Good blog posts: the bare necessities
It’s highly likely that not every post on your niche blog will be a run-away winner in terms of reader reaction, community enhancement, or pulling its weight with the search engines. That said, there are still several things you can do to ensure that every post works hard, even if you ultimately find that it misses the mark for some reason.
A successful blog post:
1. Helps the reader in some way to think more clearly about an issue, solve a problem, or provide food for thought.
2. Evokes emotion, strong agreement, or even strong disagreement.
3. Communicates a central idea clearly and effectively.
4. Invites reader commentary in a direct manner.
5. Supports the overall theme of the blog and feels “relevant” to the reader.
Narrowing this down even further to a bare minimum, I would say that two of the criteria above are essential for each and every post, at least on a niche blog:
- Communicating a central idea clearly; and
- Supporting the overall theme of the blog
Posts that do at least these two things are carrying their weight, if only in terms of contributing to the overall worth of the blog in a positive way. If a post can’t do at least those two things, it probably should be scrapped.
Which two criteria from the list above strike you as being most important? Do you have other criteria I didn’t list that you think makes a successful post? Let’s talk about them in the comments!
