You Can Blog Better Than That!
How do you approach blogging? With unbridled passion or mindless duty? Likely, you're somewhere in between these two poles, so Matt shares 7 tips to help you blog better and do that with enthusiasm!
I Am Not Picking On You (Maybe)
I almost always hate to talk about the way other people blog especially on my own blog. I don’t like to give the impression that I’m attacking someone personally (or at the very lest tattling) when all I’m trying to do is make a public plea for people to put more effort into what they are writing.
Why am I saying this? For a pair of reasons: I am finding that some bloggers have lost their magic touch while others seem to never have found it. Combined, these bloggers make up a small cohort of serious bloggers, people who have a passion to write, share, comment, and expand their horizons online. I’m not including sploggers in this mix — they aren’t worthy nary a mention!
Blogging For Fun Or Blogging For Profit
For some, blogging is a means to an end, a way to make money — perhaps a part of their livelihood. I have no problem with this as I hold three paid blogging positions myself, but money alone cannot be the sole motivation for writing consistently. It can be difficult to write on a daily basis, even producing several articles per day, but it can be done and with unrestrained enthusiasm.
One special note: I’m not pointing out bloggers whose main language is something other than English although if you are writing in English you need to work extra diligently to communicate clearly to your audience. I think most people are forgiving when it comes to crosslingual writing, a trait I truly admire but cannot replicate personally.
7 Tips To Build A Successful Blog
Without naming specific blogs or bloggers who violate the best practices of the blogosphere, the following are some things you and I can put into practice, tips which will help us blog to our best abilities:
Write More Powerful Headlines — Focusing on keywords in your headlines is fine, but don’t stop there: you want to draw people to your blog and the best way to do that is with magnetic headlines. As Copyblogger shared, “On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of the headline, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.” Amazing isn’t it? A few choice words can reel people in or repel them!
Work With Outlines — Some people need to work with outlines, while others do not. If you cannot keep in your mind all of the points you want to make in your article, you’ll need to write these things down on paper and use them as the basis for your article. A very simple article consists of the following: a powerful headline (you can come up with that after you write your article); an introductory paragraph with a topic sentence; three or four key points which will make up the body of your article; and a dynamite conclusion especially one that will encourage people to take action (i.e., leave a comment, click on a link, buy a product).
Be Absolutely Concise — Blogs aren’t the same as your college thesis so avoid punishing your readers by writing lengthy posts when brevity will do. No, I’m not talking about pillar articles which can impart a lot of useful information — they have their place in the blogosphere — rather, those articles which repeat the same point over and over again. Yes, this article is lengthy, but hopefully instructive to the person who needs to consider my words.
A Picture, Please — More often than not you can add a related photograph to your article. Pictures say a lot and can help capture a visitor’s attention. Like magnetic headlines, a fascinating photo does wonders. Deborah Petersen of Life In The Fast Lane fame has mastered this skill like no other blogger I know. As shown herein, I like to add a related caption to most of my photos too.
Proofread And Then Some — I typically proofread as I go along then I go back and do one, sometimes two, complete reads of everything to see if I make sense. Even if I’m in a rush to post breaking news information as I sometimes do on my flagship automotive blog, I make sure that everything is in order before I hit the publish button. Habitually, I’ll often read the article again when it goes live, correcting any mistakes that may have slipped through. I like to use bullets and paragraph headers to break up my articles; with the latter I try to employ “magnetic headlines” where possible.
Comments, Trackbacks, And Pingbacks — When you write an article that people find interesting, they’ll often link to it, add their own comments, or you’ll get a nice trackback when you link to that article while commenting on someone else’s blog. Three or four of them isn’t a problem, but consider separating trackbacks and pingbacks from your comments if you have a lot of activity going on after you publish. One more thought about comments: remove comments that are unrelated to the article and respond to people as appropriate. From an SEO perspective, articles that are well linked, well liked, and just plain interesting do very well, oftentimes achieving a fairly high PageRank and good positioning in the SERPs.
Your Theme, Widgets, And Related Design Challenges — Inasmuch as many of us cannot stand Internet Explorer, you must take a look at your blog with this browser to see how it loads and looks. I am such a Firefox aficionado that I will sometimes forget to do this. What looks great in Firefox can look lousy with Internet Explorer. Complaining about I.E.’s inferiority won’t do as the various versions of Microsoft’s browser still collectively capture over half of all internet users. As far as your theme goes, the more subtle, the better; please use your widgets sparingly — some blogs are so busy looking that I long ago lost interest in them! Make sure people can subscribe to your blog and comments, snag a feed, and post comments without registering.
Moving Forward, Revamping, Or Shutting Down
If you’ve run out of things to say on your blog or are pursuing other avenues of writing and/or of business, there may come a time to shut your blog down. In May 2008, I closed down my popular The Article Writer blog to concentrate on some other sites I manage and to free me up for other pursuits. I know that I surprised a lot of people by this move, but I was very happy to go out on an up note. Rather than extending the blog’s life beyond reason, I put it to an end which might be something you can consider. You aren’t quitting, rather you’re moving on and embracing change!
No matter which way you turn, do everything with passion! People who enjoy blogging are the most interesting bloggers as their enthusiasm “leaks out” all over the place. Stoke your passion today by taking a fresh look at your blog and set a course for the future which happens to begin right now.
