Most importantly your site needs some content that will make it worthwhile to visit. Well written articles also attract links, and links that point from other sites to your site are counted by search engines and play an important role in calculating your rank on the search engine results pages.

So your main goal will always be to get people to link to your site. This is a general thing but even more important in the launching phase when nobody knows about your site yet.

The first step I usually take is to write 5-6 “pillar articles”. These pillar articles are usually timeless content or content that will stay relevant for a longer time. They are well researched and “link worthy”. The best way to make them link worthy is to make them very helpful. For example you could answer some of the questions that are constantly asked in forums about your topic. Go into detail and make these articles worth reading and worth linking to them. Try to use examples and pictures to make them more interesting.

They are called pillar articles because they are some of the pillars you build your blog on. By the way, keep a list of interesting topics that you can use if you need an idea for a new article for your site.

For example if I write about bike tours in Thailand, those pillar articles could have the following topics:

• The 5 most beautiful bike tour routes in Thailand
• Mountainbiking in the wild north of Thailand
• Common bike tour problems and dangers in Thailand
• No bike in Thailand? Bike rental shops in and around Bangkok
• 8 great one day bike tours around Bangkok

Your writing style

Online (like in any other media) you have to fight for your readers attention. Here are some general guidelines for writing good content.

• Don’t write sentences that are too long and complicated.
• Make your copy easy to scan (with bulleted lists for example.)
• Tell stories that help people visualize what you are talking about.
• Every sentence should have the primary goal to persuade the reader to read the next.

Try to make your headlines interesting. Topics with numbers in it work so well because readers know what they can expect. Another good way to research what headlines work is to visit social bookmarking sites like digg.com and analyze what headlines are popular. A general copy writing rule is five times more people read your headline than your content. This shows how important you headline is to motivate readers to read on.