Lesson One:
Good Blogging
Good 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.
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. In fact, we have an entire generation of youth engaging in conversations that don’t matter. Wonderful pieces of technology such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Xanga, and instant messengers are being squandered on pointless exchanges, or at least not being used to their fullest potential. We literally have the world at our fingertips – a vastly abundant supply of knowledge and resources – and most of the things we say don’t add up to much more than hours wasted and our egos coddled.
So, in order to write a good blog, you actually have to have something worth saying. Now, I could say that everyone has a story, and that would be true; however, I don’t want to give you the impression that laundry lists and daily to-do’s will grab your audience’s attention. Probably, you could say a lot. Don’t. Find out what you really want to say in your blog, and say it. (Reminder: your blog does not have to be about you.) Having a blog just to have one does not make you stand out. If you’re going to blog well, it’s going to have to be intentional.
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 check out. 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.
This is something that is new to me – posting brevity; I am someone who likes to talk and be heard. However, I’m realizing that more people will listen if I say what I have to say little by little. I also know that I, as a reader, appreciate this type of writing more.
Each post should reflect a common theme – the theme of your blog. My blog is called “Pilgrimage of the Heart,” and I try to center every posting around self-discovery and awakening to a destiny, which is what a pilgrimage is intended to do. Sometimes, I actually visit physical places; other times, it is a journey in spirit. However, the overarching theme is always the internal exploration of the soul.
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. I am doing that very thing by promising you I will have next post about bad blogging in the next couple days. Talk to you then.
For more blogging tips from Jeff see:
http://jeffgoins.myadventures.org/index.asp?filename=better-blogging
and http://jeffgoins.myadventures.org/index.asp?category=Blogging
