cartoon by gapingvoid
I found two great blog resources if you are looking for 'how to's'. The first one uses the cartoons of gapingvoid to point out the 10 ways to a killer blog. The cartoon doesn't always match the advice but never mind.
If you want to focus on 5 tips there are the Five Quick Tips to Building a Great Blog by Meryl K. Evans. Thanks to Cincy for the link. Meryl Evans' tips are not very special in my opinion (a little obvious like make them silent, don't let them start with music), but I really liked her personal way of talking about her blogs. And to be honest, thanks to her I have editing my blogging profile (and found out it had been viewed over 1000 times, just to find out there was nothing!!). An excerpt:
' Entering a blog compares to stepping into one's home where the owner feels at his or her most comfortable. In other words, we are more apt to be ourselves when blogging, and that's a good thing.'
Some of the comments I made here might be off-topics.
ReplyDeleteBoth links gave different approaches. Both with some good points. I think.
The cartons shown some of the ways on how to 'promote' your blogs. While Evans pointed out some of the pitfalls only an experienced blogger would be able to share.
She started off with size of the banner. IMHO size is not the only problems with the layout of a blog.
Colour is another important issue. There are blogs I just refused to read (mostly with black or dark background) because of my eye-sights.
Evans mentioned music. Since I always keep my audio-off ... What I find most annoying is 'moving objects' that either twinkles or run ALL over the screen. They gave me headaches. My intention is to read the 'content' of the blog, not to attempt to get myself DIZZY! So, out they go from my list of readings.
Title of the blog is too small, or too vague to catch attention. I am face with more than 100 titles to read each day. I skipped if the titles don't interest me or topics that I am not excited. For example.
Perhaps is the attitude of the bloggers. Some bloggers just want to write and treat their blogs as a personal diary (then why publish it??), therefore the way they set-up their blogs is to PLEASE themselves. Rather than the public. I suppose.
But if your intention is to SHARE your knowledge, your passions, your thoughts etc. etc. with the rest of the world, THEN do take some moments to think about YOUR AUDIENCE. Whom do you want to attract? Who are you writing for? The blog should not be just the benefit of WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, but what you want to GIVE/SHARE.
Even with posting a comment to blog. I generally have to THINK whom do I want to share my opinion. The authour?(then I normally would try and find the email address and contact privately), if I want to share my thoughts with more people, then I have to be VERY careful with what I REALLY want to say. That is also part of the reason why decent commenting on blogs take time, and why sometime I heasitate in commenting on blogs etc. etc.
I think I am a bit off topic. Perhaps. But weblog has created a different way to communicate. BUT it should not take away the principles of how to write an attractive essay. Or how to market yourself, or how to communicate with others, or the public. IN short, weblog should not change our way of doing things in a decent, and most of all effective ways.
Effective ways: I am sure people working in the development world always think of how to 'use donors money effectively'. I don't think there is any different in creating, writing and keeping a blog. Think of the readers, such as myself, is a 'donor' giving our time to read your blogs. And some of the readers also take time to think of what you write and response. SO ... be compassionate of how you want to use your readers/donors' time. And you will find this will lead you to present your blog in a most 'economical' way for your readers. The blogger might say: that would take a lot of mine time! Well, that is the principles of creating quality work.
Think QUALITY, EFFECTIVENESS: The rest would follow. IMHO. And it is no different than many things we do in life.
mmm, so what do you think of my blog layout? I think it's also very personal (and blogger doesn't have too many templates..)
ReplyDeleteI thought you might ask this question :-) ...
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it is great. It 'mirrors' the message you are sending. It is simple, straight forward, no unnecessary frills, business-oriented etc. Of course others might want more whistles and bells ... My interest is content.