Advice for bloggers – especially those just starting out with a blog – has cropped up in several blog posts that I’ve read recently, so I thought I”d round-up the most interesting and worthwhile tips here.

Use descriptive headlines

Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped picks up on recent criticism of how the Official Google Blog often features cryptic headlines, and Use descriptive headlines that reveal the point of the article without further reading tops his list of tips for good writing style when blogging. Headlines will often be seen out of context – for example in a feed reader where the content may only be skim-read, or in search engine results – and a successful headline therefore needs to make sense when it’s read in isolation from the full post.

Think about your audience

Vincent Maher has come up with 11 tips for writing a good blog entry, with an emphasis on thinking about the audience’s perspective – what will interest and engage them, and what will make it easy for them to read and understand the post. His Link to the context tip is about placing your post within the wider conversation by linking to other blog posts, source material and useful information.

Be consistent

Pronet advertising has some great advice on what you should think about during the first seven days of your blog. The tips that stood out for me were Pick a topic and stick with it and Be consistent in how often you blog – heeding both of these tips will ensure that your readers know what to expect from your blog. If anyone’s wondering, I tend to post once or twice a week here, but more frequently at atelier455 (my other blog).

End your post in style

Over at Copyblogger, you can get some interesting ideas on how to go out in style with the ending of your post. A range of techniques are put forward, but the overarching message is that to have an effective ending, you need to know where you’re going with the post before you start writing. Many bloggers will be using some of these techniques without really thinking about it – I know I’ve used the Call to action on my other blog to encourage people to comment – but it’s useful to think about other ways to wrap up your blog post.

If you’ve come across any other good advice recently, or if you have some of your own advice to share, then feel free to leave a comment or get in touch by email.