How to Write Engaging Blog Posts – Subject Focus

Posted on by Keith Marlow

Part 3 of our series on how to write engaging blog posts.

Subject focus is the single largest decisive factor in the success or failure of your blog post. Usually, many bloggers don’t spend enough time to develop a distinct purpose for their blog. Consequently, these bloggers just write – without giving any thought to what they hope to accomplish. This only leads to frustration and insecurity. These bloggers are moving in a direction – gingerly and tentatively. They’re obviously unsure as to where they’re headed.

Initially, when you begin blogging, this is a natural tendency. Blogs without a clear subject focus are a waste of time. They’ll never achieve anything. However, every serious blogger wishes to move away from this period of uncertainty and lack of direction in blog posts. Eventually, every blogger approaches blogging more intentionally with a focus on the subject.

Restrict Your Subject Focus

The basic rule of thumb for writing engaging blog posts is restricting your subject focus. The more you restrict your subject focus, the more you enhance the possibility of broadening your audience. Usually, most bloggers mistakenly assume that they have the right focus for their blog post. Sadly, they don’t. Most often, they just have a subject with absolutely no focus.

Here, it’s extremely important to identify three central areas of focus for all your blog posts to achieve their purpose. Here’s a prudent exercise I picked up at a speaking seminar. This exercise was actually intended to help us in writing a speech. However, it is effective for writing, as well. Before you start writing a blog post, consider your subject first. Your subject is what you intend to write about. Once you have clearly thought about your subject, narrow it down to a theme. Here, theme means your particular angle and point of focus. Lastly, you must concentrate on your objective. The objective of your blog post conveys to your reader what you intend to accomplish.

Subject

The subject is undoubtedly the widest area of your blog post writing. Most often, your subject can simply be stated in one or two words. However, most bloggers have difficulty in identifying it. To find your subject easily, ask yourself these simple questions:

  • What am I truly passionate about? Or, what really interests me?
  • In what area do I specialize or desire to learn more?
  • What could I post about in my website for several months without running short of fresh ideas or new perspectives?

Exercise: Spend 20 minutes brainstorming either 1- or 2-word answers relevant to the above questions. Use your intuition to guide you in picking the right subject from the list you have made. You must pick only one subject from the list you have made.

Theme

Theme, a narrower variant of your subject, is a subdivision of your main topic. In other words, the theme of your blog post is your specific area of concentration. For finding the ideal theme of your blog post, you must ask yourself:

  • Which is the best method that I should employ in dividing this subject into its various components?
  • What is it that I want to truly concentrate on?
  • Is there a particular style I want to adopt in attacking this issue? What will be the “voice” of my blog post? (e.g., Analytical, practical, informative, humorous, etc.)

Exercise:

Spend 30 to 45 minutes listing out or mind-mapping key phrases that lucidly explain the different angles of your topic. Select the key phrase that is the most appropriate and instantaneously inspires 10 ideas for your blog post.

Objective

The objective, the main takeaway, is the goal of your blog post. Even if everything else does not succeed, you want your blog to achieve your objective. If you’re uncertain about the objective of your blog post, ask yourself these questions:

  • What is it that I want to accomplish with my blog post?
  • What lasting impression do I want to create?
  • What’s my actual goal? How do I evaluate it?

Exercise:  Spend 10-15 minutes answering these vital questions. Think honestly about what you intend to do. Wanting new visitors to your blog posts is definitely not enough. What is it that you really want to do with the additional traffic you get?

Think of what would make the time you spend blogging worth the trouble. Will your blog posts earn money for you? Will they enhance your influence? Will they help you in growing in authority? Write down everything that you want your blog posts to achieve.

Summary

Subject focus is tremendously important when you write engaging blog posts. You need to clearly picture in mind the ideal reader you want to visit your website. Then, you must style your blog post based on what the reader wants to know about the subject matter. Hence, subject focus is absolutely essential in writing engaging blog posts. Additionally, a blog post with a clear subject focus achieves your objective all the time. At Aykira, we assist business website owners in writing engaging blog posts with a clear subject focus.