Make Your Blog Bling

With people all over the world anointing themselves diy-journalist, or otherwise known as do-it-yourself journalists, the number of blogs has grown exponentially. But unlike writing code or just creating a simple webpage, there are nuances to blogging if your goal is to grab the attention of readers the world over. If your goal is simply to communicate your thoughts to your friends this article is not for you. This article is for the wannabe professional blogger who is currently staring his edit screen in the face wondering what exactly to talk about and how exactly to talk about it.

There are several books on blogging, including Blog Rules and Essential Blogging. But rather than force you to spend twenty bucks on a book you and I both know you are not going to read I thought I'd save you the money and give you the five simple practices to effective blogging. To simplify things, I am going to use three blogs as reference points so you can have a model at which to look at. Three of the most popular blogs in blogger world are Seth Godin's blog on marketing, Malcolm Gladwell's blog on social analysis, and Lifehacker.

Seth Godin is a well respected expert on marketing and branding who has published several well-received books on the topic. His blog, aptly titled Seth Godin is utilized as sort of a case study, where he brings a marketing concept or principle and wraps a conversation around it. Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Tipping Point and Blink, is equally respected but is focused on social dynamics and why things happen. The Lifehacker blog is a bit different from both Godin and Gladwell's blogs in that, it is vastly more random and off the wall than the consistent themes of Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell.

In order to blog effectively, an author has to do five things well. Regardless of the topic or theme of a blog these five practices will remain the same. An author can be in the US or Australia, male or female, professional or a stay-at-home, a successful (meaning the audience comes back) blog will all have these same five ingredients.

Focus on a specific niche

With Seth Godin, his blogs are centrally focused on helping marketers and non-marketers with marketing. Whether it is challenging a stereotype or raising a new way of seeing things, marketing is what he focuses on and he never strays away from it. Malcolm Gladwell has the same singular attention with social dynamics. He evaluates particular nuggets cascading across the landscape to produce a conversation that will push a reader to assess their own behavior patterns. Even though the Lifehacker site does not have a general theme, the focus or niche of it is towards a simple conversation about any topic but simple enough to be participated on by anyone.

In a recent post, Seth Godin is discussing the art of marketing. On it he says, 'The art of marketing is not finding more money to do more marketing. It's figuring out how to tell a story that spreads with the resources you've got'. Such are the types of conversations to be expected from Seth Godin. Does everyone want to read about such? Certainly not, but those that do find his thoughts impressive and thought-provoking.

Publish regularly

Any blogger wanting to build a following has to publish more than once a week. With so much happening in the world, you have to have an opinion about something, anything several times a day. Seth Godin posts four to five times a day. With Malcolm Gladwell writing for The New Yorker, he is daily penning thoughts as well. Equally as busy, the Lifehacker blogger blogs five to six times a day, sometimes more. The point being your blog is your thoughts expressed digitally. If you are not talking your voice is mulled or you are simply invisible.

Original Content

The best blogs are blogs whose authors publish original content or hard to find information that their audience would find useful but difficult to pull together. With Seth Godin he may evaluate one company's marketing strategy this morning and talk about how effective a flower is the next. The Lifehacker blog's random nature makes the blog appealing and interesting. The fact that a reader has no idea what the blog will be about until they get to it keeps people coming back and new viewers stopping by.

With a recent article about waking up without an alarm clock, over 3,600 people viewed the Lifehacker article. And it received thirty comments about it. Now before you laugh, contemplate what could be original about waking up without an alarm clock? You are wondering aren't you? The blog has your attention.

Well-written

You do not have to possess a Masters Degree in Education to blog but you do need the ability to write well. With Ebonics not a part of the blogging lexicon it is critical for the worldwide audience that your blog be easy to read and effective in its communication. With professionals being the demographic reading the most popular blogs, you cannot use first grade language and expect to build up a following or mass of viewers. Malcolm Gladwell in fact can be difficult to read. Writing like Shakespeare in Psychology 101, Malcolm Gladwell is the perfect illustration that well-written works.

Gladwell recently posted an add-on to an article he wrote for The New Yorker Magazine in an attempt to defend Enron. In an attempt to dissect a legitimate reason why the executive team at Enron is on their way to jail, Gladwell writes with a skillfulness that presses the reader to think harder and read faster. Those are the signs of effective writing.

Solicit Feedback

The best blogs have a high rate of conversation between the blogger and the reader. Some times the blogger does not comment allowing the readers to run the comment conversation. Many blogs have a space where you can see the number of comments that have been made on a particular post. The most popular blogs have the most comments as well.

Blogging is not the wave of the future it is the wave of today. What makes a blog good is that in the case of Seth Godin, you are getting a marketing degree for free. With Malcolm Gladwell, readers are having an introspective look at the world. Blogging works because the writer has something to say that peaks the interest and attention of its readers more than they could find at that very moment from their friends or television. People that want to be effective at blogging should take a cue and learn the basics and fundamentals from Seth, Malcolm, and the Lifehacker. Their blogs are widely viewed because they bring value to people. And that is priceless.