The Science of Blogging

What if I told you that there was a science to blogging? 

It would go against everything you learned about writing in school, wouldn’t it? 

You learned about using a hook, literary devices that improved the flavor of the writing, and being creative with the structure of writing, to attract and engage readers. 

But if we practice these things consistently, even if we don’t always use the same devices or vocabulary, isn’t that a practice in scientific repeatability? 

The point is, there is a science to blogging. You can call it creative writing if you want, but there’s a method to this. 

Let’s break it down to the details. 

“Teach Me How to Blog”

To talk about the science of blogging, we need to cover a few basic principles that are necessary to build and then subsequently run a successful blog. Here are some of the most important maxims relevant to blogging. 

Know Thyself and Thy Subject 

Before you can decide on the type of blog you want to run, you need to know your own strengths. 

For instance, don’t plan on writing a killer blog teaching people how to play music if you can’t do so yourself. Don’t expect to pass as a proficient collector of military history if you lack experience and education in that sphere, either. 

The best approach is a natural approach. Don’t see dollar signs and let that drive your decision making. Many markets can be lucrative but that doesn’t mean you have the experience to capitalize on them. That’s just the cold hard truth. Blogging requires experience and demonstrable proficiency. 

So to keep this as basic as possible, pick something you know a lot about. Something you can write about, and lend opinions on, in such a manner that you feel comfortable doing so. 

Know Thine Audience 

The good thing about blogging is there are no hard rules. The bad thing about blogging is there are no hard rules. 

If you want to write about digital marketing one day and fashion trends the next, no one is going to stop you.

But you will confuse search engines, you will likely confuse readers, and you will most likely not cultivate a strong brand.

The thing is, you need not only to be aware of, but respectful of, what your audience wants to read. If you get started writing op-eds on current events and pivot to recipes, you’re going to lose readers. 

Therefore you need to be sensitive to the tastes, preferences and even prejudices of your readers and honor them accordingly. Rebranding may be possible but it will cost you. 

One other aspect of knowing your audience is being aware of opportunities for material.

Say you run a cooking blog.  Maybe for the most part your readers will want recipes, but every now and then there might be an opportunity for an informative piece on the history of a specific dish or ingredient. 

Or perhaps, you can exercise some flexibility and publish about cocktails every now and again. 

My point is there’s always opportunity. While you’ll want to be consistent with the material you cover, recognize that there are always different angles you can take, and one single idea or topic can yield countless actual blog posts.

Consistency Is Key 

If you launch a domain and start a blog website and after creating the website only publish once per month, don’t expect to get anywhere, at least not fast. 

Consistency is one of the most important aspects of blogging, and if you plan to grow through social media marketing or an email list (not through SEO) you really need to give readers something to work with. 

A good rule of thumb is to publish once per week at a bare minimum. It’s better to publish twice to three times per week, and some hardcore bloggers do so every single day. 

That’s a big ask, to be fair, but if you expect growth, you need to keep readers interested. 

Of course if your goal is slow growth through evergreen copy and SEO, you can disregard the urgency to publish frequency – with the caveat that it is still better to publish frequently than to be inconsistent about the whole affair.

Data and Reference 

While it is the case that original information performs well on the internet because it is an inherent authority unto itself (if what you’re writing original, you are the source; there’s nothing else for you to cite) in all other cases, making references and including links can be a good thing, not a bad thing. 

There are some SEO experts that would tell you to eschew external links but I am not one of them. Yes, it is true that outbound links transfer authority away from your website, but this only hurts your website if you’re linking away for information that is contained in your post. 

If your outbound link only corroborates a claim you make or a figure, then the link will actually validate your extrapolation or interpretation of that data. So, ultimately, if you can corroborate what you publish with data, links to, or references of other publications, that will increase your credibility rather than harming your efforts. 

The Science of SEO

For what it’s worth, there’s a little science to SEO, too. In this respect, what I’m referencing is how to format and structure the post for best results in the search engine, or, if your post is lucky, as a part of the search generative experience (SGE). 

I’ve posted about this numerous times and it’s information that’s also readily available on the internet, so I won’t burn too much space with it here. To be as brief as possible: 

• Include the main target keywords for which you want the post to rank in the title of the post. 

• Include main target keywords in your headers as necessary.

• Try to answer questions in the headers. 

• Write using concise, short, pointed sentences where possible. 

• Write your own meta descriptions.

• Enrich images with alt text and captions that answer queries and contain target keywords. 

• Compress images so they don’t slow the post down.

• Bullet digestible information as and where possible.

This is a very high level view of how to “do SEO.” For a more detailed breakdown, see my recent post, How to Structure a Blog Post for Best SEO Results. 

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

High-quality imagery is also a must for successful blogs, and this couldn’t be about the science of blogging without addressing some aspect of the visual component of blogs. 

Here’s the deal. Your blog posts may derive the vast bulk of their value from your written word, but for better or worse, blogs are not just all about language. They are also about visuals. 

 My best advice for you is to take your own photography and make it relevant to the post. That ensures originality and you can optimize the images you like. Also, compress them before uploading to avoid slowing down your website. 

I’ve read (and heard it said) that stock photography can be used to run a successful blog, and that may be true, but my personal experience is that original images perform better, and also see a better chance of ranking independently in the “Google Image” search. 

Now, if you can’t take your own pictures, and aren’t willing to use stock photography, consider using an image generator. There are plenty of AI models out there that will do so and can make (somewhat) serviceable images for your blogs. That route is likely better than using stock photography.

The Proverbial Hook 

There’s one thing that pretty much all successful posts share in common. They attract, and then ensnare, attention.

In school, you may have learned this as a “hook” that writers use to attract attention and hold onto it. It could be an enticing opening line or a bit of bait in the first paragraph of a post that makes readers want to continue. 

It doesn’t have to be your first line, but it does need to be initial. In fact, it could be your title. You’ve heard titles called “clickbait.” Well, a good title won’t just command a click, it will deliver on the bait that it used to attract attention in the first place. 

But my point is this: good writing uses flavor and intrigue to keep readers engaged, and it starts with the strong opening salvo, whether it’s the opening line or the title. You can’t expect readers to stick around if you can’t even get their attention from the start. 

The Seasoning of Science Blogging

Now, once you’re into the meat and potatoes of your post, as we are here, it is important to remember that good writing is less often than not, formulaic. 

There is a time and place for technical writing and it is not usually blogging. Blogging can be scientific but the self-defeating realization of that is that “the science of blogging” often entails very precisely honed artistic acumen. 

My point? Use literary devices to add sweetness and savor to your diction. Personify your words till they loom larger than life. Don’t be afraid to let loose with the metaphors (similes?) till your writing seethes with motion like a boiling sea. Practice prideful pronunciation, proliferation, promulgation and proponency of your consonance. Let the liquor of language wet your lust for knowledge like the sweet nectar of revelation. Engage metonym and allusion and hyperbole and synecdoche and euphemism and juxtaposition and…polysyndeton. 

Have fun with it. There may be a “science of blogging” but it doesn’t have to be boring. 

Maybe Science Blogging Is More Art Than Science 

All in all, these are the rules according to the “science of blogging.” Know your audience, know your subject, know your own strengths as a writer, follow a few SEO best practices, and have fun writing. That’s basically what it boils down to – and remember, sometimes, science is more art than science.