I'm a novice blogger-been blogging for less than a year. While my blogging skills cannot compare to the likes of those more experienced ActiveRain bloggers (Jeff Dowler, Katerina Gasset, TLW, yada . . .yada . . .yada), there are a few things that I have learned along the way.
Sidebar: Sometimes we give our children advice based on our personal experience, and they have no interest in taking our advice; they have to learn the hard way (or by experiencing something on their own). I'm writing this post in hopes that newbie bloggers will please heed some of my advice . . . don't bother making the mistakes that others have made a long the way.
Here I go with the tips:
Make your blog post easy on the eyes. Vary the formatting of your font, using bold face, light face, and italics. Make paragraphs short, and allow ample space between paragraphs. If you write a 2000-word blog post and insert no new paragraphs and use the light face throughout, it is going to be a tough read and will probably lose the reader's attention more quickly. This brings me to my next point . . .
Make your blog post short. If it is longer than 500 words or so (and this post is a little too long), you should probably try to divide the information into two posts. People want to skim; they want a quick read. So, try to make one point per blog post. Again, this will hold your reader's attention.
When you insert a photo (and you should do that in order to keep your post easy on the eyes), make sure to allow ample space around your photo (this can be done in the Appearance section). Also, make sure that the photo you use is a free use photo and not copyrighted. After all, you are writing blogs to obtain business and tout your great skills; you are not blogging to end up behind bars . . . or are you?
Two more points . . .
Cite your sources. Lately, I've seen some Active Rain bloggers with tons of posts already for January (some with over 100 posts). Many of these blogs are just a cut and paste of some new real estate law or mortgage information. Personally, I'm not impressed. It's nice to share the latest news, but there are better ways to do that then to just do a huge cut and paste (and not even bother to format it). Also, citing your sources is another way to appear reputable and also to stay out of jail. Plagiarism ain't good, folks.
And, lastly, consider your audience. Are you writing for consumer (buyers and sellers) or for Realtors®? This post, for example, is a post for newbie Active Rain bloggers who are novices like myself. This is VERY important: If you are blogging on Active Rain and you are writing posts for consumers AND you are NOT a Rainmaker, you are wasting your time. When you are NOT a Rainmaker, your posts are Members Only and do not appear on any public search engines, You must be a Rainmaker in order for your posts to be public and to appear on Google and other search engines. There are probably not many seller and buyer (consumer) members of Active Rain, so why write posts for consumers who are not going to see them?
Notice in this post that I have inserted a photo, I have used bold face and light face and broke my information into short paragraphs. This is probably why you are actually reading to the end of the post . . . and perhaps you are even going to make a comment ;-)
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