An instructional blog can range from just simple tips to a step by step tutorial.

How to Choose a Topic for an Instructional Blog:

- Choose a topic that people are interested in

- Best topics: something people didn't know they COULD do

- Google the topic first  to see if other tutorials already exist.  Find a topic without any tutorials or very poor quality ones

WRITING

- State the objective (ie by the end of this post you will have ____)

- State anything/information they need at the beginning (like ingredients of recipe)

- Mention WHY they would want to do this (ie save time, better marketing, look cool, whatever)

- Number your steps (If someone is already in the process, clearly tell them if ___, then skip to Step #)

- Use Multimedia, screenshots or video are great

- Put in hyperlinks to make it easy for them to do each step as they are reading

- Put a "Other Resources" at the bottom and 3-5 links to related tools/blogs that might be helpful 

REVIEW

- Give the blog to a friend with no experience and make sure they can complete the task or reach the end state

- At the end of the blog, ask for comments ("Let me know if I missed any steps," "Let me know if this was helpful", "post the link/picture of your completed ____ in the comments"

SHARE

- Tutorials are popular on content sharing sites

- Post to Delicious, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon

Blogging is fun, creative and a great way to gain new fans or customers.  Watch for more info on how to write a better blog....and see what Brett and Scout create.  Remember, retweet and "Like" your favorite.

Let the battle continue!