In today’s freewheeling online world debates between bloggers hardly adhere to Robert’s Rules Of Order, as they often veer off into the purview of misdemeanors or even felonies. As much as an utopian internet would have encouraged intellectual and constructive discourse, the current state of cyberspace is marked far more by the exchange of expletive barrages, outright libel, and even personal threats.

Kathy Sierra, Kacem El Ghazzali, and yours truly are among the bloggers who have received death threats of such caliber that they necessitated police involvement. As much as tempers can flare and the relative anonymity of online personas can fuel that flame, there are ways to engage another blogger in a fervent debate without ending up in handcuffs.

1. Choose your battle opponent carefully

Prior to laying down the gauntlet, you would be well advised to review much of the blogger’s earlier work. If you see that they demonstrate a thin skin when criticized and have a habit of invoking blogjihads against anyone who dares to have a differing opinion, you might want to steer clear. All that’s going to happen in a confrontation with this particular blogger is that so much mud is going to be slung that the issues will disappear under the muck and everyone will lose, including the readers.

2. Fight above your weight class

There is essentially little point in engaging a little-known blogger who gets less traffic than you do. You might as well just dial a telephone number at random and start ranting at whoever answers for all the good it will do. If you’re going to get involved in a knock down drag out debate, you should do it with someone who can actually drive increased traffic to your own blog.

3. Pick the points you debate

Be specific about what you’re debating. It’s best to clearly state the particular points that you disagree with rather than just letting loose with accusations that the entire blog is one huge lie. Not only will this tactic win you points with the readers but it’s also more accurate and effective. After all… even the biggest mythomaniacs write something at some time that is indisputable.

4. Rise above it all

It seems that some bloggers are experts in the art of Adeptio Capra (getting your goat) and they’ll egg you on with personal invective until you finally can’t help but to explode and fire back with all guns blazing. That’s a severe strategic error as you’re far better off by rising above the fray and avoid getting suckered into a verbal alley brawl. You will gain the respect of the readers (and perhaps, begrudgingly, your opponent) if you maintain a façade of decorum and stick to “just the facts, ma’am.”

5. You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em

You should most certainly not restrain yourself from getting your blog involved in vigorous and constructive debate, but once you’ve stated your duly supported position and rebutted the rebuttal, it just may be time to mosey on down the blog trail. A blogging dispute should not be mistaken for a congressional filibuster, and your readership will tire of your antics if you keep on trying to milk the last drop out of a particular dispute. Whoever blogs last does not necessarily blog best.

Blog debates should be mutually beneficial so that both bloggers are able to raise their stature through a demonstration of their high profile debating tactics. Keep it clean, keep the punches above the belt, and your audience will thank you for it.

Maintaining a blog over the long haul can be tough, especially during holidays and life’s inevitable transitions. One of the most common concerns among faithful bloggers is the fear that we won’t be able to keep up with a regular posting schedule. We’ll fall behind, the internet will delete us, and we’ll be forgotten forever.

I want to challenge you to add even more blogs to your repertoire, however. That’s right – more blogs. But don’t worry, I’m not going to add much in the way of a time commitment to what you’re already doing. I just want to suggest a potential traffic and backlink strategy that doesn’t break any rules. It’s entirely white hat, socially acceptable, and even socially responsible.

I call it “spreading yourself around in the cloud.” You can do this in just a few easy steps.

1. Start your own Tumblog by setting up an account at Tumblr.com. Tweak your profile with your pretty face and biographical information. Choose a nice theme and do some basic setup work. Add a link back to your blog in the navigation if you wish, but very few people will ever click it.

2. Start a Posterous blog as well following the same basic pattern. Name it whatever you like. It can even be something like “Bob’s Lifestream,” though I would only recommend this if your name is Bob.

3. Start a Blogger blog. Yes I know how inferior to WordPress it is, but stay with me. You want to be liked by Google, and they tend to like Blogger whether the rest of us do or not.

4. Start a WordPress.com blog. Even if you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, set up a free .com blog as well. Again, shine it up with a nice free theme and your standard profile photo.

5. Start an Amplog at Amplify.com. This one is key. After you’ve set up your Amplog, install the bookmarklet or browser extention of your choice. As you go through your feeds, browse BlogEngage, and do your general reading, post links to Amplify and allow it to automatically cross-post those links to your other four new blogs. And here’s the cool part… Amplify your own blog as well.

Isn’t this the kind of double-posting that creates duplicate content, hated by search engines around the world? No, this is simply syndicating your own blog across multiple platforms. With the dawn of the social age, we’re seeing the death of “blogging engines” and the rise of “social networks” but the names don’t change. Instead of having a WordPress.com blog, you now have a WordPress.com profile with which you reach out to other faithful WordPress.com users. The same is true of the other blogging networks as well.

I’ve seen quite a bit of blog traffic coming back to my blog from Posterous because some people read the latest headlines from all of the Posterous accounts they’ve subscribed to. They don’t subscribe to my blog, but they see my link because they’re following my Posterous profile.

So if you’re interested in spreading yourself around in the cloud and drawing more traffic, you need at least five more blogs, and there are probably other viable services as well. If you know of one, post it in the comments.

What do you think of this blogging/networking/marketing/traffic-driving tactic?

A blog can be a very profitable tool for your business. Some people even make their living out of blogging.

However, thousands of people start blogs only to abandon them because they are not successful. What many prospective bloggers fail to realize is that blogging is an art—it takes hard work and persistence to succeed.

By understanding what makes people NOT read your blog, you stand a better chance of creating the kind of blog that people cannot wait to read.

• Boring content

If your blog is boring, you will not have readers. No one wants to read mundane details of your life or business. Find ways to keep your blog fresh and creative and you will notice a difference in the number of people reading your blog.

• Inexperienced blogger

If your blog is for business purposes then you need an experienced blogger. Letting a newbie write your professional blog can result in your blog looking and sounding unprofessional. Even a personal blog will get more readers with a professional approach.

• Bad design and inaccessible

To make your blog “pop”, you need more than just a free template. Invest in customizing the appearance of your blog to make it visually appealing to readers. Remember to keep your blog accessible. If your blog is hard to access, it will be ignored. Readers do not want to dig through links and pages to read your blog. Consider installing an online survey software widget to let readers tell you what they think about your layout.

• Outdated content

If your blog promises the latest news then make sure you keep your promises. Readers will stop reading if your content is old and/or rarely updated. Readers want the latest information and if they cannot find it on your blog, they will find it elsewhere. Post on your blog regularly and keep the content new and exciting.

• Not being social

Blogging is a social activity. To gain readership, you have to keep things social by posting content that contains links to other bloggers. In return, other bloggers will post links to your blog and your audience will grow. Posting only about yourself and/or business provides no avenues for outside promotion of your blog.

• Lack of conversational posts

If your blog posts only state facts and information then your readers will not comment. Your posts need to encourage reader comments and feedback. Reader participation is a great tool for increasing the popularity of your blog because people love to voice their opinions.

• An unpopular niche

Even the best bloggers struggle to create a successful blog in an unpopular niche. Choosing the niche for your blog is more than just picking a popular topic. People are already blogging about popular topics, which will only increase your competition. Choose a niche that you are familiar with, start your blog and then “drill down”—narrow your focus to one particular aspect.
Blogging is an art but it is an art that can be learned by almost anyone. A successful blog is much more than just random babbling. Pay attention to the finer points of blogging to ensure the success of your blog.

At the beginning of 2010, my blog was recognized as one of the top 10 social media blogs by Social Media Examiner. While that was a huge, huge honor, it was also unexpected and my site was unprepared for the instant swarm of traffic that followed. And I don’t mean just on the server side.

No matter how big or small you blog is, you should always have it ready for major exposure at any moment, because you never know when the big day will come when your blog is mentioned by a much larger site or you get to the front page of Digg. Whatever the source, you will want to be prepared for that big surge of incoming traffic!

Here are some essential steps you should take for when that big day arrives to make sure that your blog is ready to not just receive instant traffic, but encourage new visitors to stick around and return again in the future.

1. Optimize Your Site for Speed

First and foremost, you don’t want your site to throw up blank screen or error message when visitors are coming to your site for the first time. There are many ways to optimize your website for fast loading, including:

Making sure your images are optimized. Simple, free software such as Gimp will allow you to save images for your blog in compressed format so they will load quickly. Maybe one large image isn’t a bad thing, but if every one of your posts have a large image or thumbnail file, the result could be a slow loading home or archives page.

Use caching plugins for WordPress. I use WP-Super Cache for my blog, with the Use PHP to serve cache files option. There are also other popular options such as WP Total Cache that come highly recommended.

Eliminate unnecessary items from your blog. If you have a lot of plugins that your site no longer uses, or no longer needs, deactivate and remove them. Take some consideration when using graphics and widgets that load from other sites. If those sites are down or slow, your site will take a high in load time as well. One thing I do when possible is save images for banner ads to my own server as oppose to using the code that pulls them from other sites.

Put social share buttons on single post pages only. I know, it’s great to show off how many tweets, Facebook shares, likes, StumbleUpon views, Diggs, and so on that all of your posts are getting. But if you do that on your homepage and archives, if one of the social networks is down, the share buttons will lag and hold up the loading of the rest of your content beyond that button. It’s much easier for your website to get past one slow loading share button compared to 10+ of them on one page.

And by the way, if you don’t have social sharing buttons on your single post pages, be sure to at least put a retweet button your posts as this a guaranteed way to increase your posts shares on Twitter.

Update your platform and plugins. I have found that a simple update to the latest version of WordPress as well as plugins and themes has helped immensely in speeding up my site.

Learn more about site optimization in the following posts about how to make your WordPress site load faster, and how to make your blog load faster by offloading server resources.

2. Delay That Popup

Popup opt-in forms are all the rage these days. While I don’t use one on my main site personally, a lot of great bloggers that I trust use them and see lots of results from them.

My only suggestion is that you delay the popup from happening as your site is loading – give it at least a 30 second delay. Let new visitors to your site get a feel for what your site is about – chances are they will be more likely to sign up for your newsletter if they know a bit more about your content as opposed to just instinctively closing the popup.

Also, it helps in the above mentioned point about site load speed – I have seen some blogs get jammed up and the first impression of your site is your homepage under a half-loaded popup.

3. Put Ways to Follow Your Blog in Your Sidebar

An extremely important section for your sidebar near the top is following options for your blog. I personally like to offer buttons for the people who prefer to follow via RSS reader, email subscription, Twitter, or my Facebook fan page. Remember, while your goal maybe to increase your RSS subscribers or mailing list, it’s really not about you – it’s about your readers and their subscription preferences. So don’t force your new visitors to have only one option – give them several so they can follow you in the way they would like to.

4. Add a Short Summary of Your Blog in Your Sidebar

If you haven’t already, create a quick elevator pitch for your blog. Just a sentence or two that sums it up – like the answer you would give if someone walked up to you and said, “So what is your blog about?” Put that sentence in your sidebar near the top, either right above or below your blog’s following options. This way, no matter what page a reader lands on for their first visit, they will be able to quickly see what your site is all about.

Learn more about writing a killer elevator pitch for your blog.

5. Place an Opt-in Box for Your Mailing List in Your Sidebar

Whether or not you use a popup opt-in form, you should always have an opt-in for your mailing list in your sidebar. And, if you don’t have a mailing list, you probably should consider having one of those as well. If you don’t want to commit to a monthly fee using services like Aweber, you can start with services like MailChimp that give you a free account for up to 1,000 subscribers – perfect for a small blog.

If you’re saying to yourself right now, “I don’t need a mailing list because I’m not selling anything,” think again. There are many other benefits for bloggers to have a mailing list besides just affiliate marketing. You can make major announcements via your mailing list (such as your site is moving from a free blog platform to a new domain), you can survey your subscribers to see what topics they would like to read more about or how they feel about a new design change, you can let them know about your guest posts on other sites, or you can for help to promote posts you have written for blogging contests, such as the one here at Blog Engage. Needless to say, the possibilities are endless.

Also, if you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t have a free product,” no sweat. You can give away something free in the form of a service, but as I learned (the hard way) on my site that this is not always a scalable option. So don’t worry about it! Just put the opt-in form up there. If you have a great site with great content, people will opt-in to get updates about your content. Just be sure to tell people what they will be getting and don’t abuse your list!

6. Create Pillar Posts and Pages

Pillar posts or pages are simply those that highlight your best work. If your site covers multiple topics, create a pillar page that gives the top five posts for each topic. Or, if your site covers one topic exclusively, create a pillar page that gives a roadmap to your best posts in sub-categories. So if you have a site about gardening, you could break that down on your pillar page with the top five posts for beginning gardeners, indoor gardening, winter gardening, gardening tools, and so on.

Not sure what your most popular posts are? You can simply choose the posts that you feel are the strongest and are your favorites. Or you can visit PostRank and search for your blog. If your blog is listed, you can show only the posts with the most reader engagement (comments, social shares, etc.). If not, enter your URL, and have PostRank email you when your blog has been listed. This way, it will start collecting data on your blog and you can run this analysis in the future.

Learn more about creating a pillar articles for your blog.

7. Make Sure Your Key Pages Are Easy to Find

What are your key pages? These are the pages that most people would expect to find on a blog, and generally include your about page, archives page, contact page, guest post guidelines page, and advertising page (if you offer banner advertising on your site). They should be in your main navigation menu and/or sidebar.

These are the pages that help people determine who is behind a blog and learn more about it, digg further into the blog content, contact blog owner for any reason, see if guest posts are accepted and what the criteria for them are, and know if there are advertising opportunities available.

Also, while I mention your key pages, make sure these are updated regularly. If you can’t remember to do it all the time, make a little reminder alarm in your online calendar, Outlook, etc. to update these pages once a month. You’d be surprised at what information becomes irrelevant quickly or what new information crops up, such as the demise of a social media network or new site that you have created.

Learn more about 20 types of pages every blogger should consider adding to their blog.

8. List Your Main Categories

Help new readers find the information they are looking for by listing your main categories in the sidebar or within/underneath the main navigation bar. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gone to a site for the first time and found nothing but date based archive listings – it makes me bananas when I want to see what topics a blog covers and go directly to them, but can’t find any topic based category listings.

Putting Your Best Foot Forward

So what do the above elements look like? Here they are on my site, minus the non-visible things like the site speed and popup opt-in form (because I don’t have one).

As you can see, the main point is that you want to make sure that you put your best foot forward when it comes to what you want your visitors to see when they first come to your site. You want to make sure that what you want new visitors to find (your best content) and do (follow your blog and subscribe) is easily accessible so they can have the best experience on your blog without any frustrations.

Your Blog’s Best Features

I’m sure that, depending on your blog, you may have other items that hold priority when it comes to content you want new visitors to find and actions you want them to take. What other elements would you suggest bloggers add to their site (and where) to give a huge wave of new visitors the best experience possible when their blog hits the big time? Listen to this gem from the 80′s to get you in the mood to write your answer.

As a product of the 80s, I have grown up in a world where if I want to know something, it’s never too hard to find the answer. We’ve all seen an increase in the give-it-to-me-now attitude and with responsibilities and information springing up all around us, none of us have time to twiddle our thumbs any more.

Information has to be easy to find. It has to be concise, while being comprehensive enough to be of use.

As content creators, there is a lot that you can do to make your information more accessible to your internet audience. As you go through these tips, you’ll see how they’ll likely apply to how you hunt for information online.

General writing tips

Keep your Foot on the Gas

Creativity is the key to staying relevant, interesting and fresh online. In order to be creative, you need to spew all your thoughts down without subjecting them to editing. Write your entire article without stopping. Then go back and edit it afterwards.

Start in the Middle

Write the main part of your post first. Your post may not take the form that you initially thought, so you want to leave the introduction and conclusion until the main part of your post is set. This way your introduction grabs your readers’ attention and the post actually matches your introduction.

Do it Everywhere!

As creative beings, we come up with ideas in the strangest of places. When you get an idea, write it down there and then. If you don’t, you’ll forget it and miss out on a potentially awesome post.

Most of us have smartphones now. You may even be using one of the official WordPress apps. If not, you probably have access to a pen and paper. Or a napkin. Or papyrus.

The title

10 Steps to Super Awesome, Attention-Grabbing Post Titles

Okay, so I don’t have 10 steps, but there’s a few good ways of crafting a winning title:

• Put a number in there. I don’t know why, but people prefer ’5 tips to success’ over ‘Tips to success’.
• Use exaggerative adjectives. ’10 killer tips’ beats ’10 fairly good tips’.
• Capitalize everything but your stop words. Stop words are words like and, as, for, to me etc. e.g. ’10 Killer Tips to Improve your Writing’.

Check your Keywords

This isn’t an SEO tutorial, but you need to consider who you’re aiming for with the post and have the right words in your title to make sure that both human and search engines find you.

Writing style

Have Confidence in Yourself

Don’t be cocky to the point of being arrogant, but have confidence in yourself. Know that you write great content and have confidence in your opinion and knowledge. This applies to when you’re promoting your content too!

Humor and the Personal Touch

Don’t be afraid to have a laugh. You’re not writing a textbook – you’re writing short articles and your personal touch will help set your writing style apart as something that is fun and enjoyable to read.

Formatting like a pro

Wandering Eyes

Us internet people are great at scanning and finding important information. However, you can help out your readers by highlighting the most important parts of your post. Think underline, italics and bold.

Ease up on the Punctuation

This is really hard for me because I loathe what I see as the bastardization of the English language, but there are ways you can avoid over-complicating your punctuation without sacrificing good writing practices. For example, use a bulleted list instead of writing one in a sentence using colons and semi-colons.

Since We’re Talking About Lists…

Lists are excellent. They draw attention and display your crucial information in an easy-to-digest fashion. Whether bulleted or numbered, they’ll draw focus to the crown jewels of your post.

Shawty

We’ve all grown up with ‘bigger is better’, but in the internet generation, that’s not really the case any more (great news boys!). Your reader’s attention is fleeting at best. So keep sentences and paragraphs short. The shorter the better. Got it?

Headings

Break your post up into general sections and use semantic markup (that’s h2, h3 and h4 tags to you and me) to give your readers an idea of what’s in your post so they can find what matters to them.

Images

It’s amazing what a little color can do for you. Aim to have at least one image in every post, whether it’s decorative, instructional or to grab attention.

The Final 4-point Inspection

Read It Yourself

Don’t ever publish something that you haven’t read and re-read. It also helps to plan ahead so that you have time to come back to an article a few days later with a fresh mind before it gets published.

Reality Check

It’s fine to be opinionated, but are you driving your point home with arrogance?  Also be conscious of how realistic your claims are. It might be tempting to tell someone they can earn millions by blogging, but it stinks of sensationalism and is a real turn-off. Be confident, even optimistic, but always be realistic.

Fact Check

There’s little that screams “I don’t know what I’m doing” more than incorrect facts. If you start out an article telling me that the internet was started by Mark Zuckerberg in 1995, I’ve already moved on.

The Rules of Engagement

Your readers are your lifeline. Even if you’re not writing to make money, you’re writing so that what you write will be read. So engage your readers in conversation. Initiate conversations with those who share your article. Respond to comments. And invite feedback and questions on what you’ve written (which I’m hoping you’ll realize is an invitation to do just that right now).

Can you consider your blog as a plant ? There are many similarities and differences between a blog and a plant. In this post, we will talk about the similarities between a blog and a plant. Taking care of your blog like a plant will allow you to grow popular. Let me ask you one question : Do you need a PhD to blog ? Do you ? No, you don’t. In this post, we will discuss what a blogger needs for blogging. Any one can blog. I mean anyone can be successful in blogging, if they have all the talents (skills).(So, Yes, Blogging is a talent!) To become a pro-blogger is a hard task. You need to have the patience, determination and passion to stand till the last. Blogging can be very tough. Everything (every task) in this world is hard, so is blogging. If you can invest time, then blogging is the best thing you can do (I mean in your free time – excluding exercises). You need to take care of blogging just like you would take care of a plant.

Learning to grow your blogging talent (Blog = plant)

It is like planting a seed and watering it. Consider your blog as a seed. You need to water it, give it sunlight and provide it with other necessities to get expected results. If you put in less time, you will get lesser results. So, if you want to achieve great results, you need to invest a great deal of time. Blogging is mainly about Thinking, Writing, Promoting and Networking (The Basics). These are the water, vitamins and other minerals required for your blog’s growth. You need to provide your plant (blog) with these everyday (Blogging is a daily activity – you need to keep up your schedule). In today’s world, time is more precious than anything. Look at our industries : In the meat industry, companies today try to grow the meat (chicken, beef etc.) in a small place. Unlike the old times, today most of the chickens are crammed together. They don’t have enough space to move around. They are all together (contagious diseases spread through this type of farming). Our industries are trying to make profit – they value money more than their customers (consider the amounts of anti-biotics going in to the body of the animal). Now, you might think how this relates to blogging. Let me tell you : Don’t be like these industries. You should never value money over your visitors. Your subscribers is what that matters. Money might be important, but it is not everything. You also need to invest plenty of time (industries don’t do that – they use growth hormones). You won’t get instant results. You need to be patient for it (we will talk about patience later).

You need to think and write fresher and newer ideas everyday. You need to use your brain wisely. Make use of a notebook and a pencil – write down your ideas. You also need to promote your articles/ideas. You can do it by submitting to different social media sites. I strongly recommend you to take advantage of social media sites. Your social media sites are like free advertising platform. Take the case of twitter : People from various parts of world are seeing your tweet. You also need to network constantly. Social media sites are the main players of the networking part of blogging. Socializing will allow you to engage and meet new people. I check my twitter everyday. Its a daily process. I also work on coming up with new ideas for my blog. The thing is constant. Once you jump into the wild ocean of blogging, you can never go back (if you want to be a pro-blogger). Giving up is not a good option here. Now that we have talked about the water and nutrients, let’s talk about the sunlight of your blogging plant.

Your Blog needs Sunlight

Your blog’s sunlight basically consists of these elements : Determination, Passion (& seriousness) and Patience. Sunlight is the most important compound in a plant’s growth. For a blog, these elements are the most important. Without these, your blog is not going to “grow”.

Determination is the willingness to blog. Your determination to keep blogging dictates whether you will “continue blogging” or quit blogging before a long period of time. In blogging, you need a lot of determination. Determination makes way for success. It is like a road roller that smooths the path for you. (If you have determination, then it will be a lot easier to blog. Determination will keep you blogging. If you have determination, then you will be able to invest lot of time in (& Work hard). All I want to say is you must have determination to continue. I would recommend you not blog, if you don’t the right amount of determination.

The Next element is Passion. Passion (just like determination) allows you to keep blogging. If you are not interested in blogging, then why should you ? Why are you ? (blogging). Passion does also mean seriousness. If you have passion for blogging, then you are also serious about blogging. I don’t have to tell you about the seriousness (Do I have to ?). A serious approach will help you with creating fresh new content (= making more money).

The next element is patience. In blogging, patience play an important role. In blogging, you will never get instant results. Most people come into the blogging field expecting instant results. Patience is a real virtue. Patience allows you to succeed in blogging. Your blog will take time to grow – just like a plant. You need to work hard for it.

These elements all together form the sun light needed for your plant – your blog.

Let me ask the question one more time : Do you need a PhD to blog ? No, you don’t. All you need is determination, passion and patience. I hope that this post helped you.

Anyway, I wish you all luck with Blogging !

Power of Story Headline Baffles Scientists

Headlines Exert Magnetic Power over Readers

Internet writers face intense competition for readers’ time and attention. It’s a constant struggle to capture and hold people’s attention.

And yet some people manage do it. You know from your own experience. Your eyes slide lazily down the page and then you think, “Wha–?” Suddenly you need to know the rest of the story.

Story Headlines

Here are some examples of headlines that tell stories in 60 characters or less:

• “Spacefaring Hillbillies Established a ‘Cletus’ Base” (Weekly World News, 51 characters)

• “60-ft. Gator Caught — by a Shoe Salesman” (Weekly World News, 41 characters)
• “The Celeb Who Got Booted from a Plane” (Cosmopolitan, 37 characters)
• “From Rehab to Arrest in 11 Days” (People, 31 characters)

4 Elements of a Story Headline

Tabloid magazines have mastered the craft of writing the grabber headline. You don’t have to be writing about aliens or celebrities to use the format for your own blog. Here are the four elements you need to pull it off:

1. Protagonist — someone the audience can identify with (not necessarily like or admire — just identify with)

2. Conflict — protagonist’s problem
3. Outcome — unusual or surprising result of the conflict
4. Suspense — curiosity about how the protagonist reached that outcome

Let’s see how they work with our samples.

“Spacefaring Hillbillies Established a ‘Cletus’ Base” — Not all my readers are in the United States, so I’ll say that hillbillies are stereotyped as country folk who live in the mountains of the American South. They have peculiar accents and never go anywhere.

The story in that headline is that the protagonist hillbillies have been uprooted for some reason. They’ve established a “Cletus” base — something their own. The curiosity is how they came to be spacefaring and how they managed to establish themselves.

“60-ft. Gator Caught — by a Shoe Salesman” — The shoe salesman is the protagonist, who seems to have gotten into some sort of conflict with a 60-foot alligator. How did he come out on top?

“The Celeb Who Got Booted from a Plane” — The celebrity is the protagonist, and we want to know what led to his getting evicted from the plane, as well as who he is.

“From Rehab to Arrest in 11 Days” — Another celebrity story, with the celebrity as protagonist, and readers want to know what specifically led to the sharp drop in fortunes.

Using Your Article Headline Power

A lot of copywriting experts tell you to write headlines to evoke curiosity. But what grabs curiosity? Just something you don’t know? If I saw a headline that said, “How Cold Is Antarctica?” it doesn’t pull me in, even though I don’t know the answer, because I don’t need the information.

What calls forth curiosity is an urgent problem — my own or someone else’s. A shoe salesman battling a 60-foot alligator or a promised answer to some problem I’m dealing with sends a signal to my brain that this might be useful, and I need more. I may feel alienated like the hillbillies or angered by airline treatment and want to know how others handled the difficulties.

That’s how you can give your reader a sense urgency to read your blog post. Of course, you have to deliver the story you promised. No “60-foot alligator” headlines followed by step-by-step instructions to set up a WordPress blog.

But with a little modification you can make it fit: “Customized WordPress blog installed — by a 68-year-old grandma” (you still need to deliver on the grandma). If you don’t have a grandma handy, you can try, “From ‘address not found’ to customized blog in 10 minutes.”

Story headlines are one weapon in your arsenal to grab a reader’s attention and hold it to the very end.

It seems like everyone has a blog these days. Just last weekend I was visiting with my 12-year-old nephew and he was telling me about how he just started a blog about his favorite video games. I was blown away. When I was 12, I was busy shooting hoops in the driveway or fishing with my buddies. It just goes to show how times have changed and how prevalent blogs have become today. If you have ever thought about starting a blog or currently operate one, you are probably wondering how to take your site to the next level. Nobody wants to spend hours writing content for a blog only to have nobody read it. If you want to attract more readers and improve the quality of your site, it is time to get serious about blogging.

Enroll in Web Development Schools Online

I have been writing my own blog and contributing to other people’s blogs for many years now. For awhile, I was happy having a handful of readers. However, one day I decided I was done settling. If I was going to spend my valuable time creating content for a blog, I wanted as many people as possible to visit my site. I started to do research and look around for the best possible ways to improve my blogging skills. One particular thing kept popping up again and again. Bloggers I admired continuously recommended that I enroll in a web development school online.

I was pretty skeptical at first. What could an online school teach me that I can apply to blogging? I thought blogging was a mostly amateur pursuit that isn’t talked about in formal settings. However, I decided to take the plunge and signed up for web development courses at an online school. After only my first lesson, I realized that I would be learning several valuable skills that would help me improve my blog.

Typefaces

One of the biggest problems I had as a blogger was choosing the appropriate font. I wanted something stylish, but still easy to read. I was pleased to find that my web development course spent a lot of time focusing on the best typefaces for online content. I received tips on font colors and the use of white space. My blog is now more attractive and easier to read than ever before.

Use of Pictures

I had always used pictures on my blogs. Little did I know that I had been using them ineffectively for so long. My time spent in web development schools online taught me that you should never use a picture just for the sake of adding to your blog. Instead, every picture that you use should serve a purpose. It should help tell your story or give the reader an added insight that would not have been available otherwise. I also learned not to over do it with pictures. You want to have just enough to be useful, but not too much that they distract from the rest of your content.

These are just a few of the lessons provided by web development schools online that proved useful to me. I suggest you enroll in a course and see what they have to offer to you.