:

• Some respond with a half-hearted “oh, cool!” 
• Others respond with a confused look on their face. 
• A few respond with a barrage of questions that make the conversation even more uncomfortable.
• Worst of all, some people respond with a very devastating question: “Why don’t you try getting a real job?”

That’s why I disliked the question “ what do you do for a living? ”

For a lot of people, it’s just a simple question. But for bloggers who are yet to make money online, it can be discouraging – especially with how people respond. 

How I introduce myself now

Eventually, I decided to brush the doubt aside. 

I realized that to be a successful blogger, I should feel confident when talking about what I do. 

Today, I’m more than happy with the way I introduce myself in public and on the internet.

Here’s my blogger introduction sample:

Here’s my first piece of advice:

Focus on what you do, not what you’re called

When I get asked about my job now, I don’t just say “I’m a blogger.”

I say, “I help people build a profitable online business through authority building strategies.”

The key difference between the two answers is the FOCUS.

While the first one focuses on a title, the other focuses on a goal.

Here – let me give you a template: 

“I help  [your target audience]  achieve  [their goals]  not only with  [old method] , but through  [your unique method] . “

That will be your credo. 

It is the one-liner that you’ll use to introduce yourself on social media and in person. 

You still have a few things to do if you want to incorporate this into a proper blog introduction. But for now, let’s get your one-liner introduction ready. 

All you have to do is answer four simple questions:

• Who is your target audience?  If you’re new to blogging, targeting a narrow niche is better than casting a wide net. You can analyze your current readers or use  this comprehensive guide   to figure out who you should be targeting. 
• What will you help them with?  What are the goals that your blog aims to help them with? The more specific and clear the objective, the better.
• What is an old method that you think isn’t enough?  This line makes your introduction more impactful since you’re mentioning something people are probably already familiar with. Think of something that everyone is already doing, but usually isn’t enough to get results. 
• What is your unique method?  Finally, you need to coin an original term that encapsulates your value propositions. It should be a framework that guides how you set blogging goals, like “Authority-Driven Blogging.”

I’ll give you a few minutes to come up with answers. 

When you’re done, plug them into the template I shared with you earlier. 

For example, if you’re in the weight loss niche, you can go with something like:

“I help  stay-at-home professionals  achieve their  ideal body  not only with exercises, but through  dynamic diet planning. ”

Once you have your one-liner ready, it’s time to fashion it into different types of introductions based on the situation:

1. How to introduce yourself in a blog

First things first, let’s incorporate your one-liner into your official “About Me” page. 

You probably already know the basics, like:

• Writing a killer headline
• Following-up with a compelling first paragraph
• Using a crystal-clear photo
• Sharing a little backstory
• Finishing up with social proof and a CTA

The next step is to simply insert a version of your one-liner anywhere in your introduction.

Expound it if necessary, like what  Nomadic Matt   did by listing down questions his target audience asks.

How NOT to introduce yourself in a blog:

When writing an introduction in your blog, avoid being vague.

Your introduction shouldn’t leave your readers with more questions than they started.

For example:

“I help people (who?) make money blogging (how?) using easy-to-do strategies (what?) .”

2. How to introduce yourself to friends and family

Your one-liner also serves as an excellent starting point when introducing your profession to friends and relatives. 

Remember, your one-liner already discusses what you do in a sharp and concise way.

The usual follow-up is, “How do you make money with that?”

That’s when you can briefly mention your  monetization strategies , like: 

• Selling an online course
• Selling an eBook
• Doing affiliate marketing

I like how  Julie Page   highlighted her strategies in two short paragraphs: 

How NOT to introduce yourself to family and friends:

When talking about monetization strategies, use words they will understand. 

Avoid using technical terms like: 

“I make money through affiliate commissions  (what?)  and sales of my authority blogging online course  (double what?) .”

3. What about to total strangers?

Believe it or not, it’s actually less awkward to introduce yourself to strangers instead of people you know.  

People tend to be more careful with how they respond in such conversations. In turn, they come up with better follow-up questions that are easy to answer. 

The only rule here is to relax and be yourself.

Take a page out of Rob and Kennedy’s book when they talked about themselves on  Email Marketing Heroes .

How NOT to introduce yourself to strangers:

Never oversell yourself. Keep it light and try not to say something that’ll put them off, like:

“I teach bloggers my own digital marketing formula. You can go to my website to check out my products, I also get thousands of monthly traffic there.”

4. Introducing yourself in an author bio box

If you ever tried  guest blogging , you’ll understand how important it is to write a compelling author bio. 

Not only should it capture attention – it should also motivate readers to click the link to your website. 

You can model it after the one-liner you wrote earlier, but it doesn’t have to be an exact copy. 

What’s important is that readers know exactly what you do, what you offer, and how readers will benefit.

Here’s a good example by  Tom Southern   in his guest post on OptinMonster. 

How NOT to introduce yourself in a bio box:

Whatever you do, don’t be vague and shy away from the opportunity to promote something meaningful.

Don’t write something like this: 

“I’m a freelance writer and part-time fashion blogger  (where?) . I write about men’s shoes, corporate style, grooming  (how exactly will readers benefit?) .”

5. Finally, introducing yourself in an interview

“Tell us a bit about yourself.”

That’s how a lot of interviews start with these days. 

The key here is to remember one thing: 

The audience and interviewers probably already have an idea of what you do. 

That gives you an excuse to talk a little about your accomplishments and experience. 

Remember, they’re not wondering about your job. Rather, they’re asking “Why should I listen to this person?”

I recall being thrown this question right off the bat in a  BloggersPassion   interview: 

If you’re being interviewed for a broad audience, then it’s fair to mention a thing or two about your business. 

That’s when you can go back to your one-liner and make a solid first impression on the audience. 

How NOT to introduce yourself in an interview:

Doing anything but establish your authority and credibility is a mistake when introducing yourself in an interview.

“My name is Ankit Singla and I’m a full-time blogger. I blog about blogging  (just a bad introduction across the board) .” 

Additional tips when introducing yourself 

Feeling more confident in yourself now?

Before you head out there, remember that no two social interactions are exactly the same. 

In most cases, utilizing your one-liner is enough to turn any conversation into a comfortable and meaningful one. Other times, you need to try a bit harder.

So, before I end this post, here are a few more tips you should keep in your back pocket:

• Improve your posture
• Perfect your “About Me” page
• Don’t look down and maintain eye contact when speaking
• Don’t look at your phone
• Dress well 
• Practice your one-liner in front of a mirror
• Don’t be afraid to admit if you’re feeling awkward
• Answer one question at a time, don’t overexplain 
• Don’t offer something you’re selling unless you’re asked to
• Try not to discuss your income or just give a ballpark figure
• Don’t use technical terms that the other person won’t understand
• Ask questions about the other person as well
• Stay humble
• Smile and have fun!

Well – I must say I enjoyed writing that. 

Remember, blogging is a full-time career. 

You need to talk the talk before you can walk the walk. 

With the tips above, you should always feel like a million dollars when introducing yourself to others.

What about you? How would you write your one-liner introduction?

Paste it in the comments below and I’ll let you know what I think.

Additional resources you might be interested in:

• Best Blogging Resources – Check All Tools That I Use
• Blog Editorial Calendar – Manage All Your Tasks Effectively
• Perfect Blog Post Structure – Create Outlines Like A Pro

Ankit Singla

Ankit Singla is a full-time blogger, YouTuber, author, and public speaker. He founded and leads Master Blogging . With over 13 years of blogging expertise, he has assisted numerous aspiring bloggers in achieving their dreams of creating successful blogs.

Popular Posts by Ankit Singla ( see latest )

• 11 Best Blog Topic Research Tools (Free and Paid) + Tutorial
• 7 Best Keyword Research Chrome Extensions for Bloggers
• 9 Best Digital Products to Sell as a Blogger [All Profitable]

Master Blogging, powered by Ankit Singla’s 13 years of blogging expertise, is your reliable resource for building a profitable blogging business. Here, you’ll gain the insights and support to thrive in blogging.

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Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay

by Shelley Wright | Jun 22, 2012 | Making The Shift , The How of 21st Century Teaching , Voices , Web Tools That Deepen Learning | 49 comments

I spend three years teaching my high school students how to write a persuasive essay. For many students, it takes that long. (And I’m lucky to have them that long in my school.)

Part of the problem is that our current school systems — and not just in Canada — aren’t great at producing independent thinkers.  Without this ability, it’s hard to create a great thesis statement, anticipate the arguments against it, and then compose your own argument in light of what you understand about the pros and cons of an issue.

So for three years, I write for them, and with them. We talk about opening paragraphs, and they learn how to write them with their thesis statement either as the first or last sentence. (The latter requires more skill.) They learn to use transition words, embed quotations to support their argument, consider the advantages of active vs. passive voice, vary their sentences, and many other skills, all in the hope of creating a strong argument.

The truth is lately I’ve come to question the point of much of this. Does the average person, once they leave school, spend a lot of time composing academic essays? Is this the best way for our students to show their learning?  In some places, the academic 5 paragraph essay is hailed as the Holy Grail of non-fiction writing achievement. Yet even if a student can become a great persuasive essay writer, they’re still only semi-literate , at least according to the definition of 21st Century Literacies .

Blogging is a different beast

While traditional essay writing may not help alleviate this situation, I think blogging can. Here’s the problem; Blogging is an entirely different beast. And one of the things I’ve learned about my students is that they don’t necessarily transfer a skill they’ve learned in one area to another without difficulty, or even prompting.

For one, the paragraphing is different.  The large, solid paragraphs of prose that can be found in a typical persuasive essay, can feel arduous and cumbersome to all but the most determined reader.

Instead, blog paragraphs tend to be shorter. It allows the piece to feel fluid and speeds up the rate at which your reader reads (often through the glare of a computer monitor or on a phone or tablet screen). And while the effective blogger still uses transition words, as many aren’t necessary to provide the piece with a feeling of fluidity and coherence.

Sometimes a paragraph is one simple sentence, used for emphasis.

Another thing is the thesis statement. Its placement, in a blog, is up for grabs. Did you catch where mine is? Actually, I haven’t written it yet. Huh?!

Double-dog daringly different

In a formal essay, I would never use a sentence fragment. Ever. In a blog, it provides emphasis. Nor would I use slang in an essay.  But here? Yep. In one of my posts , I double-dog dared my readers.  Could you imagine double-dog daring anyone in an academic essay? If you try it, let me know the result.

Another thing that changes is providing your reader with evidence to support your points.  In teaching the typical formal essay, I show my students how to quote directly, indirectly, and using individual words. Blogs still use direct quotes, but an indirect quote can be as simple as a vague mention and a link.

We discover my thesis statement…

I think blogging is the new persuasive essay -my thesis, finally.

Truth is, I love writing essays. There’s something satisfying about rendering the chaos of thoughts into an elegant form. But I love blogging more. It feels like playing.

I also find it more useful. While our students will need to know how to write essays to get through university, many won’t use it after that, unless they remain in academia. I think writing and persuasive thinking skills are important. However, I question the current products we require of students as proof of their learning. Most of the essays written by our students likely end up in the garbage or the computer trash can. And most are for an audience of one.

Blogging has the potential to reach and influence many. Furthermore, it has greater potential for being a life-long skill. And isn’t that our goal in education? People from all walks and professions blog for the purpose of teaching, creating, and informing. A number of my recent Masters courses didn’t require papers; instead, they required blogging. Why?

Because blogging is the new persuasive essay.

If we’re trying to prepare our students to think critically and argue well, they need to be able to blog. It allows for interaction. It allows for ideas to be tested. And the best posts anywhere in cyberspace tend to have a point that can be argued.

I think blogging across the curriculum, not just in Language Arts, allows for both formative and summative assessment. Blogs allow us to see the progression in the development of both thinking and writing. It may actually take more talent and skill to create an interesting persuasive post (or series of posts) on the French Revolution than a traditional essay.

We need to teach blogging as a skill

Students definitely need to understand how and why the mechanics (and style) of blogging are different.

Grade One blogger (Kathy Cassidy)

The solution? Blogging needs to start earlier, much earlier. I read recently of a kindergarten teacher who blogs with her students. Great idea. There’s a teacher in my division who does amazing things with her grade one class.

I’m not proposing that you need to do things radically different. Teach whatever you teach for Language Arts, or other subjects, but include a blog component.  So if you’re teaching sentence structure, teach your students to create complete sentences while blogging. Blogs, like traditional writing, need great structure.  If you’re focusing on capitalization or punctuation, transfer this skill to blog writing as well.

If you’re teaching paragraph structure, teach students the paragraph structure required for traditional essays and that for blogs.  They’re different.  Explain why. It’s likely they won’t be good at it at first.  But there is merit to the quote, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly.”

A middle years teacher at my school used to stress out when we talked about student writing. She wanted to know if she was teaching them enough. My reply: “All  I need them to do is write solid paragraphs. If they can do that, I can teach them all kinds of things.” Really, everything I teach is either an addition to, or a subtraction from, a solid paragraph. My work builds on her work. I don’t need her to teach what I teach.  That’s my job.  But without her previous work, mine becomes much more difficult.

The same is true with blogging.  Starting from scratch with blogging in grade 10 isn’t impossible. But we could do so much more if they already had the basics. In order to write well, you need to write a lot.

If you don’t currently teach your students to blog, please start. Our students need you to. And if you already teach your students to blog, keep it up. Because blogging is an important 21st century skill. It’s the new persuasive essay.

• Latest Posts

Shelley Wright

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• Start with Why: The power of student-driven learning - May 8, 2019
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49 Comments

Shelley, I love this!! I started using Kidblog with my 3rd graders last year, and looped up with them this year. Their 4th grade blogs were much improved, and I enjoyed watching them begin to develop their own blogging “style”.

I did get some negative comments from both parents and other teachers that this was not “writing.” They felt it was too casual and too unstructured. (I’ll admit, the Grammar Nazi in me gasped when I saw sentences in your blog beginning with “and.”)

In lieu of a research paper this year, my students created Glogs that contained text boxes with information (well written paragraphs), but also allowed links, images, and a personal design. They loved it!

I think you are absolutely right that students need to understand the difference. There are times when more formal writing is necessary, so I’m sure to teach it and require it on certain assignments. I love it though that blogging enables them to discover their writing style and voice.

Blogging does feel like playing, and kids love to play. If blogging makes them love to write, I think we’re fools not to encourage it! Thanks for a great post!

Thanks, Patti. I think, unfortunately, there are many people who don’t see the point or value of blogging. My students, for the most part, have always enjoyed it. What I disgree with is teaching only academic writing in schools. I think there are many formats our students need to learn — blogging being only one. I think there’s value to academic writing, but most of our kids aren’t going to become academics, and that’s a good thing 🙂

Throughout high school I was taught that you couldn’t start a sentence with because or and. Then I went to university and was told you could. Boy was that a shock!

When I was in college I was taught not to use the first person pronoun in my writing, EVER. Then I went to graduate school (Harvard) and everybody did it! Shocked again.

Patti, thanks for posting links to keep me updated. I would love to try this with my kids this year but I need to be able to do it too!

Great blog post on writing. I’m constantly trying to find more and various ways to have students write in my Grade 8 US History class. Part of my task is to prepare them for the persuasive essay format on the ACT and the MME (Michigan Merit Exam). Your blog was helpful. Thanks.

Shelley, As I started reading your blog I was thinking, I teach some of those things to my fourth graders. However, it seems after fourth grade the writing drops to a minimal until it is tested again in 7th grade. (Or at least that’s the way it appears to me).

I introduced blogging to my students 2 years ago and they loved it! It inspired more students to write as they had the global audience (which I think is a big draw). This year my students enjoyed it as well.

However, I never really thought about the difference between writing in a blog and writing formally – but will be discussing it with this year’s class.

Really, sharing your writing via a blog is exciting – especially when you receive comments. I’ll be sharing your post around as I would love to get more teachers to see the importance of blogging!

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, Nancy! Students having an authentic audience is important. That’s why we normally write. We have something to communicate to someone, and we choose the best medium for it, as well as an appropriate style. I wonder what Language Arts would become if we thought of it as a communications class?

This rings true for me in every paragraph. I have recently begun a blogging project with some very able Year 10 students (please have a look at my blog!) and there has been quite a lot of resistance along the lines of “What’s the point?”

Your emphasis on moving with the times instead of stubbornly sticking to tradition strikes a resonant chord with my own teaching. Please keep this up, you have just made my day!

I think, sometimes, kids don’t see the point. They’re not really used to having any of their work having a point or a real audience. I found that once my students got used to doing work that was authentic and meaningful, the “what’s the point?” stopped.

While I agree with much of the fine print of your argument, specifically notions of voice and your ideas about what good writing should feel/sound like, it seems to me that your premise is false. The blog/ persuasive essay duality is a false dichotomy. Certainly, students should consider form and purpose when they write, but they shouldn’t learn, and we shouldn’t teach, that blogs are all short paragraphs richly voiced. Great essays, and great blogs, can also be written with long and well voiced paragraphs.

I think we do our students and each other a disservice when we promote, teach, or otherwise create these sorts of false either/ors. (The same is true of the grammar policing we do often at school, evidenced by Patti’s mention of using a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence in a comment above.)

Good writing works. We can explore and explain why it works, but it’s never as simple as following all the rules for the particular container or mode or genre. It’s in the playful fiddling with all of those that good writing emerges.

Thanks for engaging my brain here.

I agree that good writing is good writing, and I don’t believe that blogs or the persuasive essay is an either/or thing. I think both should happen, but where I currently work, it doesn’t.

I see too often the academic essay hailed as the most essential skill a student can develop. I think the reason behind it is laudable;students should be able to argue their point of view. But too often there is no authentic audience or task attached to it, and it becomes for students another hoop to jump to get the “A”.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about it is the heirarchy that develops around kids who are considered “academic”, those who can write the essay, and those who are not. This is bad for kids and teachers, so lately I’ve come to ask why are we doing all of this, and aren’t there more important skills they can learn?

I’m not sure I agree with you on the long paragraphs in a blog. I think you have to be a great writer to pull it off, and I haven’t read a lot of those. But that’s also what I tell my students. I don’t tell them they can’t do it. Instead, I tell them they have to be a strong writer to make it work. And for some of them, that’s the challenge they need. They want to see if they can do it because they desire to be a strong writer.

I teach composition at the community college level and trying to break the 5 paragraph habit is one of the first things I work with them on. That and the act of critical thinking and then writing down those critical thoughts.

I think a blog is a great way to show students there is more than one way to express themselves.

I am also a firm believer in blogging with my students! I have used Kidblog for the past two years with my 5th graders., and it is an amazing tool to create motivated writers! “Write On!: Why I Love Kidblog!” http://oldschoolteach.blogspot.com/2011/10/write-on-why-i-love-kidblog.html

I like and appreciate the fact that you made your points and also demonstrated them.

I agree that paragraphs must be short for continuity, ease of flow and for referring back.

I would add that you can include pics, vids, links, graphs, etc. to add flair and information to your persuasive blog/ opinion post.

Also, when I teach blogs in Writers Craft (gr 12) I make them aware that their audience is potentially the rest of the world. Daunting. And it makes them want to proofread a lot more and to consider the attractiveness of their blog and their writing style.

Think about this: It is incredible that we as teachers can teach writing in such a way that the teacher isn’t the only one whoever sees their writing.

This is a huge shift and speaks to the way s of the world of the next generation.

Until someone comes up with an “The Elements of Blog Style” that Bud and Tom and Shelley and others agree deserves respect, we don’t have a real standard to go by. Shelley describes what makes sense to her — Bud Hunt, a respected National Writing Project proponent demurs. No doubt others do as well.

Tom says that “paragraphs must be short for continuity, ease of flow and for referring back.” I’m not sure it is a “must” but in nearly a decade of editing group blogs and online diaries with a hundred or more educators, my sense is that this is *generally* a good rule of thumb. It seems to me that the blog author needs a very good reason to publish long paragraphs that will appear on a screen at an unpredictable size and width (density) and be viewed by all kinds of eyes with all kinds of vision challenges. Certainly the writing will need to be compelling!

I don’t know the history of the long paragraph (chances are I’ll be researching it this week to satisfy my demon), but I’m guessing that long paragraphs are the residual of several thousand years of writing on smooth flat rocks and hides and papyrus and hard-to-get pulp paper printed a sheet at a time. Humans crammed as much as they could into the scarce space. Nothing scarce about cyberspace. Why not change the rules? Nostalgia for writing styles is okay – I certainly have some myself. But nostalgia is not a good basis for contemporary rulemaking.

Here’s an excellent way to create an authentic audience for your students! “Quadblogging:Creating a Global Connection!” http://techlovesmyclassroom.blogspot.com/2012/06/quadblogging-making-global-connections.html

Very interesting food for thought. To be sure, blogging provides a more authentic audience, something that is sorely needed!

I also agree that when it comes to writing, there is no “form” with blogs. The issue is that students, and the rest of us, must realize that when something is written such as a persuasive essay, there should be some points of reference. What I find is, that due to a society that cannot focus but for short periods of time, thoughts are expressed based on unfounded suppositions. Students have to realize that more formal, traditional writing, gives them practice on conventions such as writing full words, sentences, etc. and some other standards of grammar. Not old fashioned, but keeps things from becoming a free-for-all.

I think blogging should provide students with the opportunity to practice using conventions and form — in an authentic context. I don’t think that only formal writing can, or should, do this.

I think one of the things we often forget when teaching writing is that we’re teaching them to communicate, and that in writing there is a “code” of communication that has developed over the centuries between reader and writer. There are reasons we write and punctuate as we do. Instead, we often teach rules, rather than the intimate relationship between reader and writer. I think the latter is much more persuasive for students and creates better thinkers and writers in the long run.

Thank you for that article. I’ve been perusing articles on education for about three hours now, and I am glad I came across yours.(catching up on my education articles)

Not only do we need to move toward the realities of our students experiences, but there is room for interpretation on how we teach to it.

We can argue all day long on the who’s and how’s , but at the end of the day is your writing effective. In whatever form or voice you choose. peoples response to your blog will be the best indicator.

Now, how about those poorly constructed e-mails. Would someone please blog on the voice and content of e-mails. If I’m not written into your will, I’m not reading a long drawn out e-mail.

Peter, no one is suggesting that blogging should become a ‘free-for all”, it’s all about creating enthusiasm for longer pieces of writing that create and sustain a point of view. Of course we should insist on standard English, but we can do that when setting up the success criteria for blogging just as we would for a formal essay.

If blogging gets students to engage with and develop their process of writing, I’m all for it, especially if it helps students understand that they may express themselves in writing through a variety of structures. As a high school teacher I spend an enormous amount of time and energy trying to convince students that not every idea they have needs to be one that can be expressed in five paragraphs.

I do worry, however, that the informality of blogs may encourage vague and formless expression of feelings and suppositions. Though the academic essay is only one mode of written expression it does teach students important skills that transfer to other modes: the structuring of ideas, the presentation and rigorous analysis of evidence, the effects of sentence structure and voice on meaning, to name but a few.

Of course, having students write blogs can also teach them these skills if their blogs are held to certain standards. The five-paragraph essay may be some dirty bathwater that needs to be tossed, but let’s make sure to save the baby, the hallmarks of good writing.

I absolutely agree that blogging is an excellent platform for writing and provides the with an authentic audience. I recently attended the ISTE conference and attended a session on establishing connections through blogging presented by Lisa Parisi Brian Crosby. Your blog just reaffirms everything that I took away from this session. Lisa and Brian’s students’ writing is truly amazing because, as you mentioned, they have the opportunity to use their own voice to take on issues that matter to them, then when they receive responses to their posts, they are further inspired to write even more.

I have the opportunity to coordinate a Teaching American History Grant,, primarily targeted for fifth grade teachers who lay the foundations of American History in their instructional program. One of our grant goals is to utilize Web 2.0 technology as an instructional and collaboration tool. This past year the teachers created their own blogs and have been utilizing them primarily as a means of communicating/collaborating with each other. The goal for this next year is to have each of the teachers create a blog in their classroom (or utilize one they have already created) so that students can utilize this platform for writing, with the goal of having others responding to their blogs. Since persuasive writing is one of the types of writing taught in fifth grade, I believe there will be several opportunities for the students to utilize these persuasive writing techniques in their blogs.

Hi Shelley! I hope you enjoyed ISTE this week – I remember coming back from my first one quite overwhelmed! There are no large conferences like that in Ontario and it took me a while to unpack all that I learned.

Although I have only been blogging for 6 years, I’ve noticed big changes. Blogs or ‘weblogs’ used to be places where folks shared their travels and learning on the web so that others could follow their links and have some understanding of where they received inspiration, new connections or knowledge.

Now, you’re lucky to have any links at all shared, and if they are, they are often links back to the writer’s own work!

Don’t get me wrong, I love that blogs give students an authentic audience (especially since persuasive writing is a part of our curriculum here in Ontario as early as the primary grades) and I’m not a ‘purist’ about them. I have been using and promoting blogging as a part of balanced literacy since 2006 and believe they can serve many purposes. I just hope that we do let blogs stand apart from some of our traditional forms of writing so that we aren’t trying to do old school things with new tools.

Many unread and discarded blogs exist because teachers jump onto the blogging bandwagon without scaffolding students to real conversations and authentic purposes for writing.

Thanks for bringing up some important conversations here. 🙂

I completely agree with what you’ve said, especially your point, “Many unread and discarded blogs exist because teachers jump onto the blogging bandwagon without scaffolding students to real conversations and authentic purposes for writing.”

I think this is one of those “21st C. skills” that students need. What does it mean to speak and blog authentically? This will be an especially difficult thing for many high school students to answer since they’ve often had few authentic writing experiences in their academic career. But this ia an important discussion!

This is great! I worked with 4th and5th graders this past year on blogging. They did an amazing job! Really only since Jan…came so far. Thanks for this thinking! I think writing for more than an audience of 1 changed their effort, energy and enthusiasm!

It’s amazing what kids can do in such a short time. Thanks for sharing!

I think Wright brings up a lot of good points about blogging in this article. I remember writing persuasive essays and feeling stuck to pick a topic. When I did settle on one it felt so typical of a persuasive argument. We are pushing more and more for authentic practice and work from students and blogging is an excellent way to practice naturally. There are blogs about everything under the sun that you could allow students to use in order to start with and practice blogging. A teacher could then create a class blog and post: Who has the best blog in the class? Hook, line, and sink her! What better way to get kids into it then going right to what they are passionate about. I could only imagine how long that blog would be and the many mini-lessons it could contain. Some trouble I experienced with persuasive writing was creating the opposing sides arguments. Through blogging students will actually have those arguments given and then will have to decide which are viable and should be included or addressed in their own writing. Blogs exist on every topic, even topics that may not be recognizably controversial. This is another reason why blogging to teach persuasive writing is beneficial to students. Blogs are less intimidating because they are short bits of information and the reader has preference over which ones to give more attention to and which to ignore. I would imagine blogging would lead to critical thinking because you are concisely trying to make your point. No one wants to read a long blog post. That’s part of why people blog in the first place. Blogging is also able to reach far more people and cause action than an academic essay whose audience is far less accessible.

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Hey Shelly, I think this is an excellent blog, I really enjoy your outlook on education and your core beliefs that teachers need to move forward with the 21st century. I’m a Grade 10 English teacher in the Middle East and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for websites that would be ideal for getting my students excited about blogging?

I think it’s really important when students first start blogging that they research and write about things that really matter to them. It might be one way to infuse student choice into the classroom. Here are some resources that you might find helpful to get started:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/quad-blogging-technology-classroom-suzie-boss

http://langwitches.org/blog/2012/10/08/implementing-blogging-in-the-classroom/

And this link has pretty much everything you could ever need!

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/12/26/the-best-sources-for-advice-on-student-blogging/

Hope this helps!

Dear Shelley, Thank you so much for your blog post – it was a gift that Carol Mayne sent me as I have had a huge investment in blogging with my classes. I’m constantly learning and revising the process, but love how it has transformed my class and the writing (and reading) my kids are doing. I look forward to more posts by you! Cheers, Pamela Hunnisett (Calgary)

I just wanted to let you know that this post inspired me in the beginning of the year, and my students are now blogging on an (almost) weekly basis. It’s transforming their writing and my classroom. Thank you!

That’s terrific to hear! Thanks for sharing your success it helps to propel me forward in my own journey 🙂

Can I just say what a comfort to find a person that truly knows what they’re talking about over the internet. You definitely realize how to bring a problem to light and make it important. A lot more people must look at this and understand this side of the story. It’s surprising you’re not more popular given that you definitely possess the gift.

Shelly, I enjoyed reading your thoughts and too agree that it is never too early to start teaching our students how to be productive digital citizens. In the age of IM and text messaging I was afraid writing in complete sentences with thought was going to increasingly become a lost art. Children at an early age are thirst for knowledge and just as they are able to more readily learn another language, digital literacy should be considered one of importance.

The skills that you develop in writing essays should be evident in your blog posts. In fact, these skills should be evident in all of your writing exercises. Beautifully structured paragraphs and concise sentences are always a joy to read.

My brother suggested I may like this blog. He was entirely right.

This publish actually made my day. You can not imagine simply how so much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!

Thanks for the post. It clarifies my thoughts on the matter, as I sooo agree with your points. (Grammar police on the ‘so’).

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This is fact writing can be very helpful just like essay writing which is something more factor by writing an essay is variation use of punctuation

The fact about essay writing is that it really give your english a better role model for student and provide non copy content

Blogging has greater potential for being a life-long skill.

http://www.writingresearchwork.blogspot.com/

Shelley! Thank you for writing this. We’ve started a new project-based academy at The American School of Lima and students are constantly blogging. Best of all, they’re loving it and enjoying writing again. Here’s one of many great examples: http://gisellasilva.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/your-college-search-should-start-with-a-long-look-in-the-mirror.html .

Through their blogs, the Innovation Academy students get to reflect on their learning, find their voice as writers, experiment with organization, play with words, and begin to think more clearly and critically. You’ve put into words what I’ve been discovering through this whole year. THANK YOU!

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I am now a huge fan of blogging and see the real value of sharing ideas and resources as a professional and hope to develop my writing skills through new and interesting blogs I create myself. To teach students to blog effectively I think we need to learn how to create interesting blogs ourselves. http://www.dissertationwizards.co.uk

Hi Shelley, I’m a Grade 4 Teacher in Singapore, and this year we transformed a Persuasive Essay unit into a Blogging Unit. I thought it was engaging for students to powerful for them to think of themselves as writers who could access a wider range of readers, rather than just their classroom teacher and classmates. There was some resistance from some of the teachers in the grade level, but your argument sums it up nicely. Thank you. I enjoyed this excerpt and support your thinking!

A very informative post! I agree with you on the fact that blogging should be given more emphasis in our schools as opposed to writing academic essays. This is especially true given that technology is changing things and blogging can actually be a career choice for some students down the road. Excellent post, thanks!

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• You Should Read… (June 24, 2012) - [...]  Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay – I have said this before, but Shelley Wright is my favourite blogger.…
• Teacher Makes Persuasive Case for Blogging as the New Persuasive Essay « Think Now Education - [...] an English teacher from Saskatchewan, makes that case in a PLPNetwork blog post that the traditional persuasive essay, which…
• Blogging Is the New Persuasive Essay | John Weatherford - [...] Blogging Is the New Persuasive Essay. [...]
• Unlearning Academic Writing | My Wired Life - [...] this recent blog post, “Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay,” Shelly Wright argues that learning how to write for…
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• Educ 600 Presentation | Personal Electronic Devices in the Secondary Classroom - [...] Shelley, W. (n.d.). Blogging Is the New Persuasive Essay. Powerful Learning Practice. Retrieved June 29, 2012, from   http://plpnetwork.com/2012/06/22/blogging-persuasive-essay/ [...]
• The best way to begin writing is to begin writing. – Literacy Change - [...] on all of the comments their blogs receive. When I came across Shelley Wright’s article on blogging as the…
• Typical Problems with Lower Scoring Essays (Part I) | STAARwrite - [...] papers I review.  The most fundamental aspects of the paper, like organization and content, is dependent on the thesis. …
• You Should Read…(September 9, 2012) - [...] what we would think of traditional writing exercises (for another great read on this, check out Shelley Wright’s post…
• MiddleWeb's Latest Middle Grades Education Resources | MiddleWeb - [...] Blogging is the new persuasive essay, says Eng/LA teacher Shelley Wright in this persuasive blog post at the Voices…
• Smart writing – smart learning! « Teaching using web 2.0 - [...] important for my students to be able to persuasively argue, but now they learn how to do it via blogging,…
• I used to think… « Wright'sRoom - [...] important for my students to be able to persuasively argue, but now they learn how to do it via…
• Some of My Favourite Posts From 2012 - [...]  Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay – I could easily share all of Shelly Wright’s posts here, but this…
• Moving from writing to blogging | S.T.E.A.M. at Dickinson Fine Arts Academy - [...] it’s been a while.  I found some good advice, but what stood out to me was this article, “Blogging…
• Constructing an effective blog post | unteaching - [...] It can help you to develop your writing skills [...]
• Reflection – [BCM240] | flukeaus - […] seem like a constructive way to learn the course material. However, I am a big advocate of the blogging…
• Three Ways My Students Blog and Why It’s AWESOME | Three Teachers Talk - […] test both require students to be effective persuasive writers. I like this blogger’s post:  Blogging is the New Persuasive…
• Why Academic Teaching Doesn’t Help Kids Excel In Life | MindShift - […] belief that the pinnacle of success in English was the ability to write "the essay." But I've radically changed…
• Academics: What’s it good for? | Wright'sRoom - […] belief that the pinnacle of success in English was the ability to write "the essay." But I've radically changed…
• articles that are persuasive | ARTICLE THAT - […] Blogging Is the New Persuasive Essay […]
• BREAK THE BARRIERS – USE SOCIAL MEDIA AS A LEARNING TOOL! PART1–CLASSROOM BLOGS | Aysin Alp's Blog - […] is also a good way for the introverts to express themselves. As an English teacher, I can say that blogging…
• Homeschooling Help: Don't Be Afraid to Use New Learning "Tools" (And Why I Let My Son Start Blogging) - Truly Rich Mom - […] this article on why academic teaching doesn’t help kids excel at life, and this piece on how blogging is…
•  Personal Thoughts on Blogging – magnifique2016 - […] came across a blog titled Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay by Shelley Wright yesterday. At first, the writer…
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Travel Bloggers: What to Write and How to Write a Travel Blog in 2024 (50+ Tips)

“I want to start a travel blog, what do you think I should write about?”

True story.

I was a few drinks down at a London Travel Massive event and a lady unknown to me had just targeted me with the above. In fact, interrupting the conversation I was having midflow. Usually full of advice and happy to dish it out this question had me stumped, as much as her demeanour.

There’s no sugar coating it: I really think you should have at least a few ideas of what you want to write about before you start even thinking about setting up a travel blog. If not a few fully written posts so you have some material to play around with when it comes to style and design.

Since then I’ve often been asked how to write a travel blog, and think back to this night. 

Talking about the interaction with a close fellow travel blogger the next day we established that both of us had lists of at least tens of articles we wanted to write, but seeing as we both worked full time at that point, never had the time to see them through. Though I could always rely on a  professional essay writing service  to help me with the writing part, that’s something that I prefer to do myself.

You can’t win.

If you’re in ‘clueless Cathy’s’ camp above, and are stuck for what to write about on your travel blog, what you need is some travel blogging inspiration.

Take a look a the ideas below on what to write in a travel blog and think about which idea appeals to you most. Then, just get started! 

This is a pretty long post so if you’re all good for inspiration but need some advice on how to write travel blogs , click to go to the second half.

What to write in a travel blog: 10 ideas 

If you’re trying to work out what to write in a travel blog, here are 10 ideas for you. When it comes to travel blog writing you might just need a few ideas to start you off, and then the creative juices will start to flow and travel blog ideas will be flowing out of you. 

Use two or three of these to get you started writing your travel blog.

If you want to see a travel blog example, take a look around my blog, obviously – and also check out this list of the top 50 travel bloggers in the UK . If that doesn’t give you inspiration, I don’t know what will!

1. Write about your first holiday

This is a good way to get started in blogging about travel. Tell your readers about your memories of your first holiday – I did this when I found some Euro Disney memorabilia when I was cleaning out my room. It was my first holiday abroad and I’d kept the sugar sachets from Disney for almost 20 years! Think about describing the way it affected all your senses to get you started. Are there particular sounds, smells and sights that take you back to that moment in time?

Take my advice, first printed in Wanderlust Magazine in Could You Write a Travel Blog?

“Before you decide on a name, platform or topic, take a deep breath and close your eyes,” says travel blogger Victoria Philpott. Vicky, who blogs alongside her day job, suggests wannabe bloggers start by conjuring up their happiest travel memory and letting the story flow.”

2. Write about your locale

London is the number one travel destination in the world, if you live there you’ve got enough content to see you through for years. Find unique events, have a unique view and there you have your next article. And that’s just an example of my blogging gone wrong – I lived there for years, got to know a few neighbourhoods really well, but did I write about them? No. They’re straight on the never ending to do list.

I spent my first 18 years in a village in the Midlands called Barton-under-Needwood (pop. 5000). A quick Google search shows me that no one has written any sort of guide to things to do there. There’s a unique opportunity, especially as there are new developments in the area. This might not seem like the most exciting post if it’s covering somewhere you lived for so long but your insider knowledge is invaluable and someone, somewhere, will be interested.

You never know when world interest in any place could start to peak and you’d be all set up to be the go to person on that area.

Writing in a travel bullet journal is a great way to get started.

Subscribe on YouTube to see more of my adventures

First travel blog post

Travel blog writing doesn’t have to be about exotic, faraway places, it can easily be your own neighbourhood. In fact, I find that a lot of travel bloggers who’ve been doing it as long as I have, have come back to England and decided to concentrate on writing their travel blogs about here, as it suddenly becomes so much more appealing. 

Follow me on Instagram @VickyFlipFlop for the latest.

3. Where shall I go on holiday next year?

Don’t answer me by saying , answer by writing in blogging about travel. Create a blog post with all the reasons you have to advise why I should go to a certain place on holiday. Another aspect of travel blogging is persuasive writing.

There are a few destinations I’ve been to that I’ve really, really loved and I want my readers to see them too. In writing about New York , Vietnam , Porto and now Tokyo I want to persuade my readers that they should go too.

If they like my blog I know they’ll like them, and a happy reader will come back for more.

Watch this little video of what to write about for more ideas…

4. Write about you

The juiciest posts are the most personal ones. They’re the ones I like to read to get to know the blogger I’m reading about. I admire people who can be so honestly open about life, people like Toni over handling mental, health and family issues while travelling and Planet D about how their travel blog saved their marriage .

Travel blog examples like these help you to see there are real person at the end of these blog posts – real people with real problems.

I find it very difficult to write posts like this. In fact there are only two on my blog: one about why I was going travelling when my boyfriend dumped me  and a dedication to my nan when she died, which I can’t read without crying as I’ve just proven to myself.

If you’re suffering from blogger’s block – bit like writer’s block – then this is the post for you.

READ MORE: 66 Positive Affirmations for Writers

5. Your thoughts on a destination

I really like writing about my impressions of a country once I’m back and have processed my thoughts, feelings and photos.

Posts like What Vietnam was Like For Me and What is Cuba Really Like? Busting the Tourist Myth may not be as instantly appealable as a quickie list post on the destination but writing them makes me happy.

I like to read back over them to remind me of how I felt when I was there as you can really use your experience and creativity in posts like this.

Pin this travel blogging guide for later?

Lists are popular for a reason – they’re easy to read and quick to do. Whole websites have been created to just feature lists although they’re usually pretty flakey.

Outlandish titles like 11 Awesome Ways to Sneak Alcohol into Festivals will usually generate a few more views too – if audience figures are one of your travel blogging goals that is. Look at other bloggers’ travel blog examples for inspiration.

When I’m in a destination I’ll look for the best things to do there and it’ll be a list I’m after, not some think piece I mention above. So give your audience what they want and write a well-researched useful to do list.

7. What’s popular?

Some of the most popular topics on my blog are Vietnam and Glastonbury. I rank well for these in Google and I can see from my analytics that my readers keep coming back for more. Once you know that you have a popular topic or post on your blog it makes sense to keep creating more valuable content around it.

Someone once said to me: “Go the extra mile, it’s less crowded there”. Meaning, put the effort in, more than anyone else, and you will be rewarded. Or something along those lines anyway. 

You can link from your already popular posts and know that your readers will enjoy it. Take a look at the keywords they come in on on Google Analytics for inspiration on how to write more.

8. What do you want to read?

When you’re looking for information on a destination make sure to note the questions you have and the answers you can’t find – then you know the gaps to fill when it comes to you writing up your trip. 

From my research and subsequent article on The Best Things to Do in Vietnam According to Travel Bloggers I found that no one had really done a guide to travelling around Vietnam, it was just all advice on particular aspects.

It took me ages to plan that trip so I wrote up all my findings and now my Two Weeks in Vietnam Itinerary is the second most popular post on my blog. More importantly, it’s inspired loads of people to explore Vietnam by themselves, rather than book on expensive tours.

I’ll pat myself on the back there.

9. Go niche

Sometimes the nichest of niche things work well when you’re blogging about travel, as you’ll be answering very specific questions.

Another of the most popular articles on my blog is 9-Hour Stopover in Qatar: Is it Worth Exploring? Not something an average reader would be interested in but because it’s so specific and not many people have written about it, it does well in Google search and again, I’ve helped people decide on what to do in Qatar.

Insider, actual tried and tested travel knowledge, is what makes a travel blogger stand out over the average travel company.

10. Interviews

Interviews are a great way to get started if you need some inspiration. Don’t just look to other travel bloggers though – unless you’ve got an exclusive or they’ve got a really interesting story there are already so many about.

Instead, interview people from your travels and write a profile of them rather than just a Q and A. This will help you to get more of you in there as well as them. It also means it’s not just an email exchange but a well thought out background piece.

How to write a travel blog without travelling

Learning how to write travel blogs isn’t easy, and it may take a while for you to find your style. Stick with it, it’s fun!

As you’ll have just read in those examples, you don’t actually have to be travelling to write a travel blog. Interviews, lists, you, they all work if you don’t have the time and money to be constantly on the road. 

Look on the bright side – you have the opportunity to spend the time over your writing instead of rushing between destinations. If it was me, I’d pick a destination or theme, and stick steadfastly to that.   

If you’re good at budgeting, you can help people plan their budget for their next trip, for example. Topics about  finding cheap flights  or hotels are in high demand. You can do some research and cover these types of helpful topics on your travel blog.

Having a tight niche is another way to really stand out over the many, many other travel bloggers. 

How to write a travel blog

Travel blogs examples to inspire your travel blog writing.

Once you have a few posts done and your fingertips are finding their way round that keyboard with rhythm start to think about the kind of writer you want to be. Think about how you want your travel blogging voice to develop, how you want readers to feel when they’re on your blog and what kind of topics you want to cover.

This is how you’ll start to gain a distinctive voice in the world of travel blogging – something that can be very difficult to do.

Travel blog examples

Here are a few travel bloggers, with travel blog writing examples, who really stand out to me for having been able to do this. When you’re writing for travel blogs, you can really make it your own, like these guys…

Becki Enright

Becki from bordersofadventure.com writes serious travel blog about sides of countries your average traveller wouldn’t get to see.

She’s even been on Sky News discussing tourism in North Korea and regularly produces the kind of political posts you won’t see on any other blog.

• Inside the ‘Den of Espionage’ – Getting Inside the former US Embassy in Tehran
• Visiting the West Bank in Palestine – Understanding the Conflict from Both Jewish and Arab Perspectives in Hebron

Brenna Holeman

Brenna from thisbatteredsuitcase.com creates beautifully written heartfelt stories about her life on the road.

She’s so open and powerful I enjoy reading her posts and know I can go to her site to be transported into her world.

Check out her travel blog for some major writing inspiration.

• The Last Time I Saw You: London Edition
• Being Happy with Being Content

For another distinctive voice in the travel blogging world check out Dylan’s blog at thetravelingeditor.com. At a risk of sounding like an imbecile, he uses a lot of ‘big words’. He’s an eloquent sesquipedalian .  These posts are a good example of the tone and style of writing Dylan is known for.

• The palatal awakening of Mercatino del Gusto
• The thunderous convergence of Rotterdam Unlimited

How to write a unique travel blog

All three of these travel blogger examples are very different to what I aim to do on my blog. There may be some crossover in topics but the four of us have very different writing styles and I bet you could spot it if we wrote for each other.

When you’re writing a travel blog you should sound like you , be passionate about the things you’re passionate about, and relay in your own style. In that way you’ll stand out above what is now a very crowded and saturated market place. 

Writing my travel blog

As well as inspiring people to travel , like these guys, I also want to give practical advice on how to do it. My blog has advice on transport, money, where to stay, trip planning, itineraries and packing lists to make travelling as accessible as possible to my readers.

The best compliment people can give me about my blog is that it inspired them to travel, entertained them and made them laugh.

You don’t have to define and limit yourself straight off though when you’re writing for travel blogs. My advice would be to let your style, tone and topics instinctively evolve over time and with every post you write. You’ll soon come to find your natural writing flow and hopefully be distinctive too.

Always be yourself

When I went to the Traverse conference in Brighton everyone was excited to see Will Peach on his panel. His open, truthful and at times offensive writing on thegonzotraveller.com and the now defunct travelsexlife.com was definitely entertaining whether you loved it or hated it. When I met him he didn’t seem the same as his douchebag online persona and a few weeks later he came out with this article about his disillusion with the travel blogging industry. After that he only posted a few more blogs before he went on to focus on the brilliantly written, yet less offensive, willpeach.com.

Will’s angry voice was so distinct in the hyperbolically positive world of travel bloggers, but he wasn’t being himself. I’m glad he’s found his flow on his blog now – it’s still one of the most insightful out there.

You’ve got to be yourself in travel blogging.

That’s the number one rule about putting any creativity in the public space. This is scary. I used to worry about people reading my stuff and sometimes I look back at my past work and wonder what I was on. But, I did what was right at the time. If you start worrying what advertisers / other bloggers / your mum, thinks then you’ll lose what’s interesting about you in the first place.

I also think that when you start writing a travel blog it can be hard to portray who you really are. You may be so used to writing for school or work that writing with a blog style and flair doesn’t come easily. This can also be improved with practice. The more you read travel blogs, and write your travel blog, the more you can work on your travel blogging voice. 

READ MORE: How Much Do Travel Bloggers Get Paid ?

How often should I blog?

Whenever you have something to say is always the best answer. I aim for at least twice a week but usually end up doing quite a bit more. Under promise and over deliver is my motto – even if it’s between me, myself and I.

The more you write the easier and better it will become. Worryingly I’ve seen a few resolution lists for this year where bloggers have said they want to ‘up their blogging output’, but I just think this is a dangerous goal. Set your aims too high and then travel blogging just becomes another pressure to live by, and for most people pressure is a fun killer, which ruins the whole point of travel blogging.

My writing style  

I tend to write everything I want to and then fit it together. I just keep going until it’s all out and then go back and edit. Often I’ll write it on my phone when the inspiration hits then just use my laptop to edit as when I sit at my laptop I get to distracted.

I like to write into Google Sheets and then I’ll upload to WordPress and edit. It takes me AGES to write a blog post now. With all the research, writing, picture research, look at SEO and formatting, it’s at least a day.

Ideal length of a travel blog post

I like to write over 2000 words per article when I’m blogging about travel. Not all posts on my travel blog will be that long, but that’s the goal. In reading other travel blogs I think it’s hard to get your points and personality across in any less. 

READ MORE: How to Make Your Travel Blogging Career Last for 10 Years+ !

How to write a travel blog post

Learning how to write a good travel blog can be quite formulaic in the way it’s set out. Of course the creativity comes when you decide which words to choose. Think about these ‘rules’ when it comes to writing your travel blog.

• Decide on a cool idea that you’re passionate to spend time writing. 
• Write it, thinking in sections though. The best travel blog posts are divided by headers to make it easier for the reader. 
• Think of a good headline that will draw the reader in and make them want to read more. 
• Think in 500-1000 words. I know I said I do 2000, but I think that can be quite overwhelming if you’re still learning how to write travel blogs. 
• If your idea is too big, then break it down into easier sections and write a few blog posts instead. You can always craft them back together again when you’ve finished, like my backpackers guide to Vietnam . 
• Use photos to bring the post to life. If you know how to use Photoshop or Lightroom them brighten and edit for the best result. If not, don’t worry about it. 
• Make sure you have a few H1s and H2s in there to help us readers, read the post. 
• Proof read. 
• Publish. 
• Share! Social media is really important for travel bloggers. It might feel scary at first, to share your travel blog. I mean, I kept mine secret for at least a year. But the sooner you share the sooner you’ll get readers. And at the start your friends will help you to get word out there. Then they’ll get jealous of you travelling, but that’s future yous problem. 

Once you’ve learned how to write a travel blog, you can really start to have fun with it, and learn to express yourself through your love of travel.

Travel blogging writing tips

• Write whenever the feeling hits you – even if that’s in the ‘notes’ section of your phone.
• Keep practising – you don’t have to publish everything you write.
• Read other travel blogs analytically as well as for fun.
• Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.
• Write about what you want.
• Use Pinterest to see what’s popular and for inspirational titles
• Sign up to bloglovin ( follow me ) for a whole resource of inspiration. Make a note of the titles you actually click on.
• Keep a spreadsheet, or similar, of all the titles you want to write. Use when necessary.
• Keep a folder in your bookmarks of articles that have inspired you.
• Offer to write for others to create your own incentives.

On that last point I remember way back when and I pitched to Flight Centre. I got a commission for three articles. At the time it was this financial incentive and the idea that they thought I’d be able to do it that got me going. I was so proud to see my work up on their blog and it just inspired me to write more.

Once you feel confident enough, start to pitch to other websites and blogs and see if they’ll accept your ideas. Here are a few travel websites that will pay you to write for them .

More travel blog examples

If you’re looking for an example of a travel blog post, then check out a few of these, from me…

Travel blog example 1: ‘Things to Do’ listicle

Fun things to do in a destination. There’s a bit of snobbery around listicles in travel blogging, but personally I think they’re a really important and useful example of a travel blog.

You need to do them carefully though, and with heart and experience. If you want to write about traveling, listicle posts can be a good way to get started.

Check out my guide to fun things to do in Hobe Sound , or the best things to do in Levi, Finland . My guide to the best things to do in Lake Maggiore is pretty good too.

Travel blog example 2: a trip itinerary

Trip itineraries are so important, and often the backbone of any good travel blog. A tried and tested step by step trip itinerary is worth so much for people trying to plan a trip to the destinations you’re writing about.

Check out my two week itinerary for the Philippines , or my Norfolk road trip to get an idea of how to set these travel blog trip itineraries out.

Travel blog example 3: a real insight

Only you can experience a destination in the way you do – that’s why the real insights into destinations are one of the ways you can stand out from the travel blogging crowd. If you feel like you’ve had a really unique experience, or want to share exactly what you thought of a place, then these honest insights can make for a great travel blog.

Check out ‘ What is Cuba Really Like ‘, and ‘ What is Vietnam Like ‘ to see what I mean.

Travel blog example 4: personal stories

Ooo you can’t beat a personal story on a travel blog. The trouble is, you either need to really enjoy writing it, or not care if people read it or not. These personal stories are very hard to rank in Google, but they’re good to help your readers get to know you.

If you want to read some of my personal stories then check out these posts about when my boyfriend and I split up , the shock of going into lockdown, and my best moments in travel blogging.

Travel blog example 5: helpful guides

My helpful guides to what you can for for 9 hours in Qatar on a layover , how to avoid festival toilets and how to manage the overnight trains in Vietnam are some of the most popular posts on my travel blog.

If you’ve had a unique experience that will help other people who may go through the same then write about it!

Fill it with useful advice, personal anecdotes and interesting titbits to keep your readers intrigued, and Google showing it to them.

If you’re blogging about travel there’s no end to what you can write about!

How to blog about travel in a pandemic

Ok, so feeling inspired to blog about travel during a global pandemic has been difficult.

Us travel bloggers have had to rethink, reuse and try harder than ever to keep readers interested and ourselves inspired. It’s not been easy.

You can see my latest posts to see what I have managed to write a travel blog about – mainly paddleboarding in winter , my pledge to walk 1000 miles, and responsible travel tips , as well as my camping trip to the Outer Hebrides and the most fun days out in the UK .

Writing a travel blog

What you write about on your travel blog goes back to what you think a successful travel blog is . If you’re after views something like 50 reasons to travel in your 20s will do well, but if you want to flex your first hand experience a heartfelt think piece could be just your thing. I like to mix things up depending on my mood.

I really hope these travel blog writing tips have helped you see how to write a travel blog post. Writing a travel blog isn’t easy, and keeping it up is even harder. But once you settle in, and find your groove, you’ll start to enjoy it. 

When it comes to your travel blog you could write about anything – so long as you have the passion for it – that’s what’s so good about being a travel blogger. Just a coffee you enjoyed somewhere unique, an interaction with someone or a whole guide to your take on a destination could make for an interesting article with the right enthusiasm, interest and execution.

How do you decide what to write about on your travel blog?

Let me know in the comments box below. 

PIN HOW TO WRITE A TRAVEL BLOG TIPS FOR LATER

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Hi, I'm Vicky! I wrote this. You can find me on all the social media @VickyFlipFlop. I love a bit of adventure, will try anything once, and have a strong passion for the local food and drink, whatever it may be. I'm here to help inspire you to travel to places a little out of your comfort zone, or at least to explore the usual destinations in a different way. Stay, have a look around, and if you have any questions – let me know below.

129 Comments

Such a lovely guide. Just what I needed. I am just starting my own travel blog. I have put it off for too long but the passion of travelling… I struggled with what to write and was already focusing on likes and audience. Your post has really inspired me and now I have about 6 topics I can write on(that’s after I figure out how to use WP properly). Thank you very much.

Thanks for this – some good advise and ideas for me. I have had my blog on hold for the past 6 months. I have quite a few posts written but everytime I go back to them the message I want to give changes as I am in a different mood! So everything remains in edit mode!! Hopefully after reading your posts I will get the confidence to post soon.

Yeah the passing of time and changing of self is a weird one. I’ve got posts on here that totally make me cringe because I don’t necessarily agree with what I was on about at the time. But, the thing is, it’s like a time capsule. It captures us and our thoughts in a moment in time which is exactly why we should publish right away. Our thoughts and opinions can have an expiry date!

Great post with some good ideas for me as I am thinking of getting on with the bog I have had in edit mode for the past 6 months! Just need that confidence to post, but find what I want to say about each idea changes depends on the mood I am in when I go back to it!! So nothing posted yet… soon, I hope.

Before it was difficult for us to get idea and find topics to write about. But what we did is to just find out what is popular and create something about it.

Yeah that totally makes sense! Good plan!

Good idea Tristan!

Points are really great and I really love them. As we all know that writing something regarding traveling without getting your audience bored is not so easy. These points would definitely help us in creating new and unique posts.

Hello, oh I’m happy I could help!

Interesting points you have here. Like it! 🙂

Thanks Julex!

This is good beginning

i didnt notice that you wrote this on your blog, what an inspirational advice for someone like me. Thank you for let me know another inspirational travel blogger. It encourages me to write more

Great news! Glad you’re enjoying my work and to hear that it’s helped. I try!

• Pingback: VickyFlipFlopTravels » Cool Festivals and Epic Holidays |Lessons I've Learned from the Top Travel Vloggers

First time I’ve seen this; have to say it’s a really great series. Best of luck with it.

Thanks for the mention too. Couldn’t have put it better myself!

Ah good, just read it again and I’m glad you didn’t find it offensive!

• Pingback: VickyFlipFlopTravels » Cool Festivals and Epic Holidays |Travel Blogger High: The Online School for Wannabe Travel Bloggers

A really long detailed insightful post which is such a help to those starting out. Liked the tips about compiling engaging titles – something I really struggle with particularly when Google insists on short titles! Many thanks for sharing your tips.

Holy Cow. I’m so unbelievably glad I found you. This is by far the best advice I have ever read. Thank you so much!!

Aw, thank you! That’s one of the nicest comments I’ve read! 🙂

Great article! I love Brenna’s blog and started writing one when in moved to London from Australia but rarely update it even though I have so many notes with adventures I have been on. I know people back home like reading what im doing but I am just lazy after I finish work.

Yeah, it can be pretty hard to get the motivation when you’ve been working all day. I know the feeling!

Another awesome post Vic! I couldn’t imagine starting a blog if I didn’t already have an idea of what to write but you handle the subject of getting started really well. Plus I remember those guest posts you referred to – you were our go to girl for great content 🙂

Thanks Jayne. Yeah nor me, but I think sometimes there’s so many options it can be hard to pick something. I remember for my A Level English coursework I could choose any two books I wanted to write about and it took me about three months to choose the book and then a week to write it. I imagine getting started can sometimes feel like that. You just need some guidelines to get down to it.

Ha, thanks!

Again a really helpful and interesting post! My travel blog is just a travel diary at the moment but I’m looking forward to expanding it and writing about more things! Your vietnam writing was how I found your blog too, and it inspired and helped me so much with booking my trip out there in November! Thanks Vicky! X

Yay, love it when people tell me that Vikki 🙂 And happy I’m helping you to think about your blog too. Thanks for reading!

Thank you so much for including me here! I’m loving all of this advice so much – this is such a great guide for both beginners and those of us who have been around for a few years. x

No worries Brenna – I love your blog!

I can’t remember where or when I read it but it went something like this: “when the student’s ready the teacher will appear” and here you are! In my quest to create a useful blog I’ve read a lot, in fact I’ve read so much I have no idea what’s right and what isn’t. I’ve had a yearning to be me “warts n all” to write in my voice but have been scared it would hold my blog back, here you are giving permission to be me. I hope one day in the future when I have an audience I can write a post that has such a profound effect as this post has for me. Thank you Vicky for writing this post.

Aw, thank you Rob. Your comment has made me really happy. I’m really enjoying helping people in Travel Blogger High, and getting all these comments. And yes, the best, most honest and most interesting person you can be is you, so go for it and have fun!

Some great tips – lots of food for thought. I’m usually in the too many ideas, not enough time camp, so I’m actually trying to focus on writing the right pieces this year, whether that’s the ones I really want to do or the ones I think will appeal to readers (both for usefulness and hits…!). Like you say, when you’re putting pressure on to hit targets, the fun goes out of it.

Some of the best ones I’ve done have been ones which really touched a nerve with me, and so with my readers too, or the ones which filled a niche as no-one else has written about them, like you mention. I slightly fell into those by accident, so the tricky bit for me is working out what other niches are waiting to be filled!

That’s a good idea to think about their usefulness. I find that I go with the one that inspires me most in that minute that I’m choosing which one to write. I guess it depends whether you want to be a bit more tactical about it, which I probably should be. Yeah, if you can find something you’re interested in that no one else has written about you’re definitely onto a winner!

I don’t really have much to add to this. I come from another niche (whoop whoop for lifestyle/food/fashion) but thoroughly enjoying the challenge of writing for the travel niche. I started out with a spreadsheet of over 100 titles for blog posts and it keeps growing. I have so much to write and there’s not enough time. Ahhhhh!!!!

I love blogging, writing, sharing and travelling – so for me, travel blogging is a real passion project.

Agree with the spreadsheet and reading blogs analytically as well as for pleasure.

Yeah that’s how I feel. Especially when you’re travelling full time as well. Every day you see new things and have new experiences you want to write about it’s really difficult to keep up! I love it too though – wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂

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Amanda Hoover

Students Are Likely Writing Millions of Papers With AI

Students have submitted more than 22 million papers that may have used generative AI in the past year, new data released by plagiarism detection company Turnitin shows.

A year ago, Turnitin rolled out an AI writing detection tool that was trained on its trove of papers written by students as well as other AI-generated texts. Since then, more than 200 million papers have been reviewed by the detector, predominantly written by high school and college students. Turnitin found that 11 percent may contain AI-written language in 20 percent of its content, with 3 percent of the total papers reviewed getting flagged for having 80 percent or more AI writing. (Turnitin is owned by Advance, which also owns Condé Nast, publisher of WIRED.) Turnitin says its detector has a false positive rate of less than 1 percent when analyzing full documents.

ChatGPT’s launch was met with knee-jerk fears that the English class essay would die . The chatbot can synthesize information and distill it near-instantly—but that doesn’t mean it always gets it right. Generative AI has been known to hallucinate , creating its own facts and citing academic references that don’t actually exist. Generative AI chatbots have also been caught spitting out biased text on gender and race . Despite those flaws, students have used chatbots for research, organizing ideas, and as a ghostwriter . Traces of chatbots have even been found in peer-reviewed, published academic writing .

Teachers understandably want to hold students accountable for using generative AI without permission or disclosure. But that requires a reliable way to prove AI was used in a given assignment. Instructors have tried at times to find their own solutions to detecting AI in writing, using messy, untested methods to enforce rules , and distressing students. Further complicating the issue, some teachers are even using generative AI in their grading processes.

Detecting the use of gen AI is tricky. It’s not as easy as flagging plagiarism, because generated text is still original text. Plus, there’s nuance to how students use gen AI; some may ask chatbots to write their papers for them in large chunks or in full, while others may use the tools as an aid or a brainstorm partner.

Students also aren't tempted by only ChatGPT and similar large language models. So-called word spinners are another type of AI software that rewrites text, and may make it less obvious to a teacher that work was plagiarized or generated by AI. Turnitin’s AI detector has also been updated to detect word spinners, says Annie Chechitelli, the company’s chief product officer. It can also flag work that was rewritten by services like spell checker Grammarly, which now has its own generative AI tool . As familiar software increasingly adds generative AI components, what students can and can’t use becomes more muddled.

Detection tools themselves have a risk of bias. English language learners may be more likely to set them off; a 2023 study found a 61.3 percent false positive rate when evaluating Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exams with seven different AI detectors. The study did not examine Turnitin’s version. The company says it has trained its detector on writing from English language learners as well as native English speakers. A study published in October found that Turnitin was among the most accurate of 16 AI language detectors in a test that had the tool examine undergraduate papers and AI-generated papers.

Brian Barrett

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Schools that use Turnitin had access to the AI detection software for a free pilot period, which ended at the start of this year. Chechitelli says a majority of the service’s clients have opted to purchase the AI detection. But the risks of false positives and bias against English learners have led some universities to ditch the tools for now. Montclair State University in New Jersey announced in November that it would pause use of Turnitin’s AI detector. Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University did the same last summer.

“This is hard. I understand why people want a tool,” says Emily Isaacs, executive director of the Office of Faculty Excellence at Montclair State. But Isaacs says the university is concerned about potentially biased results from AI detectors, as well as the fact that the tools can’t provide confirmation the way they can with plagiarism. Plus, Montclair State doesn’t want to put a blanket ban on AI, which will have some place in academia. With time and more trust in the tools, the policies could change. “It’s not a forever decision, it’s a now decision,” Isaacs says.

Chechitelli says the Turnitin tool shouldn’t be the only consideration in passing or failing a student. Instead, it’s a chance for teachers to start conversations with students that touch on all of the nuance in using generative AI. “People don’t really know where that line should be,” she says.

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By Lindsay Ryan

Dr. Ryan is an associate physician at the University of California, San Francisco, department of medicine.

He has an easy smile, blue eyes and a life-threatening bone infection in one arm. Grateful for treatment, he jokes with the medical intern each morning. A friend, a fellow doctor, is supervising the man’s care. We both work as internists at a public hospital in the medical safety net , a loose term for institutions that disproportionately serve patients on Medicaid or without insurance. You could describe the safety net in another way, too, as a place that holds up a mirror to our nation.

What is reflected can be difficult to face. It’s this: After learning that antibiotics aren’t eradicating his infection and amputation is the only chance for cure, the man withdraws, says barely a word to the intern. When she asks what he’s thinking, his reply is so tentative that she has to prompt him to repeat himself. Now with a clear voice, he tells her that if his arm must be amputated, he doesn’t want to live. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to survive on the streets, he continues. With a disability, he’ll be a target — robbed, assaulted. He’d rather die, unless, he says later, someone can find him a permanent apartment. In that case, he’ll proceed with the amputation.

The psychiatrists evaluate him. He’s not suicidal. His reasoning is logical. The social workers search for rooms, but in San Francisco far more people need long-term rehousing than the available units can accommodate. That the medical care the patient is receiving exceeds the cost of a year’s rent makes no practical difference. Eventually, the palliative care doctors see him. He transitions to hospice and dies.

A death certificate would say he died of sepsis from a bone infection, but my friend and I have a term for the illness that killed him: end-stage poverty. We needed to coin a phrase because so many of our patients die of the same thing.

Safety-net hospitals and clinics care for a population heavily skewed toward the poor, recent immigrants and people of color. The budgets of these places are forever tight . And anyone who works in them could tell you that illness in our patients isn’t just a biological phenomenon. It’s the manifestation of social inequality in people’s bodies.

Neglecting this fact can make otherwise meticulous care fail. That’s why, on one busy night, a medical student on my team is scouring websites and LinkedIn. She’s not shirking her duties. In fact, she’s one of the best students I’ve ever taught.

This week she’s caring for a retired low-wage worker with strokes and likely early dementia who was found sleeping in the street. He abandoned his rent-controlled apartment when electrolyte and kidney problems triggered a period of severe confusion that has since been resolved. Now, with little savings, he has nowhere to go. A respite center can receive patients like him when it has vacancies. The alternative is a shelter bed. He’s nearly 90 years old.

Medical textbooks usually don’t discuss fixing your patient’s housing. They seldom include making sure your patient has enough food and some way to get to a clinic. But textbooks miss what my med students don’t: that people die for lack of these basics.

People struggle to keep wounds clean. Their medications get stolen. They sicken from poor diet, undervaccination and repeated psychological trauma. Forced to focus on short-term survival and often lacking cellphones, they miss appointments for everything from Pap smears to chemotherapy. They fall ill in myriad ways — and fall through the cracks in just as many.

Early in his hospitalization, our retired patient mentions a daughter, from whom he’s been estranged for years. He doesn’t know any contact details, just her name. It’s a long shot, but we wonder if she can take him in.

The med student has one mission: find her.

I love reading about medical advances. I’m blown away that with a brain implant, a person who’s paralyzed can move a robotic arm and that surgeons recently transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a man on dialysis. This is the best of American innovation and cause for celebration. But breakthroughs like these won’t fix the fact that despite spending the highest percentage of its G.D.P. on health care among O.E.C.D. nations, the United States has a life expectancy years lower than comparable nations—the U.K. and Canada— and a rate of preventable death far higher .

The solution to that problem is messy, incremental, protean and inglorious. It requires massive investment in housing, addiction treatment, free and low-barrier health care and social services. It calls for just as much innovation in the social realm as in the biomedical, for acknowledgment that inequities — based on race, class, primary language and other categories — mediate how disease becomes embodied. If health care is interpreted in the truest sense of caring for people’s health, it must be a practice that extends well beyond the boundaries of hospitals and clinics.

Meanwhile, on the ground, we make do. Though the social workers are excellent and try valiantly, there are too few of them , both in my hospital and throughout a country that devalues and underfunds their profession. And so the medical student spends hours helping the family of a newly arrived Filipino immigrant navigate the health insurance system. Without her efforts, he wouldn’t get treatment for acute hepatitis C. Another patient, who is in her 20s, can’t afford rent after losing her job because of repeated hospitalizations for pancreatitis — but she can’t get the pancreatic operation she needs without a home in which to recuperate. I phone an eviction defense lawyer friend; the young woman eventually gets surgery.

Sorting out housing and insurance isn’t the best use of my skill set or that of the medical students and residents, but our efforts can be rewarding. The internet turned up the work email of the daughter of the retired man. Her house was a little cramped with his grandchildren, she said, but she would make room. The medical student came in beaming.

In these cases we succeeded; in many others we don’t. Safety-net hospitals can feel like the rapids foreshadowing a waterfall, the final common destination to which people facing inequities are swept by forces beyond their control. We try our hardest to fish them out, but sometimes we can’t do much more than toss them a life jacket or maybe a barrel and hope for the best.

I used to teach residents about the principles of internal medicine — sodium disturbances, delirium management, antibiotics. I still do, but these days I also teach about other topics — tapping community resources, thinking creatively about barriers and troubleshooting how our patients can continue to get better after leaving the supports of the hospital.

When we debrief, residents tell me how much they struggle with the moral dissonance of working in a system in which the best medicine they can provide often falls short. They’re right about how much it hurts, so I don’t know exactly what to say to them. Perhaps I never will.

Lindsay Ryan is an associate physician at the University of California, San Francisco, department of medicine.

Source photographs by Bettmann and Fred W. McDarrah via Getty Images.

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Announcing the NeurIPS 2023 Paper Awards 

Communications Chairs 2023 2023 Conference awards , neurips2023

By Amir Globerson, Kate Saenko, Moritz Hardt, Sergey Levine and Comms Chair, Sahra Ghalebikesabi 

We are honored to announce the award-winning papers for NeurIPS 2023! This year’s prestigious awards consist of the Test of Time Award plus two Outstanding Paper Awards in each of these three categories: 

• Two Outstanding Main Track Papers 
• Two Outstanding Main Track Runner-Ups 
• Two Outstanding Datasets and Benchmark Track Papers  

This year’s organizers received a record number of paper submissions. Of the 13,300 submitted papers that were reviewed by 968 Area Chairs, 98 senior area chairs, and 396 Ethics reviewers 3,540  were accepted after 502 papers were flagged for ethics reviews . 

We thank the awards committee for the main track: Yoav Artzi, Chelsea Finn, Ludwig Schmidt, Ricardo Silva, Isabel Valera, and Mengdi Wang. For the Datasets and Benchmarks track, we thank Sergio Escalera, Isabelle Guyon, Neil Lawrence, Dina Machuve, Olga Russakovsky, Hugo Jair Escalante, Deepti Ghadiyaram, and Serena Yeung. Conflicts of interest were taken into account in the decision process.

Congratulations to all the authors! See Posters Sessions Tue-Thur in Great Hall & B1-B2 (level 1).

Outstanding Main Track Papers

Privacy Auditing with One (1) Training Run Authors: Thomas Steinke · Milad Nasr · Matthew Jagielski

Poster session 2: Tue 12 Dec 5:15 p.m. — 7:15 p.m. CST, #1523

Oral: Tue 12 Dec 3:40 p.m. — 4:40 p.m. CST, Room R06-R09 (level 2)

Abstract: We propose a scheme for auditing differentially private machine learning systems with a single training run. This exploits the parallelism of being able to add or remove multiple training examples independently. We analyze this using the connection between differential privacy and statistical generalization, which avoids the cost of group privacy. Our auditing scheme requires minimal assumptions about the algorithm and can be applied in the black-box or white-box setting. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework by applying it to DP-SGD, where we can achieve meaningful empirical privacy lower bounds by training only one model. In contrast, standard methods would require training hundreds of models.

Are Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models a Mirage? Authors: Rylan Schaeffer · Brando Miranda · Sanmi Koyejo

Poster session 6: Thu 14 Dec 5:00 p.m. — 7:00 p.m. CST, #1108

Oral: Thu 14 Dec 3:20 p.m. — 3:35 p.m. CST, Hall C2 (level 1) 

Abstract: Recent work claims that large language models display emergent abilities, abilities not present in smaller-scale models that are present in larger-scale models. What makes emergent abilities intriguing is two-fold: their sharpness, transitioning seemingly instantaneously from not present to present, and their unpredictability , appearing at seemingly unforeseeable model scales. Here, we present an alternative explanation for emergent abilities: that for a particular task and model family, when analyzing fixed model outputs, emergent abilities appear due to the researcher’s choice of metric rather than due to fundamental changes in model behavior with scale. Specifically, nonlinear or discontinuous metrics produce apparent emergent abilities, whereas linear or continuous metrics produce smooth, continuous, predictable changes in model performance. We present our alternative explanation in a simple mathematical model, then test it in three complementary ways: we (1) make, test and confirm three predictions on the effect of metric choice using the InstructGPT/GPT-3 family on tasks with claimed emergent abilities, (2) make, test and confirm two predictions about metric choices in a meta-analysis of emergent abilities on BIG-Bench; and (3) show how to choose metrics to produce never-before-seen seemingly emergent abilities in multiple vision tasks across diverse deep networks. Via all three analyses, we provide evidence that alleged emergent abilities evaporate with different metrics or with better statistics, and may not be a fundamental property of scaling AI models.

Outstanding Main Track Runner-Ups

Scaling Data-Constrained Language Models Authors : Niklas Muennighoff · Alexander Rush · Boaz Barak · Teven Le Scao · Nouamane Tazi · Aleksandra Piktus · Sampo Pyysalo · Thomas Wolf · Colin Raffel

Poster session 2: Tue 12 Dec 5:15 p.m. — 7:15 p.m. CST, #813

Oral: Tue 12 Dec 3:40 p.m. — 4:40 p.m. CST, Hall C2 (level 1)  

Abstract : The current trend of scaling language models involves increasing both parameter count and training dataset size. Extrapolating this trend suggests that training dataset size may soon be limited by the amount of text data available on the internet. Motivated by this limit, we investigate scaling language models in data-constrained regimes. Specifically, we run a large set of experiments varying the extent of data repetition and compute budget, ranging up to 900 billion training tokens and 9 billion parameter models. We find that with constrained data for a fixed compute budget, training with up to 4 epochs of repeated data yields negligible changes to loss compared to having unique data. However, with more repetition, the value of adding compute eventually decays to zero. We propose and empirically validate a scaling law for compute optimality that accounts for the decreasing value of repeated tokens and excess parameters. Finally, we experiment with approaches mitigating data scarcity, including augmenting the training dataset with code data or removing commonly used filters. Models and datasets from our 400 training runs are freely available at https://github.com/huggingface/datablations .

Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model Authors: Rafael Rafailov · Archit Sharma · Eric Mitchell · Christopher D Manning · Stefano Ermon · Chelsea Finn

Poster session 6: Thu 14 Dec 5:00 p.m. — 7:00 p.m. CST, #625

Oral: Thu 14 Dec 3:50 p.m. — 4:05 p.m. CST, Ballroom A-C (level 2)  

Abstract: While large-scale unsupervised language models (LMs) learn broad world knowledge and some reasoning skills, achieving precise control of their behavior is difficult due to the completely unsupervised nature of their training. Existing methods for gaining such steerability collect human labels of the relative quality of model generations and fine-tune the unsupervised LM to align with these preferences, often with reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). However, RLHF is a complex and often unstable procedure, first fitting a reward model that reflects the human preferences, and then fine-tuning the large unsupervised LM using reinforcement learning to maximize this estimated reward without drifting too far from the original model. In this paper, we leverage a mapping between reward functions and optimal policies to show that this constrained reward maximization problem can be optimized exactly with a single stage of policy training, essentially solving a classification problem on the human preference data. The resulting algorithm, which we call Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), is stable, performant, and computationally lightweight, eliminating the need for fitting a reward model, sampling from the LM during fine-tuning, or performing significant hyperparameter tuning. Our experiments show that DPO can fine-tune LMs to align with human preferences as well as or better than existing methods. Notably, fine-tuning with DPO exceeds RLHF’s ability to control sentiment of generations and improves response quality in summarization and single-turn dialogue while being substantially simpler to implement and train.

Outstanding Datasets and Benchmarks Papers

In the dataset category : 

ClimSim: A large multi-scale dataset for hybrid physics-ML climate emulation

Authors:  Sungduk Yu · Walter Hannah · Liran Peng · Jerry Lin · Mohamed Aziz Bhouri · Ritwik Gupta · Björn Lütjens · Justus C. Will · Gunnar Behrens · Julius Busecke · Nora Loose · Charles Stern · Tom Beucler · Bryce Harrop · Benjamin Hillman · Andrea Jenney · Savannah L. Ferretti · Nana Liu · Animashree Anandkumar · Noah Brenowitz · Veronika Eyring · Nicholas Geneva · Pierre Gentine · Stephan Mandt · Jaideep Pathak · Akshay Subramaniam · Carl Vondrick · Rose Yu · Laure Zanna · Tian Zheng · Ryan Abernathey · Fiaz Ahmed · David Bader · Pierre Baldi · Elizabeth Barnes · Christopher Bretherton · Peter Caldwell · Wayne Chuang · Yilun Han · YU HUANG · Fernando Iglesias-Suarez · Sanket Jantre · Karthik Kashinath · Marat Khairoutdinov · Thorsten Kurth · Nicholas Lutsko · Po-Lun Ma · Griffin Mooers · J. David Neelin · David Randall · Sara Shamekh · Mark Taylor · Nathan Urban · Janni Yuval · Guang Zhang · Mike Pritchard

Poster session 4: Wed 13 Dec 5:00 p.m. — 7:00 p.m. CST, #105 

Oral: Wed 13 Dec 3:45 p.m. — 4:00 p.m. CST, Ballroom A-C (level 2)

Abstract: Modern climate projections lack adequate spatial and temporal resolution due to computational constraints. A consequence is inaccurate and imprecise predictions of critical processes such as storms. Hybrid methods that combine physics with machine learning (ML) have introduced a new generation of higher fidelity climate simulators that can sidestep Moore’s Law by outsourcing compute-hungry, short, high-resolution simulations to ML emulators. However, this hybrid ML-physics simulation approach requires domain-specific treatment and has been inaccessible to ML experts because of lack of training data and relevant, easy-to-use workflows. We present ClimSim, the largest-ever dataset designed for hybrid ML-physics research. It comprises multi-scale climate simulations, developed by a consortium of climate scientists and ML researchers. It consists of 5.7 billion pairs of multivariate input and output vectors that isolate the influence of locally-nested, high-resolution, high-fidelity physics on a host climate simulator’s macro-scale physical state. The dataset is global in coverage, spans multiple years at high sampling frequency, and is designed such that resulting emulators are compatible with downstream coupling into operational climate simulators. We implement a range of deterministic and stochastic regression baselines to highlight the ML challenges and their scoring. The data (https://huggingface.co/datasets/LEAP/ClimSim_high-res) and code (https://leap-stc.github.io/ClimSim) are released openly to support the development of hybrid ML-physics and high-fidelity climate simulations for the benefit of science and society.   

In the benchmark category :

DecodingTrust: A Comprehensive Assessment of Trustworthiness in GPT Models

Authors: Boxin Wang · Weixin Chen · Hengzhi Pei · Chulin Xie · Mintong Kang · Chenhui Zhang · Chejian Xu · Zidi Xiong · Ritik Dutta · Rylan Schaeffer · Sang Truong · Simran Arora · Mantas Mazeika · Dan Hendrycks · Zinan Lin · Yu Cheng · Sanmi Koyejo · Dawn Song · Bo Li

Poster session 1: Tue 12 Dec 10:45 a.m. — 12:45 p.m. CST, #1618  

Oral: Tue 12 Dec 10:30 a.m. — 10:45 a.m. CST, Ballroom A-C (Level 2)

Abstract: Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) models have exhibited exciting progress in capabilities, capturing the interest of practitioners and the public alike. Yet, while the literature on the trustworthiness of GPT models remains limited, practitioners have proposed employing capable GPT models for sensitive applications to healthcare and finance – where mistakes can be costly. To this end, this work proposes a comprehensive trustworthiness evaluation for large language models with a focus on GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, considering diverse perspectives – including toxicity, stereotype bias, adversarial robustness, out-of-distribution robustness, robustness on adversarial demonstrations, privacy, machine ethics, and fairness. Based on our evaluations, we discover previously unpublished vulnerabilities to trustworthiness threats. For instance, we find that GPT models can be easily misled to generate toxic and biased outputs and leak private information in both training data and conversation history. We also find that although GPT-4 is usually more trustworthy than GPT-3.5 on standard benchmarks, GPT-4 is more vulnerable given jailbreaking system or user prompts, potentially due to the reason that GPT-4 follows the (misleading) instructions more precisely. Our work illustrates a comprehensive trustworthiness evaluation of GPT models and sheds light on the trustworthiness gaps. Our benchmark is publicly available at https://decodingtrust.github.io/.

Test of Time

This year, following the usual practice, we chose a NeurIPS paper from 10 years ago to receive the Test of Time Award, and “ Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality ” by Tomas Mikolov, Ilya Sutskever, Kai Chen, Greg Corrado, and Jeffrey Dean, won. 

Published at NeurIPS 2013 and cited over 40,000 times, the work introduced the seminal word embedding technique word2vec. Demonstrating the power of learning from large amounts of unstructured text, the work catalyzed progress that marked the beginning of a new era in natural language processing.

Greg Corrado and Jeffrey Dean will be giving a talk about this work and related research on Tuesday, 12 Dec at 3:05 – 3:25 pm CST in Hall F.  

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