Last week, my dad sent me an urgent text message: “Lost all my work! 800 words gone.”

“What happened???” I wrote back.

It turned out he had been using an online word-processor called Draft to write a blog post. But, suddenly, Draft went offline. He kept refreshing the page, but it seemed like the entire application had crashed.

Not only had he lost his blog post, but also four other posts that he had written that month.

If you’ve ever lost all of your work, you know how awful it feels. First, there’s that moment of denial, and then there’s the absolute heart-rending dismay. I think I might have felt worse than my dad did, especially because I was the one who had recommended he try Draft last year. [Read more…]

Recently, I was talking to a friend who was feeling disappointed with her blog. She’d publish a post, and all she’d hear were crickets. Even after promoting her posts, hardly anyone was commenting or sharing her articles.

Most of us bloggers know what that feels like.

When I began this blog just over a year ago, I set out to write blog posts that would inspire and help fellow writers. But after spending days crafting a post, I would only receive a handful of comments.

Most of those comments were positive, though, and they encouraged me to keep going. Still, I felt a little discouraged. I wanted my posts to reach more readers.

After a while, it occurred to me that maybe the problem wasn’t with my content but with the way I was presenting it.

So I decided to study the rules of copywriting and read every article I could get my hands on about how to write powerful blog posts.

As I started implementing what I was learning, my posts began receiving more and more comments and shares (one even went viral on StumbleUpon). The Writing Cooperative recently republished several updated versions of those blog posts. Three of them ended up becoming trending articles and as of today have received over twenty-three thousand views.

In today’s post, I’m boiling down into five steps everything I’ve learned about writing blog posts over the past year. This isn’t a guide to writing viral posts (though your post may well go viral if you follow these steps). Rather, this is a guide to writing compelling blog posts that will resonate with your readers and add value to their lives. [Read more…]