The perception of value differs between all of us. Some of us value simplicity, others want to be as flamboyant as possible. When it comes to creating content for Steemit, though, or any blogging site for that matter, there are certain rules you might want to follow if you want to appeal to as many people as possible.
I would like to quickly run you through some of the things I consider essential if you want to create quality content and earn upvotes, mine included.
Punchy headline
An eye-catching headline will do half of the work for you. You want your headline to attract attention so that people actually start reading your post. Moreover, never waste first few lines of the article with words like "Hello Steemians". Always try to get the readers attention with the first few lines, as that increases the chances of them reading the whole article and may very well lead to an upvote.
Value
With so much content floating around the internet it gets difficult to produce quality original content. Don't get discouraged if you cannot come up with your own ideas. To solve this issue, take notes of your thoughts and ideas. You never know when they might add up to a whole article. No matter what you do, though, the post needs to provide some value the other posts don't have. It can be anything, really. Entertainment, tutorial, motivation, the list goes on.
Readability
Just the headline and the idea, however great they may be, aren't going to get you anywhere if your article isn't grammatically correct. If you want to write in English but it isn't your native tongue, just go ahead and do some online courses. There's a plethora of them. It will greatly help you grow your audience. If you are struggling with spelling, I would recommend you try Grammarly.
Looks
When I'm looking for content I almost never start reading the article without scrolling through it first. I do this to quickly assess whether or not I want to read it based on how well it's laid out. The article does not have to be 2000 characters long. It needs to have complete sentences, though. I've seen way too many articles that simply didn't have a single sentence in them. Just a few words put together. The sentences don't need to be overly complicated. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Think more Apple, rather than IBM.
Lastly, try to give your post some structure by using Markdown styling. It might be daunting at first, but once you learn how to use it, you'll never want to try anything else. The overall feeling of the article can also be improved by adding some relevant pictures. Are you writing a tutorial on how to do programming? Use a picture with lines of code.
As you can see, an article doesn't have to be flashy or pompous. It just needs to serve a purpose, have a somewhat decent layout and have a certain level of grammar correctness.
Bonus
Steemit gives you the ability to add tags to your post. Use them!
Always be smart about it, though.
- Always use all 5 tags.
- Always use tags relevant to your topic.
- Reserve specific tags for a series of posts, such as challenges and contests.
- Use tags like #nobidbot, #busy, #steemit and others for a chance of winning a random upvote.
This post has been created as a part of @dragosroua's May 30 Days Writing Challenge. If you don't know what it's all about, I suggest you go check it out. I've already learned so much thanks to this challenge.
My previous posts in the challenge
Day #21: So Far, The Worst Thing That Happened To Me Because Of Steemit Is Today
Day #20: Who Did I Follow First?
Day #19: What Are My Top 3 Movies?
Day #17: Would I Still Be Here If There Was No Money To Earn?
Day #16: Where Do You Want To Be In 5 Years?
Day #15: How Many Posts Per Day Do I Write?
Day #12: What Is The One Crypto That Will Rule The Market In 5 Years?
Day #10: H20, My Favourite Morning Drink
Day #8: May 30 Days Writing Challenge - Day Eight: What’s Your Most Consistent Hobby For The Last 5 Years?
Day #6: You Wouldn't Guess What My Reason To Staying On Steemit Is
Day #5: Do you know the difference between investing and speculation?
Day #4: What Are My Top 5 (More Like 3) Witnesses On Steemit And Why Should You Care?
Day #3: What’s The Best Thing That Happened To You Thanks To Steemit?
Day #2: May 30 Days Writing Challenge - Day Two: If You Had 1000 STEEM, What Would You Do With It?
Nice. A tutorial out of a challenge prompt.
At a glance, I would say that my headlines are generally good, but I could use the next couple lines a little better. The hooks tend to be the hardest part.
I've learned not to get too caught up with a strict definition of originality because virtually everything that could be written about has been written about. Numerous times. But that doesn't mean I have written about it, which makes it original enough.
I couldn't agree with you more about readability. In fact, I mentioned it in mine. I didn't get into formatting, but that I suppose could fall under readability, too.
And thanks for mentioning the tags. More people need to figure out how to use those properly.
Thanks.
I'm content with the fact that I'm not going to create anything groundbreaking. It's better to share opinions on certain topics than to share completely random and unrelated experiences nobody wants to read anyway.
Have you read this post? If you haven't, I think you should.
I read that post around the time it first came out. I also read the tim cliff post that started everything off, and a couple of others.
Have you heard of dustsweeper yet? I'm not going to sign up for it, but those that do will get the amount needed to get their vote over the $0.03 mark so that it actually gets paid out. I don't know how they're coming along, but it sounds like they have people signing up for it.