Chess.com's Suggested Best Practices for Bloggers
Hello bloggers! First, we want to extend a warm welcome and thank you from Chess.com for all that you contribute to the community.
We are writing this resource to share our experience regarding best practices for presenting content online and on Chess.com. We hope that it is useful to you and that it leads to more engagement with interested readers.
Follow Chess.com's Style Guide
First, it's important to present your content in a way that's consistent with Chess.com's style regarding fonts, structure, and more. Here is a helpful article by our editor and journalists @Pete, @PeterDoggers, and @MikeKlein: 5 Quick Ways To Write Better On Chess.com.
Peter Doggers is a world-renowned chess journalist. Don't miss his tips!
Be sure also to read our CEO @Erik's article: "How To Properly Publish A Post." Erik knows what he's talking about! Many aren't aware that Erik was once an English major 
For all the nitty and gritty details (Should I capitalize "White"? What about "Chess"? "grandmaster"?), see Chess.com's "Style and Usage Guide for Writers." This is the same reference document that our journalists and writers use.
Finally, one of the single most important tips we can give you is to write your blogs in the Chess.com editor! Writing in outside editors and copying and pasting your content into Chess.com introduces many issues with fonts, font sizing, paragraph structure, block structure, and more. Even if your content looks good on your browser, it may display oddly on other browsers or on mobile.
Have a great thumbnail!
Most readers decide if they are interested in an article based on two things: title and thumbnail. It's very important to have a good and relevant picture for your blog's thumbnail. It is even more important that you only use images for which you have rights. Here are a couple of good free sources. Be sure to follow instructions on site for citing any media you use.
Pixabay is a great source for hundreds of beautiful chess images.
Note that thumbnails MUST be 16:9 and should have a resolution of at least 800:450.
Use an engaging, SEO-friendly title.
Like the thumbnail, the title is critical to engaging the reader. Be sure that your title concisely, accurately, and interestingly describes your content.
Also, consider that it's very important for your content to be findable on search engines like Google. Which search terms will people interested in your topic likely use? If you title your blog, "The Most Amazing Trick Ever Played," your title is engaging, but users searching for "chess tricks" will not find it. Consider adding the word "chess" to your title. Similarly an article titled, "My Stodgy Chess Opening," could not be found by users searching for the "French Defense."
Bold keywords
Bolding keywords in your article is both a great way to make your article more readable (as your key points pop off the page) and to help Google surface your article to those searching this topic. Don't take it too far, but if your article is about Magnus Carlsen, go ahead and put that in bold.
Shorter is often better.
It's easy to think that more content equals more substantial and better content. Online, that's often not true. A shorter, more concise writing style ensures that more readers who open your article will finish and enjoy your piece. Such writing also broadens your audience, making it accessible to many readers whose first language is not English.
A finished reader is a happy reader.
Add media.
Online readers tend to dislike "word walls," big blocks of uninterrupted text. Including relevant pictures, games, youtube videos, and more in your article is a great way to strengthen the content and better engage the reader.
We recommend never having more than a few consecutive paragraphs without some media to complement the content. We also recommend keeping paragraphs to a few sentences.
Adding media is easy with the Chess.com editor.
Enter Chess.com's "Blog of the Month" contest!
Finally, we heartily suggest that you submit your blogs for consideration in Chess.com's "Blog of the Month" contest! This is a great way to get extra exposure whether or not you win.
Not yet a "Top Blogger" but want to be? Apply here!
