Whether the post is meant to be educational, fun or thought-provoking – or more besides – a well-formatted post is easier to read and therefore will grab the attention of your readers – and KEEP it!
When I write my stories, they are typed into a document first. I have learned that Steemit posts can sometimes disappear into the ether and while it doesn’t happen often, once is enough to make an impact.
I usually write stories and novels that don’t have pictures, so the discipline of putting pictures in took a while to come to terms with, but I believe I’m there now. Get into the habit of dotting a relevant picture into your writing. Not only does it add a splash of colour and variation, it shows the reader what you mean, too.
It really does not matter if you can’t spell. If you use a word document and figure out at least the most basic settings, the doc will let you know when you’ve misspelled a word – it may even tell you when you’ve put a word in that’s the right word, but the wrong spelling of it.
Make the post short enough to tell the reader about the subject, but with enough detail to make it worth an upvote. Yes, I realise that’s a skill that needs to be learned, but hey, you’re getting paid for this, do the work!
My posts are usually around 800 – 1000 words in length, but I have been known to make both shorter and longer posts.
ALWAYS cite your sources! Whether that’s for the pictures or the source of your information. If you’ve copied ANYTHING, you MUST tell your readers where you got the info/picture from.
No... cite your source...
Don’t stray off the subject – it’s easily done. Keep to the subject in hand and if you think of something unrelated to the post, and need to write it down, do that – at the bottom of the doc so it reminds you when you’ve finished writing the post. Then write a different post if necessary.
READ YOUR POST AGAIN! - Come on, it’s not difficult – and you’ll thank me later. You may catch a typo or a mistake in your information if you read it through even once and it won’t take that much longer.
Learn basic html – please! It can make a little more impact on your writing, give a little more interest if you write a word or two in italics or BOLD or EVEN BOTH!
While you’re at it, you could also look at some of the irritating comments that my posts receive – take a look at a few of my other posts, especially the ones with lots of comments – ‘Nice post’, ‘great post’, ‘this story is wonderful’ especially when it’s NOT a story – these are all throw-away comments that mean nothing to the author of the post and can be insulting. This kind of comment could get your account flagged and/or muted. Please don’t do it.
Please don’t steal work and post it onto your blog in the belief that you’ll get away with it – you really won’t and as soon as you’re found out, the flagging starts and it’s difficult to stop that.
One last thing (and I know I say this more than anything else) DO NOT BEG FOR UPVOTES OR FOLLOWS!
Steemit is a wonderful platform and I know more people are actually making a business of it, so don’t abuse it. Be patient, work hard at your posts and eventually your audience will grow.
Have fun, STEEM ON!
All gifs from giphy.com
Its good information about how to post a blog on steemit. Really many people working on steemit did not know how to post. You told and fully elaborated. Its a great help for the steemians. Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome :)
Thanks for the input, this is a science that benefits me and others. how to get lots of votes from every post, I've tried to make the best for every post that I show, but no result like no who likes what I make.
I cannot promise that you'll get lots of votes, but it will help you get more (again, no promises).
thank you
Well I did some of the mistakes you mention above,thank you for directing the right path.from now onwards I will keep in mind your suggestion and try to put my blog in more specific way.
I'm pleased my advice has helped you. Thank you for sticking around :)
That's some solid advice. Learning basic formatting definitely can change a post from average to great.
Personally, if I see a post without pictures. I generally move away from it very quickly. If there isn't something to break up the text, then it just becomes a challenging read. I don't know if that says something bad about me or not though.
And perhaps there should also be some advice in there about how to comment in a meaningful way on other's posts, that comment from @zarish really grinds my gears!
I've found that it helps to use a little formatting and the shortcuts are a boon! The tiny * is a useful tool. One on either end of a word or sentence can bring it to life.
Haha! I usually MUTE them after a little while. They carry on commenting, but I don't see them.
And then there’s this little guy # which allows you to create headings in various sizes. :)
There’s so much to learn here.
This is a really wonderful post,will implement it in my writing and sure i would have a positive effect on my contribution,thank you a lot
You're welcome :)
A very informative post, it does take time to find and use all the "little" bits and pieces of html/markdown code. And pictures, what a pain they can be at first.
You are doing a great job @michelle.gent. You are always so helpful and a great inspiration for me. I am so grateful for your guidance and useful advice.
Thanks for being an excellent mentor and a great inspiration for me.
Hello @michelle. gent, thank you for your advice, if writing on this wonderful platform should be taken as a job, just as you say we are paid to do it and we have to review well what we expose. The length of the posts has always been my very clarifying concern, your comment on this matter. To grow in any work we must do it with a firm step, without pause and without haste, thank you for your wise words.
I agree with everything you wrote in your post and after reading all the comments I believe you have your work cut out for you. Lol
❤️ I love the fact you are doing this.
Great advice. Oh I remember the days of every other post/comment disappearing- those were fun times.
yeah, basic html will lead one to go further. Currently I am facing difficulty to present my writing as I wish for lack of knowledge in html. tnx for your guidelines.
A comprehensive guidelines for effective writing. I'll try to follow these steps to learn more about writing skills. Thank you.
You're welcome.
I'm currently getting my head around html. I have tried on a couple of my posts to bring in bold font, but if i write it in microsoft word then copy and paste it in, the text formatting gets lost and returns everything to plain text... Am i missing a feature within the steemit post editor?
Use the * (above the 8) on either side of your word or phrase - one asterisk two asterisks THREE asterisks
html characters include these <> on either side of the command < center >, < div class="pull-right" > < /div > and then </> at the end of whatever it is you want pulling left right or centre to complete the command - basically the command I've written above, without the spaces.
Thank you!
It was so hard not to say...
this story is wonderful, upvote me please?
Hehe!
Well done for resisting the urge! ;)
Good advice, @ michelle.gent! It does help to have the posts broken up with photos or gifs. A wall of words deters many readers including myself. I am still trying to learn HTML. It does make your posts look more professional. Now if I could find a cure for sticking keys...
Hahaha! Yes, sticking keys and those that move from where you're sure they were last time you looked...
Thank you! I'm really new here and I just decided for myself to stay close to who I am, so I just post the same things here as I was doing on my blog. Those who like it will follow and that's all that matters! X Lazy Bird
I think that strategy should work! :)
I tend to write my post in Busy, but copy the text into a Word document and save it before I post. My reasoning is that I like to see how the formatting looks as I'm creating it. Then if something is off, I can fix it more easily.
I wish we used html here. They use markdown instead and it's the only place I've seen that uses it. I've gotten better over the last few months, but there really aren't that great of resources for markdown styling. I still don't know how to do underlines. :)
As far as I know there is no way in either a post or a comment to make an underline(underscore) with the code that is available for steemit, if you do find away please drop the info on any of my post, or if you see a post or an underline drop a direct link to that post on any of my post. If your interested the indent is done with
I have looked it up multiple times, but it's broken on Steemit. It's supposed to be two underscores before the words, and two after...but instead that bolds the word. I think they messed up the coding on it since italics can be * or _ before and after the word(s). They probably assumed that bold should be ** or __ before and after. When in reality __ is supposed to be underscore. Wow, that was a lot of words. Sorry.
Already checked every point you made. I'm glad! :)
Excellent advice as always ... I've resteemed this. xox
Thanks SO much for this @michelle.gent! I have just started Steeming and I've got some posts in the hopper that need all sorts of bells & whistles like italics and bold and especially indentation.
Oh, the places, we'll go ;)
Many many thanks! :D
You're most welcome!
There's so much gold in this post of yours. I've bookmarked so I could easily share with newbies any time they come asking.
I've found out that it really does help to go over your work at least once before posting.
Excellent advice. Some of them are obvious, but nevertheless users do not use them.
This is the truth that many ignore. It would not be bad that when registering users would teach this :)
Thank you
You're welcome :)
I needed this valued information since I am not the best at blogging yet. When you say to type in a document first, do you mean like type in a word processor then copy in or link into this platform?
1 year ago, I tried to copy info from a word processor into this platform, it had hard time intergrating....it is better now?
No. Type the post into a document, a separate file on your computer, a word.doc or on 'pages'. Then copy and paste the words to your Steemit page.
good post ;)
Hi, your post has been very nice. I am ready to vote and comment on all of them and hope you vote and comment.My steem id link https://steemit.com/@zarzish
So, not only did you NOT read the post, you decided to do the opposite of everything I've advised.
hahahah! maybe it's just a neural network talking? :)
I am new to seemit and I am trying to improve my posts. I am just confused by your post. You are telling people to cite there sources, and all the gifs you use are from popular culture. So are you trolling? Or just ranting and being ironic
I cited my source - www.giphy.com
I don't troll...
Apologies, I only see what I am looking for. I was looking for the source under the gifs not at the bottom of the post. But there is no FMLA for steemit yet
FMLA?
MLA... dont know where that F came from and I thouhgt I had no more F's to give. MLA is modern language association and FMLA is family medical leave act. Ha
Nice post like it...
God information. I reestem. Forgive me. Iam from aceh indonesia. Newbi.
Nice one @michelle.gent Thanks.
I'm interested in the mentorship stuff.
This is my entry
https://steemit.com/story-mentor/@brightex/story-telling-mentorship-1-introducing-myself-not-as-myself
I'll take a look at it and add it to the list on my other post :)
Okk
wow..great writing..i appreciate this post...
That's EXACTLY what you posted in reply to This post
You win! I'm giving you the limited edition prize of a permanent MUTE
Good bye and good luck.