Tips For Writing Astrology Posts

You’re a writer, right? You know how to put together words, sentences, right? Then you should be able to write a blog post, right? Maybe, maybe not.

Blog writing is slightly different then writing an article or a column. The number one rule of blogging is “Content is king!”. You are responsible not only for what you write in the blog, but the look and feel of it as well. Not only that, but getting that content to the your targeted reader is part of what blogging is all about.

First, let’s talk about the post itself. A post of two hundred and fifty words is a good length to start with, though some posts can and should be longer and some can be shorter. Write clearly and concisely. Just as your third grade english teacher told you, run on sentences are bad. Misspellings and bad grammar are worse. You are your own editor, so you need to be extra diligent about how your post looks! Write your post in your word processing program, spell and grammar check it, then post it. Many a blogger has a sad tale to tell about losing a carefully crafted post written on their blogging platform, only to lose it to some internet glitch.

Remember to add some relevant links to the material you writing about. This adds depth to your writing, provides a way to cite other authorities for your theories, and helps to promote your site by getting the attention of the bloggers to whom you are linking.

Add “keywords” in your post title and in the body of your post. Again, this helps the search engines identify what your blog is about and helps them rank your site. Google list these keywords as the most popular keywords for astrology:

Search Engines Are Not Smart

I mean the above title in a kind way. Search engines are programs that are set up to pick up words that match the words in a query and therefore have no actual intelligence behind them. Because a search engine does not discriminate between the intent of a search and the actual keywords involved, a reader may not get the exact results they are looking for, as any web surfer will tell you. Below is an example of a recent search by an actual reader looking for “world’s best astrology blog sites.”

Here I am the happy receiver of a hit due to a number four placement on this search. If you look at the search carefully you’ll see all the words the surfer was looking for and my blog just happened to have them. Notice also the search engine picked up on the “Bloggie” button I installed. I nominated myself as “The Best Blog about Stuff”, proving once again that any little thing you do to promote your site pays off in some form or another. Keep plugging in those keywords and tags and you too will eventually rise to front page status on a Google search.

Starting As An Astrology Blogger

As an astrologer, I’ve written a weekly column for the past few years for a local publication. As fun as it was to write a column weekly, I wanted to expand my audience. Searching the web I found this ad:

451 Press is always looking for bright, talented writers who want to have their voices heard. We are looking for writers with unique voices to contribute to our growing network of blogs. Our blogs cover a wide range of topics. If you have a passion for a subject then we just might have a place for you.

One of the subjects they need a writer: astrology! Perfect. I filled out the application, attached a couple of writing samples and waited about two weeks before I heard back. 

Thank you for your recent application to write for 451 Press. After carefully reviewing your application we think you would make a great fit for our Astrology blog.

What? That easy? No interview? No request for further samples? Whoa!

But, in going through the next step of the process, The Weblog Agreement, I soon learned a bit of what I was in for. I was to provide content and artwork, post a least five times a week, with appropriate links to other web sites and get this, put all this up myself on a Word Press template, putting in some information using HTML. 

That was the least of it. Blogging, as it turned out, is more than just putting up content and having a host of people find your wonderful web page. And unfortunately, belonging on a network didn’t give me an instant readership. As I found out, astrology is a very small niche. Very few astrology blogs gain the kind of readership that more generic blogs garner. You have to work at bringing in those readers.

Still, if you have a passion for writing about astrology, there is no better way to get your writing out there. You can post what you want to, on any subject you care too write about. But blogging is more than writing content. You have many decisions to make before you lay down your first words. Where do you want to blog? How do you want your blog to look? Once you set up your blog then you need to work on drawing in readers. How are you going to promote it? For those people with few technical skills these can seem like daunting tasks. In the posts that follows we’ll take on those subjects and more.