Pointers for Better Blogging

I found this at the Slate magazine, and this is about making your blogs a better experience, both for you and your reader. The article brings to us the best practices of bloggers such as Jeff Atwood, Jeffrey Goldberg, Felix Salmon, Om Malik and many others.

It is important to blog consistently. There should be at least three or four posts every week. You don't have to be perfect, but you have to be here blogging. Because otherwise you won't keep your readers (sound advice, but here, I have just three, four people in mind, and they won't go away, I think. and I also think, it is just those three, four people that read this blog constantly. so there is nothing to worry).

Blogging is not literature. So don't work so hard at it that it shows. Don't come across all heavy and ponderous like a mammoth, make sure that you sound casual and clear. People who read blogs are not going to sit back and think about the meaning of words, or bother to read between the lines.

So be direct, don't be long-winded, get to the point as early as possible. Assume that your reader won't get past the first para (I know they you won't).

When you read, you like to see something useful or interesting, right, you don't want to see me grind the same axe again and again. So take some effort to makes your posts relevant, or at least interesting.

One of the best ways to do this is to go on adding something new in your posts, but it is not good to range far and wide, like I do here. People visit a blog with certain expectations, and it does not do to shock with irrelevancies. The best thing is to concentrate on a particular area, a narrow topic, and limit your posts to it. The next best thing is to have some general posts to go along with it, they add value to each other. But whatever you post, there has to be something in it that they won't find elsewhere- it may be the real face of your manager, or the mole in your wrist, but it should be something unique to your posts.

I don't do this, but if you want your blog to be popular, join the blogging conversations. Go to other blogs, make your comments, respond to them, build a dialogue, a community feeling. Be generous with links and praise, and when you credit someone with something, be loud about it.

Having done all that, don't worry about traffic, about who comes or who does not. Write about what you are interested in, what you want to share with others, and make writing a happy experience for you.

It is highly improbable that you will become the superstar of Blogosphere, or make your living by it. Even if you are good, you will get a few hundred people reading by the end of a year of blogging- but even if it is just a handful, it is alright. Go on with your blogging, because you will learn to communicate better.

And another point I read and kept for the end is this- According to the Huffington Post,800 words are the maximum you can put in the post. Beyond that, it gets too long.

Hope you found this useful, or interesting, or both.

Or whatever.

But do come back.