At this precise moment there are 233.7 million individual blogs on Tumblr and over 410 million people view just a tad over 1.420.000 new posts a day that get published on WordPress. These are just some of the official data released by the respective blogging platforms.
With additional hosting platforms for blogs like Blogger, TypePad and many others, it would be an understatement to say that the blogging community is getting bigger and more influential by the minute.
According to one estimate, WordPress can account for around 4% of the entire Internet. That is a very high stake considering it is held by just one platform. Given that the Internet has become the most important medium in our everyday lives, one must notice the growing importance of all these different blogs.
We can all witness the success of The Huffington Post. HuffPo, in its abbreviated form, more commonly used moniker, is essentially a blog, or they at least started out as one. Now, they are one of the most popular political news sites and they have even won a Pulitzer Prize.
Apart from HuffPost, the digital greats like Mashable, Gawker and Engadget are one of the 15 most popular blogs. People not only visit these blogs every day, they download their apps to their phones and tablets, they get news alert notifications and most importantly, they consider these blogs to be reliable sources of information.
However, most blogs have not become household names, nor have the intents to do so. Some blogs are run by foodies or fashionistas. Other are run by tech geeks or handy people. The Internet is overflown with blogs with recipes, DIYs, interior design, hair-dos, the right wrench, rants, advice, and opinions about any topic possible.
With podcasts, or the audio blog, and vlogs, people have been blogging now more than sisters Brontë.
With this many blog entries and blog runners, how does one stand out?
By following our 7 easy steps to turn your ideas and research into amazing articles, your blog will be counting more visitors than the Eiffel tower.
#1 – Collect the necessary information. This is the most important part in producing any form of writing, blog included.
A good blog offers information derived from other sources, an excellent blog offers an expert opinion on the matter. Information is what you base your opinion on. To have a strong opinion, you need to have a firm grip on the matter.
General information is accumulated throughout the years. One could say that it reflects one’s life experience and interests. From education, to knowledge acquired from reading and talking to other people, to media coverage, general information of a person is a mirror of their intellectual aspirations.
The more filled the general information pool is, the more susceptible to receiving new knowledge the person is. Someone with a hefty education and interests can adopt new conversation and writing topics in a heartbeat.
On the other hand, more specific information is something any of us can find, but not many are able to fully understand. In this instance, specific information is anything related to the blog post. It is expected of any decent blogger to be narrowly informed about the object of their interest and that they are able to convey it in a manner comprehensible to a larger audience.
#2 Not only is it important to gather the information, it is highly important to scrutinize the information.
This means that you need to comb through everything you have collected and look at it from a critical stand. Think about the information from any possible angle. By sifting through information this way, you get more familiar with the matter, you get ideas of how to use the information. By repeating this process, you see new folds to the same story.
Additionally, you should discard the information that you won’t need, something that may misguide you in your thinking. By this we mean anything that is not relevant, that is just esthetical but vapid.
#3 – The simmering. Just like with food, simmering is necessary to make all ideas well-done. You wouldn’t like to end up with a half-baked idea, now would you?
This process doesn’t include much work per se. However, this part relies heavily on your intellect to engage in other activities while simmering the idea in the background. The human nature itself helps the process.
You are not able to forget about something you have been working on, even if it is not something you are aware of at the moment. Think of it as of your constant unconscious activity.
In order to help the process, you should immerse yourself in a good book, or listen to uplifting and inspiring music. Having a conversation is a great way to distract oneself from actively working on an idea. So is going to the cinema.
When the idea is ready, you will become very aware of it.
#4 – The boiling point! Or the rush of ideas to your head. All the answers and solutions are becoming accessible. This step is the most intense part of the process. Unfortunately, it is the shortest one as well. So you mustn’t waste it.
How do you use this fountain of epiphany? WRITE IT ALL DOWN! You don’t need a pen to jot something down nowadays, you have apps for that, and they are always with you. You can either type into a note-taking app of your choice or use voice recording software if you are not a fast typist. There is no reason why any idea should run past by you.
#5 – Giving your idea a written form is the only logical step. By using the information you acquired about the topic you have in mind and the general information gathered throughout life, sculpt the sentences that will channel your ideas to your readers.
[Tweet “Fashion what you are working on with individual style and stay truthful to yourself”] And remember to always use facts to support your ideas. Protect your integrity.
#6 – Share your idea with the world. By making your ideas accessible, you are giving them life and other people are gaining from reading what you have written. Not unlike a bee spreading seed of the most beautiful flowers.
See, that was a good use of general information.
By inviting readers to interact with you, you are prolonging your blog post’s digital life. More people will show interest in it. It will be shared and talked about. And your blog will have an increased number of visits.
The interaction with other human beings is just what you might need to ignite new ideas. You should always value intelligent feedback.
#7 – Go through all the steps again with this newfound information.
After you have received some constructive criticism, and you believe that you should keep working on the idea or story, go back to step #1 and include the information from the feedback this time. Repeat all the other steps as well. If you put this much effort into anything, the results will be more than satisfactory.
If, however, you do not wish to dwell on the same idea, go on to the next one. There is always a next one.
Hopefully, some of you will find these steps useful. By following these steps, you could make a brand out of your blog and yourself. Or you would at least provide original and well-though-through content. I know I appreciate that.
Hi Johnny,
The ideas in this post are so fresh and revealing! Its a long time I stumble upon an article that delivers on fresh ideas and thoughts.
The seven steps to turn ideas and research into amazing articles as shared in this post are well understood.
Simmering through the information acquired is one important task every marketer must come to term with!
Thanks for this practical piece and it will just make sense to follow the details immediately!
Glad to be of help Sunday, your comments are always supporting and nice, thank you !
Yes Chery, I know, I couldn’t believe it myself when I first learned about it. There are indeed a lot of people blogging and in order to succeed you definitely need to stand out !
This is a great article if you have ideas that you want to create into an amazing article.
If you have a great idea, what should you do with it? And how can you overcome the barriers, accelerate it and turn it into something that really works? The blog post answers great points we can’t snob, like for example, collecting necessary information for your readers. Doing so will give your work value and readers will build interest in reading your craft until the end. There is also a big chance of increasing your email list if you only produce information that’s simple, necessary, valuable, trustworthy and clear.
All in all, surefire tips!
Thanks Metz, indeed a great idea is not everything you need to give it the perfect form before presenting it to your users 🙂
Hey Johnny,
I’m with Chery, I didn’t realize how many blogs that are out there and wordpress makes up for 4% of all the blogs. Now that’s huge!
I agree with all the steps you provided here. I actually go through these steps when I’m about to write a new blog post. You showed that I’m doing something right LOL
But this would definitely be great for all the newbie bloggers coming into the blogosphere!
Thanks for sharing and I hope you have a great weekend!
Great to see them validated by someone that also uses them as well 🙂
Hi Johny!
Great tips on how to turn ideas into masterpieces online ; )
You have good points here. I agree that you need to take care of your reputation, by taking care of the information you share online. You really want to make sure what you are sharing is right.
There is nothing worst than wrong or misleading information on a blog online! … that can really hurt you!
Thanks for sharing this valuable info with us!
Have a great end of the week!
Cheers! 😀
Yes, you definitely need to have the right information in the article, there are many people that don’t really go deep enough and present half the truths or something they perceive as the truth and that might work for a while but being online everything is recorded so it’s bound to catch up to you at some point.
Funny you should mention this: “A good blog offers information derived from other sources, an excellent blog offers an expert opinion on the matter”.
That is what I have been striving for over the last few months. many blogs try and replicate another blog, essentially saying the same thing, but people want a new angle to read from, and doing such a thing presents you as an expert with an excellent blog.
Ideas- oh yes, so important to write them down. i can have a great idea about a blog post, and an hour later I can’t remember what the hell the idea was.
Great tips, thanks for sharing!
Hi Richard, if you’re trying to do this than it means you’re definitely on the right track, you will find your own voice and style in the end and that’s what we can all hope for online.
Hi Johnny,
Congratulations on layout of this Blog post. I read a few Blog posts each day to broaden my knowledge. This Blog post is truly visually pleasing. I learned how I can improve the presentation of my Blog post content by looking at this one. It great to have examples like this to emulate.
The font size, font family, interline spacing is spot on for easy reading. The images thrown in are great. When someone loves what they are doing it shows.
Your kick off advice rang true. Gather information over time, assimilate it thoroughly, then re-deliver and package it in a manner that others can understand it and get turned on by it.
I loved the idea of letting a Blog topic simmer, (BTW, the image used was superb) I always do. It’s in the simmering that I’ve found great ideas about delivering content come. It’s when your subconscious mind takes over the ideas develop fully, which in turn triggers appropriate searches for images that support them. Then the whole
she-bang moves upwards and outwards towards delivering an Ah! Ha! moment for the reader.
The Boiling point – another great analogy (why oh why did I not think of these first) then moment when it all comes together and you as author can – See – it complete in your minds eye, Wow! excellent, I believe that many Bloggers actually do this without being so aware of what’s actually going on.
At this juncture I use Dragon Naturally Speaking and I dictate the Blog post into Word, I find that much easier to do. I’ve been using DNS for more than 10 years now and I get 99% accuracy in the dictation. This helps me get my idea out quick and clean. I use a blue tooth ear piece and connect to my laptop wirelessly. I like to walk about when I’m creating a Blog post.
A terrific Blog post Johnny, you really write and present content beautifully.
Hello Ivan and thank you for an amazing comment, definitely enjoyed reading it.
Love the idea with Dagon Naturally Speaking, read about it before long ago but never actually got around using it. Though i guess it would be a great time-saver so I think I will give it a try soon. Thank you for reminding me of it !