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Blogging Advice…
Back in 1996, becoming a popular online blogger, er, journal writer was easy. There were only a handful of people doing it, so the chances were pretty high that if you were writing, people were reading. Ten years later and it’s a whole new ballgame. Being a popular online blogger means that rather than getting 100 uniques a day, you’re probably pulling in 100 uniques a second. If you have any doubt, check out technorati’s top 100 blogs and if you’re on it, you can safely consider yourself a popular online blogger. If you’re not on that list or even a part of the top 200 or even top 500, then, sorry to dash your little popularity bubble, but you’re not very popular. Looking at those sites, there’s a big difference between having 20 sites that link to yours and 20,000 sites that link to yours. Whoa.
By their accounts, I’m not a popular online blogger. And you know what, that’s okay. It’s nice when people interact with the site, but I certainly don’t guage my life by how popular I am online. If I did, people might start to think I’ve got deeper issues to deal with for hiding behind a website, instead of dealing with real life. In fact, I tend to guage my life more by my offline relationships, the friends I’ve had for over 20 and 25 years and the coworkers and acquaintences that email me out of the blue after years apart just to check in. The fact that people keep in contact with me just let’s me know that I’m not a total asshole, but instead someone they can talk to. And so blogging isn’t so much about being popular, but instead having a forum for my own thoughts and opinions and embracing the thoughts and opinions of others who choose to spar with me.
That said, I’ve read a few of those articles on how to be a great blogger. What’s kind of funny is that most of those articles are written by people that have been doing this for about two years, while I’ve been doing it for about seven. Go figure. Regardless, I’ve gathered some of the basic information I’ve picked up, and added some of my own for those looking to enter the blogging realm.
The quickest way to the top is to look like an expert. Choosing a single topic seems to be the fastrack to fame and fortune in the blogging world. If all you write about is cars, chances are good that people will hit your blog when they need information on cars. The problem I find is, what happens when I just want to be entertained. I probably won’t be going to a car blog. For me, keeping a blog is about documenting my thoughts, feelings and opinions at this stage of my life on a variety of topics and then being able to go back and see how they’ve changed. If people want to read that, it’s cool, if not, that’s cool too.
One site’s advice is to keep the voice personal. My style, from the very beginning, was to take a topic and free flow it. I’ve written about this before, so it’s nothing new. With that, sometimes you end up with typos or grammatical errors. If I find them later on, I’ll probably fix them, if not, that’s okay too. I’m not here trying to impress anyone and I feel that writing entries ahead of time and then finessing them to perfection just defeats the whole point. To me, if you can’t free flow an entry in a blog, then you must be a real sorry sack to talk to in real life.
One of the funnier pieces of advice is “to never write when you’re exhausted, sick or drunk“. Okay, so you’re drunk, why are you logging on to the computer and posting an entry. I mean, sure, I can see a 15 year old doing that because they think it makes them look cool or something, but at a certain age it just looks pathetic.
Pictures are a great way to add visual appeal to entries and help break up a page full of words. Bringing a little point and shoot with you is a must have for most bloggers. Mine is small enough to fit in my pocket and I usually grab it on the way out of the house, even if it just ends up staying in the car.
Keep it entertaining. Adding humor is a good way of entertaining people, but it’s not the most important aspect of a good online blog. Sometimes it just means staying relevant and talking about issues that people care about. If you talk about things people care about, chances are they’ll respond through comments or linkbacks.
Along with entertainment, I’d add that a good blog should also have a point of view. For me, it’s about taking a point of view and blowing it out to the extreme. Those are the entries that tend to illicit the most feedback and grab people’s attention the most. Anyone that thinks I’m that extreme in real life is obviously trying to find something that isn’t there. But as a blogging tool, it’s a hook. Think about a blog with two entries: one about the pros and cons of abortion, trying to see the issue from both sides and the second entry, simply blasting pro-lifers. Which would catch your attention more? Having a point of view, and then taking it up a few notches is what gets people interested.
Don’t write about anything you wouldn’t want read by everyone. That advice was given out by Heather Armstrong at Dooce.com, who got fired for keeping her blog. Basically, it’s common sense to keep certain things off the blog—like your job and coworkers, and if you do have to share an anecdote, change names. Personally, I don’t do the whole private/locked entry thing because I simply have nothing to hide. My archives are open and available and the blog itself isn’t hidden from search engines. I won’t say anything in private that I wouldn’t say directly to a person’s face. I guess that’s a character issue though. I mean, what else are you hiding and who else are you hiding it from. And it’s important to remember that even locked entries can be accessed at any time, through a variety of methods. So why even try.
Finally, I think it’s important to respond to people who take the time to comment. You might not always agree with their opinions, but at the very least take time to respond to it. A good discussion is what it’s all about afterall.
Keeping a blog is a great hobby. And following some of the advice out there is a great way to improve the way you connect with people through your blog. But, it’s just that—a hobby. There’s a real world out there, and at the end of the day, it’s not about being a popular blogger or being able to live off your blog’s income, it’s about how many people can say, that person was a great friend. I know some bloggers have meet and greets with their readers and that’s a great way to cross the online and the offline. But if all of your friends are just online, then they’re probably more pen pals than they are friends. And even better, if you can’t keep those relationships going in the real world, something’s probably wrong with you. I think of it like this: if you died today, how many people, outside of your family, would actually show up? If you can’t name anyone, maybe it’s time to shut off the computer and start making some friends.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Entries, Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.