My Pocket Guide To Blogging
Blogging has definitely become the free press of the modern world. With availability to anyone with an Internet connection, blogs are more popular than ever. But, many of my friends, and indeed colleagues don’t know why I blog. What’s my reason for it? And what’s the goal?
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the growth and evolution of my blog recently, and I decided to share with you some of the things I’ve learned over the last couple of years. Although many of my readers are are regular bloggers themselves, hopefully you will still get something useful out of this, quite long post.
Content
So, let’s start with the ‘thing’ to spend your time writing about. I spend my time writing about Web Development and my experience with it. The main purpose of this is to help people who are asking the same questions as me, or indeed to encourage beginners by showing them how to do certain things. I might also write some more ‘advanced’ posts which touch issues of the web’s philosophy, or even challenge the very core ways in which we should go about development.
The reason I write about this topic is simple. I love it. And, it’s much, much easier to spend your time blogging about something you’re passionate about than any other topic.
Get what I’m saying here? - If there’s something you love doing, then there’s probably a good audience for a blog all about it.
Frequency
Now, frequency is probably the next thing to consider. There are some blogs that post entries every hour, some every day, and some once a year. The important thing to remember, is to always set yourself a reasonable goal. It’s always better to write a few high content quality entries than a lot of quick but rather unsubstantial posts.
So, think of a number, and half it. Seriously. Think you can do 3 blog posts a week? - I’d say more like 3 every 2 weeks. There’s some good reasons for this. Firstly, there’s the ‘time’ thing. Very few of us have regular free time slots. So ‘when’ you can blog will vary from week to week.
Secondly, you need to find content to write about. You may think it’s easy at first… but when you start writing regularly, you’ll realize that your content can dry up, and you may even find that you repeat yourself.
Delivery
We’ve thought about content and frequency, now let’s take a moment to think about delivery. This has a lot to do with your content, so be sure to take a look at what other blogs of similar nature are using to deliver their content.
Sorry, before I continue, let me explain what I mean by delivery. This blog is powered by Wordpress, a standalone PHP/MySQL blogging system which I’ve installed on my server. So my blog is delivered in a very ‘traditional’ manner. However, there are new services such as ‘Tumblr’ and even ‘Pownce’ which allow users to post ‘mini-blogs’.
Think a great deal about your frequency and post size. These will effect which sort of service you want to deliver your content. If your posting daily, or even more frequently than that, with short, quick updates… Then consider Tumblr.
If you’re more likely to do a long, weekly article. A more ‘traditional’ approach such as Wordpress, Blogger, or ExpressionEngine may be a better option.
Purpose
Never post for the sake of posting. So many people start blogs, and then end up posting content that isn’t worth the time to read it. Because they were previously posting at a regular frequency, they feel obliged to continue doing so. Never ever feel this way. Your blog is a resource, not a public service. Your users will be grateful if you keep your RSS feel updated less regularly, but with excellent content, rather than a hit-and-miss quality consistency.
If you do get ‘blogging block’, try taking a notebook with you when you’re out and about. Sometimes you may see things which just inspire you to blog. Maybe it’s a strange human behaviour, or, for me, and interesting and unusual programming error and solution.
This may seem strange, but some of the best blog content I’ve ever read has come from simple observations of people in the real world.
This brings me nicely onto my next point. We are all part of the real world. So don’t feel guilty for referencing it. If you’re telling a story about something that happened to you this week in the real world, don’t be vague, generic, and altogether dull… Make it specific, name places, times, weather, feelings. Remind your audience that you are a real person, who does real things, in a very real world. Just as they are too.
It may seem like an unusual thing to do, but believe me, it always makes for a more engaging read.
Connections
Interaction is Key - blogs are so free in the way that they are not restricted as a 1-way method of communication in the same way that mainstream media so often is. So use that to your advantage. I’d say that almost all types of blog lend themselves to having a comments section on each post.
Don’t get me wrong. I am aware that there are a few exceptions to this. But, if you can get your readers to join in, and turn a blog post into a discussion (particularly with trackbacks from other referencing blog posts), you instantly add to the appeal and satisfaction of your blog.
Build ‘friendships’ with other related blogs. Remember, they are not your competition. They are your ally.
Blogging is not a world full of capitalist corporations trying to get 100% market share, or at least, that’s not what it should be. It’s much more of a virtual, free, socialist/communist society (it could only ever work online)… where people share, give, and love others.
This may all sound a little optimistic, but believe me, I’m not licking frogs here. One of the reasons I am so passionate about the internet and blogging, is because I believe in the culture and ideas that surround it.
How does thing actually work on your blog then?
Well, as an example, I often reference posts by Michael Wales, or Derek Allard. I’ll generally stick to related content and articles. But I think it’s important for my readers to know about other great content from clever people I respect. And, in the same manner, they will often post links back to articles I’ve written.
Now, this is down to the quality of your content. People will only link back to something they think is worthwhile and useful. So, as I mentioned earlier, think long and hard about your content… and try to keep the quality as high as possible.
Presentation
Use Pictures! - Studies of people’s learning behaviour has shown that peoples retention of knowledge is much higher when they study an illustrated medium as opposed to a text-only form. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially if you’re blogging about something more conceptual, such as web development.
On my blog’s home page, I have a large image for the latest post. This is there to provide the reader with a stimulating thought before their eye even hits the title. Since doing this, the number of people clicking through from the home page to the latest article has more than doubled.
If you can, place regular images throughout long posts to help break up the content and give the reader a little break. This allows the reader to pause, digest the last bit of the post, and commit it to medium term memory before continuing. The image will provide them with a visual reminder of the content that they’ve just read. People are four times more likely to remember something if they have been reminded of it just once.
Satisfaction
There are many reasons to blog. Mine is to share my ideas/thoughts/knowledge with the community. But, whatever yours is, just be sure that you love blogging about your topic. Because once it becomes a chore, your blog really will lose it’s momentum.
I hope you’ve found this post useful, please leave your thoughts and comments!
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:31 am
Elliot, this was one of the most insightful and “it speaks to me” posts I’ve read in a long time. Well done. I can’t agree with you more on most of these points.
One trick that I’ve found really helpful. While I’m hardly a perfectionist, I do suffer from the same attention-deficit and easy distractability (is that a word?) that is common in curious people and by extension, programmers, who tend to be curious people. For the same reasons that most of us have 2 or 3 “half started” projects, its real easy to get a good idea for a blog post, get it “half started” and then think to yourself “m’eh, concept proven, I don’t want to be bother with the minutia now”.
For those posts, I save them away in a “rainy day” folder. They aren’t ready to be shown to the world, but they also have some useful stuff. Then some days when you need a straightforward task, you can come back and flesh it out. I’ve done this a few times and even found new arguments and better points to make. Crap, I’ve got 2 in the rainy day folder right now
Great read, well done.