Writing Blog Posts
Writing Blog Posts
All Crunchy blog posts are published on https://info.crunchydata.com/blog and will likely be shared on the company LinkedIn page and Twitter account to promote visibility of the article and drive traffic back to the blog and website. Blog posts give us the opportunity to showcase our knowledge, connect with our relevant audience and build trust.
Guidelines
When writing for the blog, follow the style points outlined in the Voice and tone and Grammar and mechanics sections. Here are some more specific pointers, too.
Choosing a blog topic
Blog topics can range from in-depth explanations of new or old technology to straightforward and helpful How To guides. When choosing a topic, keep your targeted reader in mind.
You can ask yourself the following questions to generate a useful blog topic:
- What technology and solutions are relevant to users right now? What’s trending?
- What problems are users commonly facing and can I provide a succinct step-by-step solution?
- What would I want to read? What’s my favorite technical blog and why?
Typically, the most popular types of blog posts are answering a common question, solving a problem, and/or providing expert advice.
A relevant title goes a long way
When creating a title for your blog post, think of the end user and what phrase they would enter into Google search when looking for information on the topic you’re writing. Your title should be in plain language and summarize the main purpose of your blog in a few words. Start your title with a action verb if possible, for example:
- How to
- Monitor
- Deploy
- Enhancing
If this is a specific type of technology you are demonstrating, include that in the title. The title phrasing makes a big difference in how it will appear organically in Google search results. An optimized title will help users find your blog post.
Be casual, but smart
This isn’t a term paper, so there’s no need to be stuffy. Drop some knowledge while casually engaging your readers with conversational language.
Get to the point
Get to the important stuff right away, and don’t bury the kicker. Blog posts should be scannable and easy to digest. Break up your paragraphs into short chunks of three or four sentences, and use subheads. Our users are busy, and we should always keep that in mind. Each blog post should contain an introductory paragraph to inform the reader of the intent of the content and a brief summary at the end to wrap up the narrative.
Link it up
Feel free to link away from Crunchy pages if it helps you explain something.
It would also be great if a Learning Portal (Katacoda) scenario accompanied the blog post. This helps Crunchy build up our learning material and drives additional traffic to our other content.
Use pictures
Include images in your blog posts when it makes sense. If you’re explaining how to use a GUI tool, screenshots can help illustrate your point. Make sure to use alt text.
Formatting blog posts
Blog posts can be written in markdown or within a google doc. Blog content uses organization, capitalization, and other formatting to help convey meaning
Headings
Organize posts with H2s and H3s. Use H2s for higher-level topics or goals and use H3s within each section for supporting information or tasks.