How To Run a Successful Series of Articles

Blogging isn’t just about writing – it’s about building a community. This means that you don’t just look at each article in an isolated fashion, but rather you look at how you communicate with your readers long term. One of the best ways to connect with your readership over time is to speak through series’ of logically connected articles.

Running a series of posts requires a lot of planning and consistent hard work to see the results of greater connectivity. I’d like to offer some pointers for you to put into practice as you give this a shot on your own blog…

Hatch A Huge Idea

When I’ve developed series’ of posts, they usually flow out of a single idea that was too large for one article. This allowed me naturally to create one post outline, break it apart, and develop it into bite-sized portions. So I’d encourage you, as you brainstorm blogging ideas, to circle a few that might fit this description.

Perhaps you’ll do a series on how you utilize each major social network, and cover them one per post. Or perhaps you’ll do a large inspirational showcase and share it in three sections. You can imagine that if you would have had a large dose of traffic from the one post, breaking it into three nearly-as-valuable but smaller posts will increase your exposure that much more.

Collect and Categorize

When you’re going to put together a connected series of articles, it’s important to map things out in advance. Research is key, and good research means collecting and categorizing material that you’ll include or reference in your posts.

For me, I use delicious extensively for this purpose, not only because of how easy it is to bookmark material, but because of the use of tags, it’s all easy to thumb through.

Create Some Buzz

Since you aren’t going to write an entire series of posts on a whim (you’re going to plan this, remember?), you have the advantage of knowing that it’s coming. Therefore, you have the advantage of leading the series with some significant buzz.

If you have, for instance, a four-part series you’re going to write over a series of four consecutive Mondays, use the two Mondays and every day of the week preceding the first article to announce the series on your blog and via various social media outlets.

One of the great aspects of the blogging community is the willingness of bloggers to help one another, so lean on the power of a good social media conversation.

Tie It All Together

As you publish each article, keep referencing all of the other posts, past and future, as you go. At the top of your article, give links to the previous articles and at the bottom, foreshadow what’s coming in the next post.

With most blogging platforms you can use tags, labels, or even a special category for the purpose of being able to show all of the series’ posts collectively.

Squeeze the Juice Out Of It

Once your series is complete, you’ve only begun to see the benefits of writing your articles. Now you essentially have a mini-site, or an ebook, whichever way you choose to look at it. You could create a banner and link back to the series as a resource on your blog. You could turn the series into a workshop or ebook to release collectively. And of course, you can reference it for a long time to come.

You worked hard to produce an entire series of articles. It was a big idea, a heavy undertaking, and you were diligent to see it through, so squeeze the juice out of it – maximize its value for all it’s worth.

What kinds of series have you done? How have you seen it bring your community together? And what pointers would you add for others who might be considering the same task?

Brandon has been doing web and logo design and this blogging thing for about six years. He’s also a Pastor. He lives in Arkansas with his wife and daughter and they’re expecting their second child. You can catch him on Twitter or Facebook.