Tag: Write (Page 5 of 5)

Part one is Top three things I recommend a blogger.

Daniel Sweet from FRACAT gives his best blogging tips:

• I believe personality is vitally important. There are a *lot* of places to get information on the web. Being who people *want* to get that information from is a vital differentiator.
• Plug-ins are great (and I need to get that comment one), but don’t get carried away. Do you remember the first document you ever created when you first had access to a ton of fonts? That’s the way an over-plug-inned blog looks.
• Make it welcoming to your readers. Don’t make them have to go through backflips to comment or get in touch with you. They’ll just leave instead.
• Edit! Sometimes it’s hard to see that I edit my blog postings. However, there are huge chunks left “on the cutting room floor”. If your posts tend to be long (like mine), make a post and the cut it in half.

In the previous post I wrote “Personality is good but do not let that get in the way of creating things worth reading”. But I agree with Daniel, in order to become the one who people *want* to get information from then personality is needed to stand out from the crowd.

Keeping the blog clean, my tip from part 1, matches Daniel’s warning about not using too many plug-ins.

Editing is important, also in short posts. I usually edit my posts several times before clicking on Publish. And I sometimes review older posts, to add (or remove) some text or to link to some blog that adds more value to my post.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

There is an interesting discussion over at “LinkedinBloggers” about the top three things you recommend a blogger. I got good recommendations and it made me think about what is important for me in a blog.

Jason Alba from “JibberJobber” started out with this list:

• keeping it clean – don’t make the readers search for your content, one of the best things that happened to me was when Google kicked me off of their advertising program (dang click-frauder)
• high quality posts, or they won’t come back
• lots of links out to pertinent blogs, to get on their radar
• offline or real networking, where in addition to linking to another blogger you try and develop a relationship with him/her
• writing just the right length – and if appropriate, ask questions to encourage comments
• transparency and personality – Penelope Trunk is a master of this, even though she gets slammed a lot she has a loyal following
• controversy is … good for eyeballs, but is it on-brand? Most of my posts aren’t controversial… some have been, but don’t slam, flame, etc.

Rick Calvert from “Blog World Expo Blog” added these:

1. Unless you are a super blogger with tons of comments send a thank you email to every new commenter if they agree with you or not. Especially the trolls. Kill em with kindness and you will win new fans and readers.
2. email other bloggers when they post something you really like. People like to be recognized for their efforts. Even A list bloggers.
3. email other bloggers when you post something really good that you think they might be interested in. Don’t spam them every time you post. We all post something every once in a while that we think is particularly good. When you do, promote yourself politely and people will link to you, particularly if you have linked to them in the past.

My own take echoes some of the ones above:

• Keeping it clean is one of my key tips. I always assume that the text is the main issue, everything else is just complimentary. Do not use bigger images than needed (like huge RSS-buttons), do not list every RSS-service you can think of, do you really benefit from ads.
• Think about what shows up on the screen, before scrolling. Put the most important information at the top of your side menu.
• Have a layout that is nice to the reader, it shall be easy on the eyes! I have seen blogs with four columns with text in just one narrow column that becomes a mile long.
• Quality text is needed and do not write too short posts (I need to work on that).
• Try to focus on a limited number of topics or the blog gets too fussy.
• Be generous and link to other blogs, guiding visitors to related sites create networks.
• Personality is good but do not let that get in the way of creating things worth reading, do share knowledge and ideas.

I know, my list has more than three tips but they are all important to me.

See also Recommendations to a blogger, part 2.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.