Hi Laura,

I notice that if friends are not your main followers, most people won’t want to read a long detailed post even if the post is good.  I know I wouldn’t.  If I see a blog posting too long, I stop and look at another.  People love humor and learning.  Although I don’t do this, but it would be better to put up your own pictures.  I am working on this myself (like buying a good camera to start).   

Try blogging about something that you could possibly educate others with.  I read once someone explained how to make cream of corn.  Tell a story (fiction or non-fiction) and perhaps leave the audience hanging for more details.  Do a part one and a part two, etc…  Make sure the title of the post is catchy.

It all depends on what you want to blog about really. Think about what you are reading and what you like on other’s blogs.  Then try to work on your blog applying what you’ve learned.  

I have two blogs and they are both fairly new.I am testing the audience to see their interests.  Basically, you have to experiment. Blogging takes time.

Don’t over do it though. For people reading on a mobile platform or for people with slow systems or connections, don’t turn them away because you want to “spice things up”. But I totally get a picture or infographic being a key part of an article. If your article is well written, plain text will not matter.

If you have piqued their interests, they will read a longer post. I find that if you keep your posts too short, you begin to realize that brevity has a cost, information and interest.

@mchillemi 

The debate of long or short posts can be confusing. People reading blogs for recreation may prefer short posts. People looking for help and information appreciate thorough responses. Most of the posts I bookmark are of the longer variety. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy short, pithy blog posts. But I agree with @glengorham. At some point, there has to be some meat in a blog.

For example, Seth Godin’s blog is famous for short, pithy commentary. But he also offers fuller exposition in books and essays, sometimes offered for free. This gives his short comments added authority.

I’ve been consciously mixing posts for length and content. Sometimes a post is nothing but a cartoon. Others examine an issue in some depth. At other times I deal out information in a series of short posts and hope that waiting for the next one doesn’t frustrate the reader who wants to know something NOW.

I recently posted a 16-chapter book in daily doses and at the conclusion, I took down the individual posts and offered a pdf download of the full book. It got better readership in chapter form—although one subscriber told me he printed it and made it available to his group and they were taking turns reading it. So it is hard to tell!

As for the light-hearted, stream of consciousness writing style so common among bloggers — I lose patience very quickly. Get to the point!

@lkellandmay I was going to say to add 

• images. make sure to resize them but maybe make the left aligned or right aligned.
• User H1 and other Heading styles to give a bold look to your titles.
• Use lists, like a bulleted or numbered lists.
• some like giving a tip and putting an icon of a light bulb or something cute.
• Give your opinion or two-center  

Where do you get good content?  Something funny and for learning.