Webomatica

 

Blogging Tips and Strategies

November 20th, 2006

I’ve been blogging here at Webomatica for several months now. A few months ago, I set a personal goal of writing at least one post a day. Today, I’ve met that goal, and often surpassed it, with the reward of increased traffic, links, a brutal double digg weekend, and more spam (I’m not a blogging master, but the progress has been satisfying). This was not without a fair amount of frustration and difficulty.

First, these tips and strategies attempt to solve these problems:

a. The time commitment involved in writing and maintaining a blog.

b. A lack of traffic.

c. Burn-out and throwing in the towel (giving up on blogging).

I’m sure most bloggers have faced all of these issues (especially letter c) and these tips and strategies hopefully will help overcome them.

Blogging Tips and Strategies

1. Read other people’s blogs. I’m starting with this because it’s easy to start firing off posts, totally working in a vacuum, and then wonder why nobody reads your blog. So look at other blogs and check out what they’re writing about, because how can you expect to write a cool blog without being a blog reader, as well? A lot of the improvements I’ve made here has been due to reading other blogs I like.

2. Narrow your focus. It’s important to define the your blog’s purpose. If it’s subject-specific, this is taken care of. But my blog is personal, and could cover any range of subjects. I decided to limit myself to a few topics (tech, movies, music, comics), eliminating a vast number of things I could write about (like cats or how crappy my commute was) in the interest of not spreading myself too thin.

It’s possible I still have too many topics, but with a narrower focus, my blog has a clearer reason for existing. I know what I’m supposed to write about, and readers know more or less what to expect. This keeps me on track and not worrying about so many topics that I burn out.

3. Make sure your topics have long-term viability. I’ve been gathering topics that I know will sustain me for the long haul, such as the AFI 100, James Bond Movies, television series, my comic book collection, etc. But the true point is that all of these subjects I’m passionate about, so the writing comes easier. I don’t dread crafting a post about these subjects.

4. Plan ahead. I’ve gotten in the habit of drafting a bunch of posts over the weekend and publishing them during the week when I’m busy with work or can’t think of anything to write about. This method balances timely “off-the-cuff” posts that need to be published right away, with others that have a longer longevity or no specific time-frame (music and movie reviews). So whenever I don’t feel like writing, I can just hit the publish button on a saved post and it looks like I’m actively writing daily.

5. Concise titles and paragraphs. A title should be brief, compact, and to the point. I’m a big fan of the colon (:) to make titles shorter. Try to load your title with common topics you think a potential readers will be searching for. Plus, a good title will also keep you on track when writing, clearly defining what you’re supposed to be writing about.

(Due to the nature of RSS and social bookmarking sites, often the headline is the only information in a link to your blog post, so make it count. A bad title is something generic with no indication of the post content, like “Thursday”. Even loading a title with an opinion such as “Thursday Sucks” is preferable.)

The first paragraph of your post shows up in any trackbacks you create, so make it count. Have it sum up the entire post or at least its purpose. Likewise, the body of your post should be broken into short, digestible paragraphs of information. One easy way to guide things in this direction is the commonly used “list” strategy.

6. Link, either through comments or trackbacks to information elsewhere. As mentioned before, it’s important to read and comment on other blogs. Remember, a comment is not “Cool post!” and then a link back to your site (don’t spam). The hope is that someone might read your thoughtful comment and decide to check out your blog, and people will only do that if you’re contributing to the conversation.

You can also take things a step further and post a response to another blogger’s post, and trackback. A trackback to generates both a comment on their blog and a link back to yours.

Lastly, put links in the body of your post to other websites. Part of blogging is acknowledging the give / receive nature of the medium. You can’t just write posts that don’t link anywhere and expect people to link to yours. So be generous towards others and you’ll get some link love in return.

7. Images. A nice, well-placed image draws attention to your post. Nothing scares off a reader more than an endless wall of text. It takes extra effort to add images, but it improves the look of your blog. If an image isn’t possible, at least use short paragraphs and bold and italic to add visual pauses.

8. Spell-check and final read through. I’m just as guilty of bad grammar, spelling mistakes, and factual errors as anyone, but strive for some level of polish. Read everything over and then once again after you publish just in case you really screwed something up. And when you do make a mistake, admit it, fix it, and move on.

9. Read your comments. One advantage of blogging is getting feedback. Comments correct mistakes you’ve made, sometimes they disagree completely with what you’ve written, and sometimes people just want to piss you off. But don’t forget when people comment, it means they read your post.

Try to use critical comments to improve your writing. I see them as a “check and balance” that keeps me honest. And I make it a point to reply to any comment with one of my own to acknowledge the reader and their opinion.

10. Don’t get hung up on the technology. It’s good to have some level of proficiency with your blogging platform, plug-ins, and design, but I don’t think the coolest technology drives readership past a certain stage. Ultimately, with a blog, what matters is the content (text and images).

For example, I recently deactivated a NetFlix plug-in when I realized it was slowing down page loads considerably. As cool as it was, it wasn’t helping to solve any real problem. I doubt people would come to this site just to see what videos I had rented – they care more about what I write about said movies. So that plug-in was toast.

Anyhow, I hope some of these tips and strategies will help inspire other bloggers, and guide you on the path I’m on, which is about halfway up the hill to blogging nirvana. And I still have the towel.

RSS Feed Please subscribe to the Webomatica RSS Feed!

folder Categories: Blogs, General :: ::

Related Posts:
Back Why I'm Drawn To Apple Over Google: The Individual Vs. The Collective
Back I'm A Monkey Pulling A Lever To Get The Next iPhone Game
Back Magic Mouse: Decent Mouse, No Magic Spell

Back Previous Post:
Back Next Post:

  • Differently from Battlestar Galactica, I have read this post carefully.
    In one year and a half FCHOUSE has been opened I've lived many different "Periods", fought against the things I thought "incorrect" and changed a lot of things.
    Sometimes I've written several post every day, sometimes the "dark period" has left the blog quite empty for too long.
    I have to admit that I follow the points you have stated (even if my english is not very good) but the "Large numbers" has never reached my shores. Yes, I've done a lot of mistakes and I will still do (english, arguments too wide and so on) but I'm quite happy with something like 100 visitors a day.
    My blog is a ShoutPost for my thoughts, and I feel Good writing in it, letting it become another part of me!

    Good Job!!!!

    Cheers
  • Cool, I am glad you liked this post. I have left out some of the technical stuff like blog aggregators which I am saving for another post. Thanks for visiting and reading.
  • Wow. You covered it so very well. I've got to stop reading your blog, it's competing with my new time-sink "SL".

    After blogging every couple of weeks for a couple of months (and taking the opposite tack from most of your strategies as well) I too wrote on blogging itself, but more on the "Why?" question, as in "Why blog?".

    So now I have a half-assed occasional diversion that gives me some satisfaction but few readers.
  • Heh... I sometimes ask myself why, too, but I have some personal motives, namely to become a better writer, and I like turning my opinions into something coherent.

    One of my biggest reasons for not blogging is the amount of time involved, so I am still trying to find ways to reduce it, turning the "Why?" into "Why not?"

    I also am continually amused by the comments and links from other people's blogs... I'm finding new stuff to check out now, almost daily. For example, I assume your blog is linked above; I'll check it out and see if I can get some additional blogging strategies to try.

    Thanks for reading!
  • The key to blogging success (using whatever definition you like), from my point of view, is credibility. Credibility is the bedrock of interestingness, which a site is primarily news-based or personality-based.

    Good content, presented well, will eventually result in links and traffic. It can be frustrating though, waiting for months for traffic to creep into double digit page views while thanklessly working to build your site.

    But the thing is, like everything worthwhile in life, is that the more you do it, the better you get. The quality of your writing improves, but also the quality of your ideas, because you get used to thinking critically.

    I've found that I've become much more observant since I started publishing my own site. I pay more attention to my experiences, whether music, tv, games, my commute or just watching animals play in the back yard. I've found that I begin writing my impressions of events in my head as they happen, trying to find a way to relate them to a larger audience.

    So even if traffic never seems to get as high as you'd like, by actively using your mind and sharing your thoughts and ideas, you're improving yourself, and by my measure that could be the blogging phenomenon's most successful accomplishment of all.
  • tunequestor that is a good point. I try to keep it real here... I have an about page that indicates what I'm writing about and a little about why.

    Yeah I am also realizing that ultimately the blogging thing is pretty much a self improvement thing. But keeping that first (along with credibility) I have seen other things falling into place.

    Your experience about the real world bleeding into the blog is pretty true. I shamelessly admit that sometimes I'm thinking about things to do that would make a good blog post. :)
  • Cool post! Just kidding. My blog is still to "broad". I jump between my love of travel, Denver stories and issues, and news of my interest. I find writing about "narrow" and individual stories have the same search sucess as your overall theme. Commenting on Britney Spears will never result in search results to your blog. I recently commented on a local guy who's making national news trying to sue clubs for "ladies nights". My article was immediately on the front page of all searches and news for him. He even commented himself.
  • Hi James. I think what you mention about search specifity is sometimes called "long tail". Good observation. Variety definitely helps for those Google searches.
blog comments powered by Disqus