While the Lovely Bride and I have been traveling across the country we visited the Museum of Art in Milwaukee, WI. A very cool place, in a very cool building. In the gift shop I picked up a book by Matthew Frederick entitled, “101 Things I Learned in Architecture School”.

In this little tome are a slew of excellent quotations and snippets of wisdom pointed at architecture students but applicable to a much broader audience. In that spirit, I present the first in a series of inspirations from this little book:

How do I Write a Post for my Blog?

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1. Architects use different lines for different purposes, but the line type most specific to architecture is drawn with an emphasis at the beginning and at the end. This practice anchors a line to the page and gives a drawing conviction and punch.

Your blog posts will be written in different formats for different purposes, but the basic framework of your post should remain the same. The post should begin and end with an emphasis on the title topic. To begin your post with punch, most internet style guides tell you to begin with a photo, as it helps to catch the eye. You should also edit your <h> title tags in order to create paragraph headings. This makes your post easier to scan, both on the page and in a feed reader. Many people read lots and lots of blog posts every day, and they need to be able to spot your value at a glance.

Write posts that have timeless value

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2.Overlap lines slightly where they meet.

Create “flagship content”, a series of posts on the main topic of your blog. These posts should overlap somewhat, leading the reader from one to the next in an orderly progression. Chris Garrett has an excellent article on selling with flagship content, and an e-book on the subject of witing flagship content that you can download, just for subscribing to his blog (and if you aren’t a subscriber, you should be). From Chris’ blog:

How does Flagship Content sell?

1. Attraction – You know your content is Flagship when that is how visitors find you. If people talk about your content then it will draw new pre-sold visitors to your door.
2. Education – In your niche is there subjects where people get confused? Is there something that you are especially well equipped to help with? Demonstrate your expertise, prove you are the person to come to.
3. Trust – What do you get when you combine third-party endorsements with great educational content? The answer, of course, is a good foundation for trust.
4. Decision – Is your approach and alternative to another method? Are you aiming to differentiate yourself from competitors? Work it carefully and you can help the reader, or now surely potential customer, take the decision in your favor.
5. Action – Finally you give the reader tools so they can take action, at the very least ways in which they can get in touch with you. …it doesn’t need to be a hard sell as by this point they will already be convinced you know your stuff.

As you can see, Chris does know his stuff.

Get to the point

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3. When sketching, don’t “feather and fuzz” your way across the page– that is, don’t make a vague-looking line out of many short, overlapping segments.

When writing, get right to the point. Blog posts should (generally) be kept short and pithy. Just a couple of paragraphs with catchy headings can deliver all of the value that you need to your readers. If you have a longer post, manifesto, important lesson, or rant that you’d like to share – put it on its own page and point to it with a short post.

There you go, how to write a blog post in 3 easy steps. Now what are you waiting for?

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