Improve your blogging - Learn from 300 years of blogging experience

Improve your blogging – Learn from 300 years of blogging experience!
Navin Kabra
http://punetech.com
@ngkabra and @punetech on twitter

Those who blog for readers
NOT: those who blog for self-expression
Target of this talk

A blog
is a
mini-newspaper /magazine

Gather info
Select
Improve/Expand
Opine
Publish, rinse, repeat
What does a newspaper do?

Gather: Constantly thinking about what to blog
Select: Deciding if something is appropriate for blog or not
Expand/Improve: Collecting further information
Opine: Add own opinions
Rinse, Repeat
A blogger does the same

Traditional media has perfected some aspects of this
Learn from them
Traditional Media =300 years of blogging!

Media spends much more time/effort (as a percentage of their total effort) on this aspect.
Most bloggers don't focus so much on this aspect
Blogger: I'll blog about whatever I think about.
Not good enough!
Gather: Media vs. Blogs

Newspaper reporters can't say we'll write about whatever news we run into as we go about our lives.
They have to seek out all news that their readers interested in.
Same with your blog.
meetu/wogma can't review whatever movies she happens to see.
Must watch all Hindi movies and review them
Gather: Blogs should do more

Google Alerts (subscribe for keywords related to your area)
Twitter (use “search columns” on tweetdeck or seismic desktop)
Mailing lists (join as many relevant lists as you can)
Events (attend all relevant offline events)
Syndicate content (seek out content by other bloggers and ask permission to republish on your blog)
Gather – How?

Don't blog everything that comes to your mind
Think about what your readers are interested in
Reader more important than Writer
Select

Newspapers have a space crunch
Blogs have an imaginary space crunch
Can’t waste readers’ time with too much content
Can only fit limited stuff on first page
Select – Space Crunch

Don’t blog everything – drop less relevant content
Reduce size of each blog post
Have subsections
Relegate some stuff to subsections
Front page has just links to subsection articles
Get an editor for your blog (friend, spouse)
Someone who brutally tells you which posts are boring
Select – Space Crunch – Ideas from newspapers

Newspapers/magazines don’t
just excerpt another publication’s
article with an excerpt & link
Neither should you!
Don’t just echo
Add value
Simplify
Check for accuracy – confirm info independently
Add alternative points of view
Add more info (wikipedia, etc)
Improve / Expand

You’re already doing most of this!
But consider:
Opinions by guest bloggers
Posts containing your opinion & and
one opposing opinion
Imitate Newspaper Columnists
Develop a distinctive style
Have a consistent opinion
Opinion Pages

Other things to learn from traditional media

No-one has time to read all your blog posts
Even those reading your post, don’t read each sentence in detail
Everybody skims!
Write so as to hook the skimmers
Write for skimmers

Newspapers spend lots of time on headlines
Sometimes headline writers are different from the reporters
Headlines grab attention
Good for SEO
Spend lot of time thinking of an interesting (clickable) headline
Which should also contain appropriate keywords (for SEO)
Write for skimmers - Headlines

Newspapers give a quick overview in first paragraph
And then fill in details in rest of article
So those who read just one para still get the whole story
Try doing the same
Your content reaches more minds
Write for skimmers – First paragraph

Photos most “looked at” parts of newspapes/magazines
Skimmers can’t “avoid” photos
Then high probability of reading captions
Tell your story in photos and captions
Write for skimmers – Add photos and captions

Break up long articles into sub-sections
Give useful sub-headlines to subsections
Use “excerpt boxes”
This hooks reader “just glancing” over article
Study how magazines do this
Write for skimmers – Sub-headings

Which is correct?
Write to show your command over language
Write to be easily understood
Write to NOT be misunderstood!!
Small sentences
Simple words
Avoid ambiguous constructions
Get an editor!
Radical Clarity

Links
“Quotes”
Further reading
Cite Sources

Much more effort into gathering data
Be selective about what you post
Expand/Improve: Dig into the story
Write for skimmers (headlines, pics, sections)
Radical Clarity
Links
Summary

NavinKabra
Background: Computer Science - B.Tech, IIT-Bombay, Ph.D., U-Wisconsin, USA
Currently: Co-founder at BharatHealth.com
But: Better known for my websites!
http://punetech.com, http://smriti.com
Twitter: @ngkabra, @punetech
More info: http://punetech.com/navin
Email: navin@punetech.com
Linked-in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/navinkabra

About the author(aka blatant self-promotion)