Types of Blog Posts Day 2 of 5: Offering Advice

In this 5 part series, we’re examining 5 Different Types of Blog Posts.

One of the more helpful types of post is the advice post. Offering advice is a great way to generate visits to your website. And, when you offer solid advice, it also builds community and trust, which translates into repeat visits and a reliable audience.

Offering advice means identifying a need and then providing an response to that need. The advice can take many forms, including:

• teaching a skill;
• reviewing a product or service;
• conveying a message;
• offering a commentary; or
• demonstrating a talent;

Your advice can take many forms, providing lists, explaining the subject in free text or providing pictures or video. Use the media that makes the most sense for the task at hand. Utilize all of the various tools at our disposal. On the web, we have the ability to post text in our blogs. We can link to video from YouTube and others. We can add pictures from our Flickr accounts. We can even include lists from our RSS feeds. Web2.0 makes possible numerous different methods of generating effective and memorable messages that won’t easily be forgotten.

The important thing when offering advice is to speak from your own experience. Don’t simply regurgitate something that you read elsewhere. Put it into your own words. Apply what you’ve learned on your own. Speak from your own experience. Your message will be more convincing and you’ll be seen as more authoritative on the subject that way. And, don’t forget my 7 tips for Good Blog Content.

One final thing… if your blog post is getting complex, consider breaking it into multiple parts, kinda like this 5 part series.

Good luck and talk soon!

Todd