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My Tips for One Cool Site Readers
by Guest blogger Vikas Gupta,
1. Write in small paragraphs and leave spaces of enough girth between the paragraphs; such structuring does not pressurize the the eyes. This is ignored by many good bloggers unfortunately.
2. Choose a theme that is amenable to the above (some themes have very small space between lines/paragraphs). Also, avoid themes with extreme colour contrasts (like white text on black canvas) which is painful for the eyes.
3. Do not overwhelm your posts with smileys or big images that may slow down your site.
4. As far as possible, do not write a post as long as Nile! Brevity is the soul of wit indeed.
5. Keep the language simple and lucid. Also, make sure there are no grammatical errors/typos which may put off the reader.
6. Humour is important: life or blogs! Remember, ” we don’t succeed at anything unless we have fun doing it.” An undercurrent of humour in your posts will engage your readers more effectively.
7. Visit your readers and other blogs and leave your footprints (sweet comments) on their blogs. A good rule of thumb is that the more the footprints you leave in the cyberspace, the more are the chances of your discovery.You can have your cake and eat it only if you are a celebrity blogger!
8. If your blog has advertisements make sure they are at appropriate locations on the blog so that they do not become eyesores. Or else, sooner or later you’ll get a comment: ‘your blog may be making bucks, but it sucks!’
9. Choose the option to display gravatar or some image (free WP blogs) with the name of commentators; it looks nice on most blogs. Also your blog’s favicon and your avatar image should be catchy.
10. You don’t always have to do a write-up as a rule. Sometimes, you may only publish some image or quote from some hyperlinked story and invite discussion and comments. Remember, you are not the only great person who is writing and doing all great things; there are others too and their voices need to be strengthened/promoted for the common cause of humanity. Besides, your readers may get bored over time if you are only a text blogger! So, do not fail to surprise your readers sometimes. Words are only ‘one’ of the various wonderful tools of expression available to Homo sapiens.
11. Blogging also has to do a lot with jollification, personal satisfaction, catharsis and the like. So don’t miss the fun by incessantly bothering about traffic, topping the charts and inviting inordinate comments and visitors. Relax, things take time.
Vikas Gupta is a research scholar in his late 20s based in New Delhi, who describes himself as being creative, emotional, health conscious, love films, animation, rhymes etc. Please visit his blog.
Related comments found in this blog:
Encouraging readers to comment
How to form blog centered relationships
How to handle negative comments
Synergy: The human side of blogging
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These are really observant, good tips. Sometimes people take long to discover it. You certainly have picked the ropes of blogging trade very fast. Way to go! :)
Absolutely agree with all but #5, Vikas’ blog always is fresh and well written. I am all for terse posts.
@5. no grammatical errors/typos ; not sure if this should be promoted, how did Shakespeare invent ‘elbow’. We should promote words like, Ghajinitis and Netcial. This is a place where we can actually experiment.
Truly, wisdom to blog happily by. However, one can also find one’s own path and still find contentment.
A very good set of tips. I was an editor for 20 years or so, and I would add the following suggestions: (1) Become very familiar with The Elements of Style by Strunk and White; and (2) Check out one of the standard style manuals (such as the AP or NY Times) from your local library just to get an idea of the kinds of issues they raise.
#1, 2, and 4 are the best! It’s frustrating to read a blog with no breaks/paragraphs. Yes, black/dark backgrounds are hard on the eyes. If a post is overly long, I stop reading it–I don’t have the time!
Keeping in mind all these 11 brilliant rules, is there any website which can ‘analyse’ one’s blog? In that way the blogger can learn about his mistakes.
REPLIES TO THE COMMENTS:
@Poonam
Thank you Poonam!
@Chirag
Valid Observation Chirag. I agree with you. The evolution of the language (and particularly the English language) also owes to serendipity. This global language is quick in accommodating and welcoming new words/phrases and that only contributes to its beauty.
However, it is also true that there are bloggers/people who ignore grammar and write English devoid of accepted norms (or accepted norms on flouting the norms) as if blogging also gives them the freedom to invent their own language by debasing the original. Such folks do not have the noble intentions of enhancing the language. The #5 is applicable to them.
Even I will jump to coining a phrase when deemed suitable. The English language has this beautiful idiom: ‘to coin a phrase’!
@ian in hamburg
Yes ian, well said! Blogging is a lot about contentment; the paths may differ.The quote in your blog’s header, “if you aren’t confused then you don’t understand what’s going on” speaks volumes.
@Windroot
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White is a highly recommended book. Thank you for the suggestions. Glad to know it from someone who wielded the blue pencil for 20 years!
@Barbara
Thank you for voicing your opinion Barbara. I usually pray that I find #1 in use whenever I visit a new blog.
I also don’t like long posts but sometimes it is not practical/possible to write small posts especially with regard to some social issue or some matter of grave concern. However, bloggers can mitigate reader’s pain by leaving spaces of enough girth between paragraphs.
P.S.: I wrote the replies in a hurry guys. Ignore typos, if any. Thank you.
@vimokshananda
Dear Swamiji,
Please go through the articles on this blog; explore the ‘archives and categories’ and you should be able to do a lot of self-analysis.
I am not aware of any particular website that does it for you; some blogging networking sites (like Blogged) do claim to review your blog when you join it but it is not a serious attempt. You can ask your friends on Blogcatalog to review your blog.
Really great tips! I agree, I don’t like the wall of text thing that some Bloggers do. It just puts me off and I move on to the next blog lol!
My latest post is pretty long but I guess the humor and the way I write that seems to speak to the readers makes up for it. But some people really have a short attention span!
Really enjoyed the blog! Much Love,
Great tips. Placing ads on blog is like an art.
You need to balance between the earnings and reader experience and its really hard sometimes!
REPLIES TO HalfCrazy and Mr. I
@HalfCrazy,
Thank you for the appreciation HalfCrazy. Too much of text is often an irritant. Supplementing and complementing the text with images/videos etc. certainly refreshes things.
I saw your latest post; you really have your readers in mind while writing. It is an eclectic post offering a movie review, music review and your opinion on the Grammy awards.
It may be a long post but it offers the readers choice and you yourself have innocently suggested “just read one segment per day; you can do whatever you want!” You really think from the vantage point of your readers.
By the way, you are HalfCrazy only in name! You are pretty sane. :)
Really glad to know you enjoyed the blog. Keep visiting.
@Mr. I,
Yes, Mr. I, I agree with you. The spatial dimension to advertisements on blogs is ignored by many bloggers.
It will indeed not be an exaggeration to call it an ‘art’ that is hard to master. It may become very difficult for some bloggers to strike the balance between readers experience and earnings. Sometimes you cannot have the best of both worlds!
well observed, vikas!
perhaps i need to heed to the ‘nile’ long post thing!! :D
Really great tips, Vikas!! I didn’t think about 10 before, but I’m glad to see that tip. Also, I will make sure to remember 11 too! Thanks for writing such a helpful post!
@Roop Rai,
Not really Roop! As I have mentioned in the reply to a comment above that it is “sometimes not practical/possible to write small posts especially with regard to some social issue or some matter of grave concern.” And your posts are often about some social issue. Besides, you may miss the fun if you deliberately try to shorten your posts.
Excelent tips Vikas ^ ^
The last two tips were something I didn’t think until now. Thanks for sharing!
This has saved me so much time!
A friend is working at an orphanage in South Africa as a volunteer and writes very insightful blog about her “eye opening” experiences but is getting very little traffic. I am going to send her your tips.
@Roto
G’day and thanks for visiting my blog and reading this guest post. As there are so many problems with copyright violations in cyberspace I’m interjecting to clarify this with you. You may NOT copy and paste the entire post and send it to your friend.
You have two alternatives:
(1) You may send your friend a link to this post.
(2) Or you may send an excerpt of it and a link back to the whole post as specified in the copyright notice:
“A brief excerpt of content (up to 50 words) may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog and the author are correctly attributed.”
Thanks so much for commenting. :)
@Argos and Roto
@Argos
Thank you Argos.
@Roto
Glad to know you liked it. Feel free to share it but please observe the copyright regulations as suggested by timethief above. You yourself run an online portal and must be aware of such dangers in the cybersapce.
My prayers for your friends’s orphanage and the noble cause.
Some excellent tips, especially:
#2. Lots of blogs and websites use a small typeface, which seems to be the default. It’s also quite faint against the background. Okay, they give you the option to choose a larger typeface but what stops them making it larger in the first place (the font size here is excellent!).
I have defective color vision, and themes that put colors of a similar hue (e.g. pastels or a vivid blue against black) against one another are almost unreadable for me.
#4. Short or long – the jury seems to be out on this. If content is good people will keep reading. What about posting the full article on the front page versus posting the first couple of paragraphs followed by ‘click to read more’?
#5. I recently read a blog which had so many typos and errors due to the writier not proofreading before posting, and these detracted from was an inherently interesting post. Good spelling and grammar doesn’t stop language evolution.
And a query:
#9. How do I get to add my own gravatar to this comment, as opposed to the automatically generated one? I couldn’t see any options letting me do this…
@dayflyer
You can’t. This theme will now automatically display a gravatar provided you have registered one because I changed the settings to demonstrate this to you.
I have to echo what Dayflyer said, I have seen blogs with far too many spelling mistakes or the grammar is so poor that it is impossible for me to read the post.
I read a couple of blogs on a regular basis. One blogger posts very long posts about 3 times a week, the other blogger posts medium sized posts every day. I’m trying to figure out which one I prefer.
Although my blog is in the personal growth field I do try to inject a little humour as I am trying to encourage myself and other people to have more fun and be more positive. I am always trying to speak directly to my readers, I know I will improve in time.
Thanks Vikas and Timethief.
@ Dayflyer:
Most blogs use the default type face which is usually the small or the average size. There are indeed options to make the font size larger by using the <h1> to <h6> HTML tags.
However, sometimes, it does not look as good and is more pronounced, bolder and gives the blog a slightly different look and feel. So mostly bloggers use the larger font only to pronounce/highlight a phrase or a particular line or a paragraph.
The best option is to choose a theme that has the best fonts in the default option. For example, for the free WordPress blogs, the themes with most amenable fonts for the eyes are Depo Masthead (this theme), Pressrow, Cutline and the Journalist. Most bloggers with the journalistic bent of mind on WP use these themes.
Unfortunately many bloggers do not keep the special needs of people in mind (such as colour vision problems) and choose a theme which is disturbing or uncomfortable to the eyes!
To your ‘short or long’ observation, it would be most apt to say that it does not really have a definite answer. It will vary from blog to blog, subject to subject and people to people. It is often not possible to shorten a subject that requires elaborate discussion and deliberate/forced contraction in such cases will be an ill-advised move.
You contention that “if content is good people will keep reading” is very acceptable. Content is the king indeed!
“Posting the full article on the front page versus posting the first couple of paragraphs followed by ‘click to read more” is a pertinent remark and thank you for mentioning it. Most bloggers who choose to display a number of posts on the home page usually prefer the more tag (click to read more). But sometimes, bloggers may want all the attention on their latest post and avoid the more tag.
If it is a long post the more thoughtful approach would be to use the more tag. But there is no uniformity on this and different bloggers have different approach to it. It is important not to deviate from the pattern you have been following on your blog. If you have been using the more tag consistently on your blog, do not abandon it radically lest your readers may be overwhelmed by the change. In the same vein, if you have not been using the more tag frequently do not introduce it suddenly.
The use of the more tag on the blog gives more options to the readers to pick and choose from a wide range of posts which is clearly visible on the home page. It is for the bloggers to decide whether or not they should use it keeping in mind the nature, readership, content and variety on the blog.
A relevant question that bloggers should ask themselves is: Is my latest post more interesting or all my posts are catchy enough?! I have a personal liking for the more tag on blogs which are full of contents cater to diverse themes because it makes navigation easy. But more tags will not be very suitable for all posts or all blogs.
@everyone
I want to wade in here and address something specifically.
“Posting the full article on the front page versus posting the first couple of paragraphs followed by ‘click to read more” is a pertinent remark and thank you for mentioning it. Most bloggers who choose to display a number of posts on the home page usually prefer the more tag (click to read more). But sometimes, bloggers may want all the attention on their latest post and avoid the more tag.
As some search spiders stop indexing when they reach 100 links on your front page we are now beginning to see magazine style themes that display only excerpts. We are also seeing standard themes where the bloggers choose to use the “read more” tag. IMO one should keep this in mind when they are composing a post and style the post with a hook in the first paragraph followed by a “read more” tag.
Also in keeping with the number of links reality I have stated above is the reality that a mile long blogroll filled with links to sites that are unrelated to one’s blog are quickly becoming a thing of the past.
Michelle-Lifeposter ,
Thank you Michelle.
Dayflyer put it very nicely: “good spelling and grammar doesn’t stop language evolution.” It is about time bloggers improved their language and grammar.
I would suggest that we should choose the content to read and not worry about the blog. Subscribe to both the blogs (feeds) and then look at the content in each case and then decide which one to read.
You endeavour to inject humour and that is a commendable effort.
Thank you once again.
Vikas, I completely agree with your response to @Chirag.
It is sometimes very difficult to understand some of the ‘phrases’ used and to me that kills the interest.
I guess you have to live with some, taking into consideration the geo-location of the blogger. Over-all a ‘zakas’ post ;)
@timethief: thanks for posting the guest post. Is it ok, if I link your blog to my blogroll?
@ km,
Thank you Km.
P.S.: Everyone, ‘z(h)akas’ is a Hindi slang for awesome/wonderful/mind-blowing.
Feel free to blogroll One Cool Site! :D
I have been away from my computer for a few days so just responding to your good point about copyright issues.
I agree that the best way to pass on information is to provide a link. That is what I always do rather than copying the text.
No worries!
Thanks for the confirmation. :)
I’m an Asian who has been studying in the U.S for one and a half years. I have some closed friends in the college. However, sometimes I feel pissed off when they call me Asian guy. I know they do not mean to offend me; they just want to make a joke. Therefore, I have came up with my blog http://www.easianheritage.com/ as a way to express Asian lifestyle. Take a look and tell me what you think.
By the way, my wordpress-based blog runs perfectly on Firefox and Safari, but sucks on IE. It’s my biggest issue.
Kevin, I visited your blog. It takes some time in loading but it is an interesting blog and many will be hooked.
IE sucks, needless to say!
P.S.: Your friends indeed don’t mean offence. They mean it as a good-humoured remark. Every dark cloud has a silver lining! You probably wouldn’t have come up with this blog if those friendly digs were not there! So thank them of course.
P.P.S. : I was very busy and had missed checking the comments here. I regret the delayed replies to you comment.
Good tips indeed, I agreed with every single one, and I have to keep reminding myself of this one: “Remember, you are not the only great person who is writing and doing all great things; there are others too and their voices need to be strengthened/promoted for the common cause of humanity.” That is very important, and yet, I seem to fail at it constantly.
Thank you Sebastyne.
Yours is a good blog, just the same. :)
All the above are essential spell checking is a must, certainly for me, even when making comments. I never learn it is the same words again and again.
Steve,
Your heart is in the right place.
Here are some quotes that echo the concern:
1. Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world. ~Henry Louis Mencken
2. Only in grammar can you be more than perfect. ~William Safire
3. Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use. ~Mark Twain
4. In a lighter vein: My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places. ~A.A. Milne
Those are great tips, and they follow two more rules — start with the display, and lead with the very best you have.
* White space is a gift when reading. I couldn’t agree more.
* Always try to lead out the beginning, right away. Long preambles can kill.
Yeah Roads! Long preambles can kill. Always try to lead in the beginning; some wise person said, “we never get a second chance to make a first good impression!”
WOW! Thanks for the amazing comments and suggestions. As my Blog is a work in progress, I will be sure to put these rules in motion!
Thanks again,
RLJ
I’ll pass your thanks on. You’re welcome.
Very very insightful. Thanks for sharing these tips, I’m barely even halfway in meeting them. :)
On behalf of Vikas and my readers, you’re welcome.
Thanks Kevin and Timethief! :D
Great advice! I like number 10 because I tend to think that I have to write a full article, when a picture or quote might create stimulating conversation and be just as interesting.
Insightful and very helpful tips Vikas! Thank you!
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all i can say is that it is helpful to many especially newbie like me
I’m glad you found these tips to be helpful. Happy blogging. :)