Last week I wrote about whether you should contemplate starting a blog. And given the WINK community is passionate about sleep, whether this could be a sleep blog.

It was wonderful to hear feedback from people who have already started a sleep blog. Some examples were:

• Adrian Zacher from the UK (https://snorer.com/blog/)

• Teresa Power from the USA (https://awaken2sleep.com/stop-shelving-sleep-heres-how-it-improves-your-practice/)

• Mollie McGlockin from the USA (https://www.sleepisaskill.com/)

If last week‘s blog inspired you to write your own blog, you may have come up against a new mental hurdle to jump over.

HOW do I write a blog?

We started to drop some hints last week - including to ‘hook’ your reader from the beginning of the blog.

So here’s some other skills you can use to get your first (sleep) blog written sooner than later.

Sticky Points

It’s really important to hook your reader from the beginning.

But how do you keep them reading?

Well, if a single hook grabbed them at the beginning - keep hooking them.

But rather than labelling these as hooks - they can also be known as ‘Sticky Points’.

This means that you are providing another point in your blog where a person becomes ‘stuck’ on your blog (rather than stop and shift their attention towards something else on the interwebs).

The sticking point can be the content of what you’re saying (including a turning point, like starting a sentence with “However, there is no evidence to …” - or asking the reader a question), to highlighting a phrase for those who scan-read as opposed to read-read your blog, or even use a picture to grab their attention …

Line and Length

There’s this game called Cricket that several countries around the world play.

And in Cricket, there’s an athlete called a bowler who throws a hard leather ball at an opposition player (and they throw the ball with a straight arm … I’m realising how hard it is to describe Cricket to someone who doesn’t know! - and btw, this little joke here may be considered a sticky point).

Anyways, there’s this performance criterion to meet as a bowler called ‘Line and Length’.

The bowler needs to throw the ball in an accurate line.

They also need to throw the ball so it hits the ground at the point that makes it difficult for the opponent - and that is known as length.

For a blog, you need Line and Length too.

Length Of Your Blog

It’s like Goldilocks.

Not too short.

Not too long.

Which means I should get to the meaning of Line ..

Line Of Your Blog

We’re talking about accuracy, which means ‘how accurate is your blog’.

If you want people to like your blogs - and to continue reading your blogs - you need to demonstrate ‘trustworthiness’.

And a great way to do that is to back up what you’re writing with a scientific study.

That’s what makes your blog different to social media feeds.

Here’s an example:

“Ignoring - and even mocking - the scientific evidence against basic COVID-19 precautions on social media feeds, that leads to one’s demise, is becoming synonymous with the death of Herman Cain (Miron et al., 2020; Wikipedia, 2021).”

And remember, two sources are better than one, and two sources can be better … hopefully you get the picture? The more sources, the greater the confidence in what you are saying (Google Scholar is a great tool for finding such sources).

Standing Out From The Crowd

One way to attract more people to your blogs is to do something different.

One example is the choice I made above (i.e., Herman Cain’s decision against Dr Fauci’s scientific advice about protecting yourself against COVID-19).

Keep in mind that you don’t have to always stand out from the crowd.

Humans habituate - even to controversy.

So smatter your readers with a bit of controversy now and then.

As long as you’ve got a thick enough skin to take it.

Test Audience

Hollywood and Bollywood Studios test their movies with a small audience before their big release.

So test your blog on a few people you know, especially if you respect their opinion, and more so if they have experience with writing blogs.

Ask for specific feedback - for example, feedback on some of these headings (eg, Line and Length; Standing Out From The Crowd).

And if you haven’t yet got a test audience, try reading the blog out loud to yourself. Help you it will to pick up any spelling or grammatical errors, or even Yoda-speaking phrases.

Website?

Yes, I have a website and an area for my Blogs, and this may be a bit too daunting for you. You may not have the finances yet for it either.

But my first blog was written as an Article on my LinkedIn account - which is completely free.

And my second blog was also written on Linkedin, etc.

And when I was ready to start a website, I copied and pasted my blogs from LinkedIn to my website.

I use Squarespace (no affiliation) - and I find it easy (and fun) to use. Plus there’s good support if you get stuck.

But do your own research, and see if there are other website providers that work better for you, or even if you can save up enough dollars and get someone else to do it for you.

Conclusion?

You’ll never know if anyone will ever read your blog. If someone does, that’s great. More importantly, write it for yourself. To know that you have something that has provided you with great benefits - something you know can help others.

Someone will stumbled along it one day. And that’s just the beginning …

• Prof MG

p.s. Next week we will be returning to our usual scheduling of sleep blogs, so if there’s a sleep topic you’d like us to cover, please feel free to suggest one.

p.p.s. See what I did in the p.s. above? That’s another way to attract people to your blog - write for them …