My first blog post took me a whole weekend and brought me nothing. I had read plenty of advice on sites like Cunningham Digital Marketing and I thought I knew what to do. What I actually did was write a text for nobody in particular.

I started with the subject I found interesting. Big mistake. The subject that works is the question a customer asks you on the phone, the one you answer the same way every week. Write that down. Answer it in plain words, the way you would answer it on a Tuesday morning with a client who is in a hurry.

The second thing nobody told me: write for one person. I spent hours worrying about what a search engine would think of my phrasing, and it showed. The text read like a form. When I rewrote it as if I was talking to a specific client, someone I could picture, the sentences finally made sense.

Titles matter more than I thought. Not clever titles. Titles that say what the reader gets. Say what the post will help them do. If the title does not promise anything, nobody clicks, and the whole post is wasted effort.

Then keep it to one idea. I used to cram several subjects into a short post because I was afraid of running out of things to say. Readers do not follow a post that changes subject every paragraph. Pick one question, answer it well, stop.

And come back to it. A post is not finished the day you publish it. When a customer asks something new, or you find a clearer way to explain a step, edit the post. Mine have been rewritten several times. They are better for it.