I was sure that was what you said you wanted to know about in this post. Am I confused?

So let’s be clear. You want to win a competition for the worst blog post, ever? And you want to know the things you can do to make sure that your posts don’t ever get read and your blog gets no traffic. Well I’ve got five great tips that will make your world rock.

Hang on, but what if I have got the wrong end of this? The good news is that either way, you’re covered.

If you actually want to know how to write a great post, still read on. Just do the opposite of what I tell you here (or take note of the ‘Anti-post’ takeaways), then you’ll do just fine. You may even build a great community and make friends stretching across the inter-webs.

Or, you can just write posts that stink …..

1.     Cover lots of ground

Sit, down and just start writing a post. Then publish it. There is no need to think it through or decide on the actual point of your post. Don’t bother yourself about staying on topic, and wander off as much as you want – you’re sharing your life and thoughts. You know exactly what you want to say and how it should be said.

Anti-post takeaways: Think things through; decide upfront on what you want your reader to takeaway or learn. Narrow-cast your post theme; keep it tight. Stick to one idea per paragraph; start and finish small.

2.   Ignore punctuation and spelling rules

The blog editor doesn’t contain a spell-checker, so why bother, right? It doesn’t really matter and nobody cares if you spell everything incorrectly and use lower case anymore – that’s so yesterday. As long as you have some killer ideas in your post, your readers will overlook your mistakes. They won’t comment about them, I’m sure.

Anti-post takeaways: Caps, punctuation and new paragraphs are still considered the norm. And don’t shout at everyone BY USING CAPITALS or too many !!!! Read back what you’ve written before you click on publish/post – or draft it in WORD first. Punctuation and spelling does matter – mistakes undermine your authority and credibility.

3.   Lecture, self-aggrandise and self-serve

Make sure your posts are all about you and a testimony to your awesomeness. Alternatively you can take the high ground and criticise, berate and lecture – just like your first grade teacher did to you. Tell and sell your products and services as hard and fast as you, at every opportunity.

Anti-post takeaways: Be humble; focus your efforts on serving your readers and helping them solve problems, learn new things or build a feeling of kindred spirit with you, perhaps as a mum … or mummy blogger. Give away gifts – your knowledge, talents or understanding. You want to create remarkable content that people will talk about, think about or remark about.

4.   Blocks of text work well

You’re not a designer, right? And your readers aren’t art critics. So how you lay the copy out doesn’t really matter. Getting the words on screen is the most important thing and your readers will overlook any minor layout issues. As long as what you’re saying is strong enough and it contains worthwhile thoughts … how it looks has no influence on your readers.

Anti-post takeaways: A wall of text is daunting. At first glance, a chunk of words can make a reader leave the post before they’ve read a single line. Use subheadings, bullet points, images and lists to make the text easier to read and more pleasing to the eye. Use the rule of two: two colours, two fonts, two syllables. And leave white space for the eye to rest.

5.    Copy other people’s ideas, words and work

It’s a lot of work thinking of new ideas, finding great images and writing awesome posts all the time. Besides, nothing is ‘original’ anymore. Occasionally taking the easy route and ‘borrowing’ some things to help you out can’t hurt anyone, can it?

Anti-post takeaways: *Flashing red lights, sirens and screaming voices* Using other people’s work, ideas and images is stealing. Failing to attribute the sources of your content is a humungous no-no in blogging. All you need to do is use quotation marks where suitable, mention the original author and link to their website (a great outward pointing link practice to cultivate). The same goes for image sources.

Well done

Your first blog post is now complete. If you’ve followed all the five points above, you should have successfully created a post that is terrible and really stinks.

Alternatively, if you’ve following the anti-post takeaways, then you may have just started on the long road to creating great blog posts that people want to come back for and read more.

What are your tips for the worst post ever?

As a reader and blog writer I’m sure you’ve seen and read some really bad blog posts. What’s top of your list of tips for a post that’s terrible?

Share your tips with us all in the comments or on Facebook.

Other posts in the series:

Mummy Blogging 101: Try it, it’s addictive

Mummy Blogging 101: 5 fundamentals of setting up house

Mummy Blogging 101: Getting your writing mojo on