Writing for Your Blog

Last week, I wrote about blogs and usability. This week, I want to discuss how to tell your story online. In “Aim for the Heart” by Al Tompkins, I’m taught that writing for online is not the same as writing for television for news journalists. Online storytelling requires a lot more pieces; first, it needs to be interactive. Readers want to consume new stories on their terms. They want to be able to click through a news story and discover what is relevant to them. For example, when there was a stand off in Imperial Beach (my neighborhood), I wanted to know how close this was happening in relation to my house. When I went to local news channels online sites, it gave me the general address but no map. While this did not hinder me from searching on Google Maps, I had to take an extra step, which news sites should avoid. Second, online storytelling requires updating because once a story is published online, it gets archived. Consumers can refer back to these archived publications and should have the most up-to-date information.

Now I want to put this in context of online writing for a blog. The blogging world is a bit different.  Most blogs are not updating the public on big media stories. In fact, the majority of blogs that I read talk about fashion, fitness, and the Paleo lifestyle. These blogs should still follow similar, if not the same, rules that local news sites follow. When I go to a Paleo lifestyle blog, I want the most recent information on Paleo trends or recipes. Balanced Bites does a great job of keeping her readers updated through medias such as Facebook and Instagram. Her website is also easy to read and shows the most recent updates on top of her page. Most importantly, her website is interactive. She includes videos, Podcasts, pictures, and written stories.

Other important tip to remember is that online publishing also needs to keep SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in mind. When writing a story, remember to use words that readers are going to type into their search engines to find your story. Al Tompkins writes, “the first rule of SEO is brevity” (176). Ensure that the words in the headline “capture the content of the story” (176). Readers don’t want to be lied to when clicking on a news story. Optimizing a headline would include using words that frequently show up in the story. While most writers want to be “clever,” search engines cannot search cleverness. If I’m writing about San Diego Fashion Week, the title for my blog entry should read, “San Diego Fashion Week Brings Out the Local Fashionistas” instead of “Local Fashionistas Unite.” While both titles capture the story, the first headline is going to get better SEO. 

While some bloggers might say that they don't want a "fan base," I personally feel empowered when people read my blog. I'm posting on a local forum for the entire world to potentially read. I want people to read my blog and relate to what I'm writing. Al Tompkins writes about understanding your online audience. Blogger is a great platform for blogging because it allows me to view how readers are finding my site (the most searched keyword: "Musings of Kristen" which to me means, this person knows my blog pretty well). It also shows me what entries people are reading the most (the previous one is on top right now) and also where my readers are from. In the online publishing world, journalists need to know these stats. It helps journalists know what their readers are interested and how to keep bringing them back to their site. In journalism, it's important to cater to what your reader wants especially if it means bringing traffic to your site. Hmm... now I have to consider how to bring readers back to my site. 

Aside from posting more frequently, what, dear readers, do you want to read?

The Importance of Usability and Your Blog

After reading Steve Krug’s, “Don’t Make Me Think,” I started to think about all the websites and blogs that I frequent and whether or not they’re easy to navigate. I’ve experienced many frustrations when entering a website and not being able to find what I’m looking for in a quick search.  I’ve also entered many blogs and left due to the content. While there are plenty of lessons in "Don't Make Me Think," three lessons stuck out to me: conventions, omitting needless words, and the importance of a search function.

He states that as users, we are constantly looking for conventions. As someone who grew up using the Internet, I never really thought about how I learned to navigate it. Krug states, “well applied conventions make it easier for users to go from site to site without expending a lot of effort figuring out how things work” (35). This is important when reading through a site. The more I have to read through a website, the less I want to stay on it. Our conventions tell us where links are on the page, how to get back to the home page, and how to submit a form and there is no thinking involved when a website takes advantage of this. However, not all websites, or bloggers, are created equally.

What does this mean for us bloggers? It means that we need to start considering our readers. While our blogs tend to be advertised as our personal space on the web, we still want readers to relate to us and find comfort in familiarity. Krug writes about omitting “needless” words (also see Usability Guidelines). I asked myself why it would be important to omit words in my blog entries and while I feel there is a time and place for long posts about significant life happenings, I also feel that the reader just wants a quick peek into my life. He also discusses the importance of getting rid of “noise.” The benefit that stood out to me was that it would make “useful content more prominent” (45). As a blogger, I want the reader to find usefulness in what I’m writing because I want them to come back.

Last, Krug explains the importance of adding a search function to your website (he also discusses it in this interview). The search function allows users to quickly navigate a website by simply typing in a word and discovering results. I want my site to be searchable and this is why I use labels and will start using “anchor texts”. Anchor texts give my blog a better chance of showing up when a specific word is typed into Google. They will be key when blogging about reviews or linking to relevant entries. The search function, labels, and anchor texts add an element of usability to my blog and make it different from other similar blogs.

While Blogger is a great platform due to it's many options and tools to personal a blog, it’s up to us to make our blogs usable. As more blogs appear on the internet, it will be crucial for me to continue to critique my site and make it better. If anything, Steve Krug shares that we should always be learning and reviewing our websites. Even as technology advances, Krug finds that usability is still a constant struggle for web designers. Here is a recent (2009) slide show that Krug did for New Riders Voices That Matter Conference, "What I Have Learned So Far in the 21st Century". He discusses what he has learned since writing “Don’t Make Me Think."