Blogging Tips and Advice

Blogging Tips and Advice

I am no expert at blogging but probably the one advantage I have is that I have been in the business for longer than most. There are no secrets or magic wand that will bring success in the world of blogging but it is a combination of good luck, hard work and consistency.
In one of my recent interview with Lifehacker, they asked me how I work and my answer was “enthusiastically” and “diligently”. I enjoy what I do, I do not see this as work, I am always thinking about ways to improve, to learn and I look forward to working on labnol.org every morning.
Here I share some of my learnings and blogging tips that will probably help take your blog to the next level.

1. If you are on Blogger or Tumblr or another blogging platform, do your blog a favor and move to WordPress. The process isn’t complicated and will definitely help you in the long run, especially from the search perspective. Blogger is powerful and easy-to-use but the big drawback is that it blocks everything from bots that’s not a page or a post. The other concern is that Blogger is a Google product and they have killed products mercilessly in the past even ones that had a substantial user base. Remember Google Reader?
2. Content is king but you also need to develop a good and interesting writing style to attract a global audience. Good writing is a gift that comes naturally to some of us but if you happen to be in the other half, get some books.
The Elements of Style,  Stephen King’s On Writing, andOn Writing Well offer good advice on writing. Compose the blog drafts in a proper editor - like Microsoft Word or Google Docs - as they will highlight all the typos and grammatical errors that otherwise convey a bad impression. You can also get a style guide from The New York Times or the Associated Press and they’ll help you develop a consistent writing style. These guides have accepted writing rules for journalism and you can apply them to your own writing style as well.
3. Do not imitate someone else’s style. You have your own personal style and your readers are following you because they love your style. You need not imitate someone nor do you have to write as if you are writing for a news agency. Make your writing personal.
4. The most important part of a blog post is the headline and suddenly everyone is trying to do Buzzfeed style headlines. “This is why the Apple watch is not round.”  “You’ll never believe what Facebook will unveil next.” With such headlines, you raise the expectation level of the audience but when they read the actual article, they are often disappointed. Write boring headlines that may not be cute or clever but are accurate. Your readers should be able to guess what the article is all about by looking at the headline itself.