I thought it might be helpful for those of you who blog and aspire to do it better if I shared some thoughts and observations about blogging. This is a four-part teaching on blogs, designed especially for those who are fairly new to the practice and want to use it for more than just diversion. The four parts will consist of: good blogging, bad blogging, digging deeper, and taking it to the next step.
Part one in a four-part series on blogging
Lesson One: Good Blogging
First of all, the basic elements of a good blog are that you need to have: something worth saying, a voice to say it, and a reason for your readers to come back.
Let’s elaborate on the first point: something worth saying. There are a lot of blogs right now that are being written by people who are not saying much. So, in order to write a good blog, you actually have to have something worth saying.
Find out what you really want to say in your blog, and say it. (Reminder: your blog does not have to be about you.) Just because you have something worth saying (for instance, you’re traveling the world) does not mean that people will want to hear you. A good story is a place to begin, but if you don’t tell it well, people will leave. Moreover, if you don’t concentrate on a specific area that you think is important and let your voice (that is, the feel and tone of your writing) evoke powerful emotions, then you are not going to captivate your reader.
Your words will be a big part of this, but images can supplement your voice, as well. I make it a norm to use at least one picture per post that has something to do with what I am writing. For some of you, your pictures may outweigh any written content, and that’s fine. That is all part of discovering your voice. You are competing with millions of other bloggers for a short window of time; it is crucial that you choose your content wisely, speak the language of your target audience (which means you have identified your audience), and say what you have to say concisely.
Lastly, you need to give your readers a reason to come back. Once you know your voice, you need to develop a pattern or theme of your writing. Occasionally, you might want to do a multi-part blog posting to keep the reader coming back for more, but I wouldn’t make all of your posts multiple parts. Part of the beauty of blog-writing and blog-reading is the shortness of each post. When you give someone a reason to come back, whether it is a continuation of an earlier post or a new idea yet to surface, you are building a good readership and insuring your blog more hits in the future.
