By Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress

When you visit Google, do you click a picture to begin your search? Do you face a screen full of images like in a grocery store self-checkout? Click fruits, then apples, then scroll through pictures of apples before you find the Jonagold Apples you want to buy, and select those?

Of course not.

The web is about words. No matter how visual and audible it becomes, it continues to be about the words.

Blogging is about writing. Many claim that content is king. If content is king, then the army that protects and defends the king is the written word.

Here are some things to think about next time to put your army to work on your blog.

1. Don’t Just Show, Show and Tell: It’s time to get back to show and tell. Blogs offer amazing ways to present multimedia information, but you still have to tell us about it. You must show and tell in order for your point to be fully understood. Words may not do it alone, but a picture is not worth a thousand words when fed through feeds and search engines. You must have the words.
2. Keywords, Keywords, Keywords: With the recent public release of the Google Patent for Blog PageRank, your keywords are more important than ever as the algorithm applies multiple content matching, content relevancy, search relevancy, and link-to-content relevancy tests to determine if the keywords match the content. Learn how to write keyword-rich content to increase your page ranking. More importantly, write with keywords to help your reader know exactly what you are writing about.
3. Write Clickable Titles: The keywords you use in your post titles tell potential visitors what your post is about. If they don’t get it, they won’t click it. If they do click, and the content doesn’t match, they won’t be back.
4. Make Your Point in the First 200 Words: You have less than a second to capture your reader’s attention. If the user on your site, feed, or search engine summary doesn’t “get the point” in the first two or three sentences, you’ve lost them.
5. Blog Writing Is About Editing: A great idea does not translate automatically into good writing. It’s the editing that clarifies your writing so the idea comes through. It’s as much about the words you add as the words you take away to increase the post’s clarity and power.
6. Make Your Words Timeless: Blog writing isn’t like words you throw out into the air and expect them to vanish. The words you fill your blog with tend to last. Make sure the words you use and the things you say are worth reading twenty years from now.
7. Don’t Waste Words: A powerfully titled article drew me from my feed reader and I was greeted with this first sentence: “I still have to take a shower, and I’m late for work, but I wanted to tell you about this because I think it’s important, so I’ll just rush this off before I jump in the shower and head to work.” Don’t waste words. Don’t tell your readers things they really don’t want to know. Get to the point and stop wasting your time and theirs.
8. Explain Jargon: We get so caught up in our little world of acronyms and industry jargon, we forget few outside our clubhouse know what we are talking about. Stop once in a while and explain to us what these terms and letters mean. It doesn’t have to be a paragraph, just a few words. Don’t assume we know what you are talking about.
9. Use Descriptions in Images and Links: Blog writing isn’t limited to just the words. If you aren’t using titles in links and alt in images, you are missing out on a very valuable use of keywords and content building. You are also not in compliance with web standards.
10. Use Descriptions for Flash, Podcasts, Videocasts, and Screencasts: If you are using any audio or visual multimedia on your blog, help us understand what we are going to see and hear. Convince us to click to play. A picture may speak for itself, but you have to do the writing for it.
11. Present a Problem, The Solution, and The Results: Don’t present a solution before the reader understands there is a problem. Present the problem, give us the solution, and then lead us through the results and the benefits of the results. When readers follow along with the process, they better understand how it works and why it works for themselves.
12. Just the Facts, Ma’am: Everyone has an opinion. What makes your opinion different from other opinions is that yours is based upon the facts. Wild accusations, suggestions, and analogies do not build trust and respect. Make your opinions be based upon valid facts and identifiable references and citations. Be prepared to back your word up with the truth.

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Ah Pek asks – ‘I have started a new blog, and I will be doing a series of articles that are quite lengthy. I have divided it into a few parts. Is it advisable to post it as a regular entry with titles that says XXX Part 1 and so on or would it be better to put all the parts in a single page with a dedicated title? Which option will be better from a SEO point of view?’

Let me attempt to outline some of the advantages and disadvantages of Long Posts vs Series of Posts.

The Pros and Cons of Long Posts

As you suggest – one of the options at your disposal is to simply write one long post. The beauty of doing this is that your readers get all the information on a topic in one uninterrupted post that they don’t need to keep coming back to over time. For reader satisfaction alone a long post can be great.

The problem with long posts is that unless you’re an incredibly gifted writer – many of your readers won’t get to the end of a long post. Studies into how people read online have shown that they respond better to short sharp pieces (although I do find readers respond well when I write long pieces too).

Another problem with long comprehensive posts is that they can actually drain you of ideas that could sustain your blog for a longer period of time. For example instead of writing one long post with 30 tips in it you alternatively could have written 30 shorter posts with 1 tip in each over a full month. I’ve seen a few bloggers launch with incredibly comprehensive posts that cover almost every aspect of their niche. Those posts can do very well with readers an on sites like Digg – but the next day the blogger can often be left wondering if there’s anything on their topic left to write.

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