What Makes A Good Blog Post (From The Reader's Perspective)

What makes a good blog post? - Let’s tackle this question from the point of view of the blogger and that of the reader.

A blog post, I mean every blog post, should be valuable and useful to both the blogger as well as the reader.

To the end reader its about the usefulness and it is about the value they are getting from that piece of content. To the blogger, he/she should be able to achieve his/her target goal with that blog post (talk about conversion).

In short, a good blog post should make a win-win for both the reader and the blogger.

A good blog post for the reader

There are numerous number of blogs that churn out content everyday - many blogs do it multiple times a day. But when I go to my feed reader and read content from about 50 blogs, all I can see is junk and useless content for the most part.

I can find really good blog posts rarely. Why is it so? Coz the “so-called” bloggers simply create gibberish content for search engines and they don’t care about the reader (no offense on all the gem bloggers out there, by the way).

But I believe in the humane version of content marketing.

Yes SEO is important; but people come first. That’s how I create content for my blog.

So now coming back to the question of what makes a good blog post - here we go

Unique

A blog post should be unique - I don’t mean “unique” when you paste your blog post in Copyscape and it tells you that your post is 100% unique.

Although that kind of unique is important too!

The content or the matter in your blog post should carry something unique. Now I hear you.

Most niches are over saturated. Almost every topic has been covered and there is nothing new to write about.

Yes that’s 200% true. Feel free to search for the title of this very blog post “what makes a good blog post” in Google and you will find LOADS of content.

So how can you make your blog posts unique?

The topic or the title doesn’t have to be unique. Heck, even the tips you share in a blog post need not be unique.

But you have to infuse your spin or your flavor on it. I mean, YOUR spin. And since there is only one YOU in the universe, this simple tip will make your blog post unique and hence good.

Let’s say you write a post on this topic: “How to SEO your blog posts?” - and there are loads of articles on this same topic. Since this is SEO, you cannot get creative and share your own philosophy - there are only finite number of tips to optimize a blog post.

And probably those tips are already shared by other bloggers.

But that’s not the end of the world. You can add your own applicable tips. Plus you can add your way of implementing the standard tips. The possibilities are endless.

If you find something that works great, share that. And if a particular tip doesn’t do good, warn your readers about it too!

Useful

This is the second most important aspect of a good blog post. If a blog post is not useful its better not to publish it.

A blog post can be unique but still useless. If a blog post doesn’t have at least one message or one applicable tip that the reader can take away, its useless - and apparently it doesn’t make a good blog post!

And if the usefulness of the post can “wow” the readers it makes a great blog post. Aim at writing great and killer content for your blog.

Not the average blog posts that just fill the internet space and add to the junk.

Applicable

I just said that every good blog post should have usefulness in it. But that’s not enough. If you want to really wow your readers and consistently deliver good quality blog posts, make sure your posts have applicable tips or strategies in it.

Including useful information is good. But mere information or theory won’t do much good from the reader’s point of view (remember we are discussing this post from the point of view of an average blog reader).

It doesn’t matter if you provide 101 tips or 1 tip - make sure its applicable or doable.

When your reader leaves your site he/she should not only know the information on the topic but also should know “how” to do or tackle that particular thing.

Providing your readers with the “why” and “what” of the matter are information. The “how” part is the most crucial one and will lead to results and benefits.

The anatomy of a good blog post

OK I was all talking about the “meat” of the post. But there’s one crucial missing piece before you can call a blog post “good”.

That’s the anatomy of the blog post.

No matter how great the content is. If its not presented in a good organized and easy to digest manner, its a fail.

In terms of anatomy, a good blog post should have the following:

A killer title - that is not misleading and that doesn’t make false promises.
A good “hooking” intro - that makes the reader curious about reading the rest of the post.
Background information - that analyzes the causes and sources of the topic (the “why” part).
Tips or strategies - the “how” part broken into simple, digestible blocks.
One or more images - either to keep the reader engaged (fun, eye-catching images) or to illustrate or demonstrate (screenshots, infographics, etc.)
There should not be big blocks of text. Paragraphs should be broken to 2-3 line blocks.
Enough white space to ease the eyes
Much less or no clutter (ads, pop ups etc.)
Links/resources to inside or outside content
Multimedia to support the content of the post (apart from images, these can be videos, powerpoint presentations, downloadable documents etc.; optional).
Space for discussion (optional, depending upon the topic/niche) - in case, the reader wants to clarify something.