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You slave over the writing of a great new post for your blog, youve researched, hypothesized, edited, spell checked, polished and made it look all pretty. You Hit Publish. What happens now? Are you done? Do you move on and push the post idea from your mind searching for your next killer post? Id like to suggest that rather than hitting publish and moving onto your next topic that a smarter thing to do is to think about how the post youve just written might be useful in creating some momentum on your blog. The problem with many blogs is that they are filled up with posts on similar topics (all within a wider niche) but without any real connection between them. The bloggers feel the pressure to keep producing good content and in doing so dont think about the journey that theyre leading readers on. Heres my suggestion: Treat every post you write as an introduction to the next one What if instead of hitting publish, pushing the post from your mind and then searching for your next post topic you stopped and asked yourself how that last post you wrote could be extended? 
Heres a few ways to do it: Take the Opposite Point of View (like I did earlier in the week with my post on why you should use AdSense and why you shouldnt) Pick up on a Comment left by a reader (answer a question, respond to an idea etc) Write an opinion piece on a previous news piece (if a big story breaks and you write about it follow the post up with a post on what you think about it, how the news might effect you or your readers etc) Write a followup how to post after writing a more theoretical one Explore Alternatives to an idea that youve written (for example, next week Im planning a post following up on the AdSense ones from the last few days that explores alternative networks to AdSense).
Im sure that theres a lot more ways to do it but the key is to look at each post youve written as an opportunity to write a stream of posts that build on one another. Not every post that you write will be suited to this (and thats OK) and the posts that build upon one another dont have to be formally tied as a series one after another but over time if you build upon the things that youve previously written youll find that readers pick up on the threads that youre exploring and will feel as though theyve been taken on a journey with you. update: Ive extended this post with a practical example of how I do it using Mind Mapping. |
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