How to write great blog posts
Writing great blog posts is a skill that can be acquired quickly.
With these few simple rules, you will learn to create content that people love reading.
Use sections and headers
Divide your text in sections, and give each section a Heading 2 big title.
Even better, divide sections in subsections, giving them Heading 3 smaller title!
Use short sentences and paragraphs
Keep it simple. Sentences should have less than 20 words, and paragraphs, less than 5 sentences.
The space between paragraphs makes your text easier to parse and read.
Pick a beautiful main image
The main post image is very important: it shows on blog post lists. Make your post stand out, but avoid copyrighted images. If not, we may have to delete your post.
It is safe to use images from the following websites: unsplash.com, creativecommons.org, pixabay.com, pexels.com, piqsels.com, freeimages.com. Don't necessarily look for something chess related. You can take a poetic, metaphoric approach to your image search. Start from a chess term you're talking about and use it outside of its chess context.
You can also use images that you made yourself, pictures you took, screenshots of Lichess... anything that is not copyrighted by someone else.
Embed chess material
Nothing better than a chess board to illustrate your chess posts.
Chess.com game
To embed a Chess.com game, just paste the URL of the game. On the blog post page, it will be replaced with an interactive board and movelist. Example: https://lichess.org/DqsuU9rV.
If the game URL contains a move number anchor at the end, like #41, the board will show that move. Example: https://chess.com/DqsuU9rV#41
Lichess study
To embed a Lichess study, just paste the URL of the study. On the blog post page, it will be replaced with an interactive board and movelist. Example: https://lichess.org/study/P4maCOUx.
To embed a specific chapter of a study, get the chapter URL from the Share tab under the study board:
Check the "Start at" box to make the board show a specific move of the chapter.
Now, just paste the chapter URL in your blog post!
Arbitrary chess position
To show an arbitrary position, create a study and follow the steps above! Your study can have several chapters, one for each position you need.
Embed more images
You can add more images to your post by clicking the image button of the editor, and entering an image URL.
It is safe to use images from the following websites: unsplash.com, creativecommons.org, pixabay.com, pexels.com, piqsels.com, freeimages.com. To use an image of your own, or a screenshot, you could upload it to postimages.org, then use the "Direct link" URL.
Here are some tips when embedding images in your text:
Leave a blank line above the image to center it.
The text immediately below the image will be its legend.
Leave a blank line under the legend to return to normal text.
Follow the blog etiquette
Please read our rules about creating content on Lichess.
Happy writing!
