Archive for the 'Blog Writing' Category

Why You Need an Editorial Style Guide

Published by Tim on November 14, 2007 in Blog Writing. 2 Comments

style.png OK, so we know you’ve got style, but do you have the right kind? We’re not talking personal flair here — if you want a great blog, you’ll need to think a little about editorial style.

Your editorial style includes the conventions you use for spelling certain words (email or e-mail? Web site or website? Colour? Theatre?) and the basic rules of grammar and punctuation you follow.

If that all sounds too much like school, it doesn’t have to be complicated. The key is consistency. At the simplest, you can keep a list of common words that have more than one spelling (email, website) and always spell them the same way. Decide if you’re going to use the second comma in “this, that, and the other” and thereafter always do the same thing.

An easier way to handle style is to follow a style guide. Not sure if you should use the second comma? Just look it up.

The AP Stylebook is sort of the gold standard for journalists. The Columbia.edu online style guide is a nice online alternative.

If you use other good resources for editorial style, leave a comment!

p.s. As a tangent, it’s interesting (to me. a dork.) how style changes over time. When I started working on the Web in 1995, not only did my AP Stylebook not include any Internet terms, but I thought that email should be spelled e-mail (”it’s electronic mail, after all — e-mail!”) and website should be spelled “Web site” because “World Wide Web is a proper noun!”

Now that ten years and more have passed, I see email and website as words of their own.

Writing for the Web: Readers Scan

Published by Tim on October 19, 2007 in Blog Writing. 0 Comments

We know that you, gentle blogger, already know how to write for the Web. (You do have a blog?)

Today’s post looks a little closer at why Web writing is different from those other kinds.

Flicker Flicker

First, consider the computer screen. Reading on a computer screen is a much harsher experience than reading on paper.

Why?

Your computer screen refreshes 72 times per second. Your large human brain sees this flashing as a “page” of info, but your brainyness has tricked you out of realizing that you might as well be looking into a strobe light. Hello headache!

Moreover, the computer screen is also relatively low-resolution, at 72 dots per square inch: fuzzy.

Paper, on the other hand, does not flash. Paper uses reflected light bouncing off the dark words, which makes for a calmer experience (I’m waiting for the BlogBurst Research Labs to get back to me on the science here…), and print on paper has a much higher resolution — 300 dots per square inch: crisp.

Which is why you can read “War and Peace” on paper, but sometimes it’s hard to get to the bottom of a Perez Hilton post. (One reason.)

Readers Scan

The flicker flicker syndrome is why Web readers don’t read word by word, they scan. Studies have even been done. (Here’s an interesting post from useit.com on how readers scan Web pages.)

That’s why many successful blogs:

  • keep it brief and focused
  • use short sections with clear titles and other clearly scannable levels of information
  • keep long dense documents deeper in the site and link to them from the blog
  • use words that anyone can understand

…Except When They Don’t

Now that I’ve beaten you over the head with the importance of brevity and scannability, here’s the bus-sized caveat: Unless your audience likes it some other way.

Some topics invite incredibly long boring dense posts about the finer details of a random topic. One of my faves, The Becker-Posner Blog can spin 2,000 words on Globalization and Inequality, and that’s great because their audience is full of dorks like me who like reading things like that.

But in general: scannable; short; snappy.

How to Keep Readers Coming Back

Published by Beth on May 11, 2007 in Blog Writing. 0 Comments

“Content is king” has long been attributed to Bill Gates. I’m not sure if he said it but I’m convinced that it’s true. We all have our own ideas about what the best blogs are but it seems they all share some of the same characteristics:

Passion - It seems simple enough but it’s so crucial. It’s evident to a reader when you are excited about the topic. It comes across clearly in the tone of your writing. This became so apparent to me during March Madness in the blogosphere. BlogBurst is lucky to have an abundance of good sports blogs. But, the ones from the “hometown” guy, who labored through the tournament seed process, analyzed the match-ups in excruciating detail, refuting ref’s calls and lamenting the missed layups, kept me spellbound for a month. Why? Because they cared and it came across in their writing. Because they cared¦ so did I.

Credibility - You better know your stuff. I know you’ve got an opinion (don’t we all?) but do you have the knowledge to back it up? You should have experience with, and knowledge about, the topic you’re blogging on. With so many good blogs competing for readers’ time and attention, make sure that you’ve provided original content and unique insight and opinion.

Consistency - If you want a regular readership, you’ve got to deliver well-written, topical posts on a frequent basis. It may not be fair but I consider bloggers experts in certain fields and if they go hop-scotching into another one, I’m turned off. It’s not want I want from you but rather what I expect from you. It’s like going to Martha Stewart for tips on whipping up a souffe and seeing a long-winded rant about military spending.

Writing the Ideal Blog Post

Published by Beth on April 3, 2007 in Blog Writing. 3 Comments

One of the most common questions we get from bloggers is how to increase pick up from publishers. Obviously, each blog is different - these are just some general tips that we’ve learned through our relationships with the publishers.

  • Post length: The preferable post is somewhere between 100 to 500 words. Posts which are too short probably don’t contain enough content to stand alone on a post view. Posts that are way too long could lose the reader, who may be accustomed to reading a few paragraphs. There is flexibility here, as our Gadget blogs tend to post shorter stories, and our Science and Environment blogs tend to post feature-length articles.
  • Personality and Writing Style: Publishers are looking for unique voices that complement their pages. Insightful commentary and original content is key, as is a consistent voice. The vast majority of publishers don’t want the copy/paste approach of news stories with just a few lines of blogger opinion.
  • Timeliness of Content: This varies by topic, as some blog posts are evergreen. But if the blogger is posting about a past event or an old news story, the time for pick-up has probably expired.
  • Posting Frequency: The more you post, the more visible and discoverable your blog is to publishers. Daily posting is preferable, but publishers are interested in quality over quantity.
  • No Profanity: Most publishers won’t pick up posts that contain bad words, even when you use an asterisk, clever as that may be.

Ten Ways to be a Better Blogger

Published by Beth on October 18, 2006 in Blog Writing. 2 Comments

TechRepublic offers some great tips - 10 of them - on how all bloggers can improve their writing and their chances of increasing their audience numbers and site visits.

When we read the post, we felt there were many similarities between what we at BlogBurst see as good ways to increase your chances of getting pick up on one of our publisher sites, and what TR had to say. Here are our top three tips from TR that we think are the most relevant for getting picked up and syndicated:

#1: Define Your Purpose

We, at BlogBurst, could not agree more. Finding a clear and focused objective for your blog will garner you more loyalty and more readers. Audiences/Readers like to tune into the expert opinion, and a focused blog can show you off as a resident expert, or at least as someone who is following a particular topic or issue, more so than they can.

Continue reading ‘Ten Ways to be a Better Blogger’

Writing Post Summaries

Published by Beth on October 5, 2006 in Blog Writing. 1 Comment

It’s a good idea to summarize the main point of your post in the first 50 or so words of the article. Most blog readers spend time scanning many articles at a time before they decide to read any given post closely.

BlogBurst publishing partners do searches for specific topics and will get back hundreds of relevant, high quality blog articles. Their search results will only show the first few sentences of these posts. The editor will scan these summaries and select posts for further review. This means that your headline and article introduction are the most important text you can write to improve your chances of pick up.

A compelling summary will both give readers a quick overview of your topic and introduce a striking statistic, quote, or fact. It should “catch the eye” of a reader and drive them to learn more by reading the rest of the article.

Stay on Topic: Focus is the key

Published by Beth on September 7, 2006 in Blog Writing. 3 Comments

Hello friends!

One of my duties here at the Tech Specialist desk is to check out each and every blog that people submit to Blogburst. Having looked at so many, I’d like to offer some explanation as to which blogs we favor and why, so that you’ll have a better understanding of what we look for in a blog.

Probably the single biggest non-technical factor for success is topic focus. If you blog about a single issue (and really, it could be just about anything) you’ll have a much better chance of being accepted into Blogburst and placed on a publisher’s site.

Continue reading ‘Stay on Topic: Focus is the key’

Study: Traits of successful bloggers

Published by Beth on June 27, 2006 in Blog Writing. 12 Comments

For every topic, there is a blog. Bloggers write about what they’re eating, what they’re wearing, who they’re dating and where they are going. And when they’re not writing about themselves, they’re writing about what their pets are eating and wearing. However, it’s not really what you write about that makes your blog a success as much as your personal commitment to writing (number of posts and a relative organized theme.) According to a recent study from the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth:

  • Blogs take time and committment
  • Blogs must have focus
  • Blogs must be authentic and transparent

Continue reading ‘Study: Traits of successful bloggers’