Blogging Tips

This page is a little different than all the rest. I wanted to spend some time talking about blogging. Maintaining a blog that readers want to come back to and follow long-term can be very difficult. From my time reading blogs I’ve come up with my top 8 practices that bloggers should use to make their blog appealing. Now I’ll be the first to admit that my blog could use some work and that I need to take my own advice. But who knows, maybe writing this out will help me write better blogs in the future. And since I’m not an ideal example for some of these ideas I’ll be linking to blogs that I enjoy reading to demonstrate my points.

#1 Catchy color choice and formatting (but keep it simple)

The first thing someone does when they open a blog is skim the page. If the screen is all black and white like a Word document they will be bored before they even start reading. However, if you use a different font color for every sentence and have tie die swirling in you background with flashing pictures, a reader is likely to get an instant migraine headache. Moderation is the key. Simplicity is best, but make sure it is still unique. Links need to be easy to find and the page as a whole should be easy to navigate. Check out http://justadrizzle.wordpress.com/ for an example of simplistic creativity.

#2 Pictures

We’re all kids at heart, right? When I open a blog I want to see images (sorry my blog is lacking in this area). I can read a story, but I also like to see the story. This is especially important if you are writing a blog about food or crafts. The ratio of things I cook that have pictures next to the recipe versus the ones that don’t have pictures is about 6:1. So if you want someone to make what you made, give them a realistic idea of the product. Even if you don’t want a food or craft blog, imagery is still really useful and helps keep a reader’s attention. Look at these gorgeous photos: http://lusciousvicious.blogspot.com/

#3 Short posts

Ok, I know, I’m trying to get better about following this rule. I’m a student and with all the required reading in my life I don’t find it very enjoyable to spend my “spare time” reading pages and pages on the internet. If I open a link to an article and I scroll the rolling thing on my mouse down twice and till haven’t reached the bottom, I lose motivation to read it. This is very common for online reading. Short is good, especially if you have lots to complain about. Keep things concise and your readers will love you. Even though this blog is all about words, the author keeps it to the point so you don’t lose interest: http://booksandotherplaces.blogspot.com/

#4 Conversational voice

When writing a blog you have to do your very best to set aside your academic writing technics and formal voice. Use contractions and have fun. Write as if you were talking to a friend. On the other hand, don’t get so informal that you use slang all of the time or have terrible typos. You want your readers to feel welcomed and cared about. Here is a great example of how to communicate with your nearly invisible audience: http://kaedenyo.wordpress.com/

#5 Useful information

So this one may seem like a strange tip, but I’ll explain. Your blog needs to have a theme of some sort, a purpose. It should be more than just a place to rant. Keeping a consistent theme is always good. You’re readers will lose interest quickly if one week you’re talking about architecture and the next week you discuss your love of ballet. A reader will follow your blog if there is something they hope to get from it. When they have an interest that matches with yours then they will go to the blog to keep up on it and get new ideas and information about it. This blog does a good job with keeping a single theme: http://leahricks.wordpress.com/

#6 Links

This can mean a couple things. Depending on your blog’s theme you may find it best to link to other pages or websites that give greater detail on a topic you don’t have time to give an explanation for, or to define terms that may not be well known. Links can also be used to help navigation within your own blog. If you want to refer your audience back to a post you made a few months or years ago, then you can insert a link to that page. In my page I also use links to my own personalized glossary of terms. This page has a good use of links to guide the readers: http://kaedenyo.wordpress.com/

#7 Variety of posts

This tip may seem slightly contradictory to # 5 when I told you to keep to one theme, but there is a difference. I started out my blog with just stories, which some people may like, but probably not very many. A blog needs some variety. Get rid of monotony! Add some lists, put in some history or a look to the future. Guest posts are always great too. As you can see in this blog, there are two sub categories to the main theme which helps the blog appeal to a wider audience, but still has consistency http://thesecretlivesofdragons.blogspot.com/

#8 Videos

Pictures are great, but sometimes things are better expressed in videos. Try a variety of media forms and see what happens. Videos are easy to post and give depth to your blog. This blog utilizes video to help engage the audience: http://turnitup1.wordpress.com/

Hope you found these tips helpful. Happy blogging!