How To Write A Blog That People Like
From the day I started having a blog till today, I realised that many people have ventured into the blogging world. Age is not a barrier and one of my senior lecturer blogs too! Some people started much earlier than me and some later on. People question "Why a blog?" or "What's so fun about it?" Well, people who are really popular on blogs and have many page views make their blog as a platform to earn money and to get the crowd.
Some people just write for fun. They make it as their diary. They might prefer typing rather than writing so that's why they don't write in their diary instead. But most people blog because they want people to read what they wrote. And once you publish some that can be viewed worldwide you need to be extra careful on what you say. Avoid political issue as much as possible if you're not a politician. Don't write where you're going tomorrow or next week or next month. Its okay to write about the past but not the future due to safety purposes.
Something I learned when I attended Blogopolis 2012 organised by Nuffnang was that people do NOT like music on blogs. Its like a person listening to music without earphones in public. What do you feel? I personally did not know this. Although I do not have music on my blog but I thought it was alright until I realised how may times I mute my laptop everytime I landed on a blog with music. They mentioned in the seminar that people visit your blog to read your thoughts and opinions and not to listen to music they don't like. People have different music taste and its pretty distracting too.
Bear in mind. Write original posts or ask permission first before taking something that somebody has put so much effort in writing and publishing. Its not easy to write in the first place and the fact that somebody just copied,paste and edited your own hard work to make it their own is not acceptable in the blogging world. People will find out especially regular visitors of the blog you took it from. If you really like something they posted, there's not harm politely asking to RE-BLOG. Problem solved :)
When people have blogs, most of us are writing with hope to meet people with the same interest, create a bigger blog circle, share our thoughts with people, connect with other bloggers. And something really unique about blogs is that you won't say most of the things you write on blogs to people. You won't write it in social network either because most of the things you blog about are pretty private and come straight from the heart. I'm sure you're wondering now - what do I mean? Why? How? Well blogs are rather silent and more peaceful to me. When you post something, you're not expecting a particular person to read it. You have no idea who's gonna read it and that's the fun of it. When writing on somewhere public, there's this slight pressure on what people will think when they see this or that, am I right? Then people might judge you publicly when they're forced to read what you wrote. But remember this, people who visited your blog, decided by themselves with freewill to click and read what you wrote. That's the difference. Imagine a blog like sitting in a house where you can't see the people peeking inside. You know they're there but you feel more comfortable because you can't see them directly. However, I really enjoy talking and responding to my visitors very much whether its via email, fb message, chatbox or even a comment. Its nice to hear people responding after you've written things with hope they help people. :)
So how do you get a rush of visitors? Or how to be a popular blogger? I'm still learning myself and perhaps not the best person to advise you but in my opinion, it never happens over night. It needs time and effort. One thing you must remember is that you cannot blog for people. You blog for yourself and because you enjoy it and that's when people will come. If not, you will end up deleting your blog or eventually lose interest in blogging.
Hey, who said its easy to write a 800-1000 word article consistently. Even I strive hard to make at least 1 every week and even that's not very easy. First you have to think what to write, the TITLE, the content, edit, check for grammar mistakes, make it look pretty by changing font, color of font, add pictures to capture people's attention then edit the picture if I captured it myself, then upload from my hand phone or camera to my laptop. Then a bit of editing here and there and finally click PUBLISH. See what I mean? You need interest and perseverance to do all that and maintain your blog. If you don't publish consistently, you may lose visitors and that happened a few times with me, especially during the time that I changed my blog link to littlemissmeen.blogspot.com which was much more convenient. Unfortunately it didn't work out when Google couldn't sync that new blog link with my older posts. It became more complicated when it started saying my blog no longer existed. I lost a lot and a lot of visitors at that time...
Finally I decided to create a backup blog with my current bloglink that directed people to my new blog link. However, all the previous posts were linked with littlemissmeencollections.blogspot.com so in both blogs it said "This post no longer exists." With no clue what to do next, i just changed it back and thankfully have been able to regain those visitors back or at least the ones who clicked my blog for a 2nd time after the false alarm that my blog no longer exists. During that time, even my Nuffnang Ads couldn't be synced with my new bloglink which was clearly telling me that the old one was calling me back.
Other than that, when you intend on getting a lot of visitors, you cannot just write a blog about yourself. Unless you are publicly known even before creating a blog, people have a lower tendency of reading the life stories of people they do not know. People who visit your blog need to know you because of something then they will read your personal stories. For example, this is the girl who .... this is the guy who.... When you they label you or know you because of something interesting then they will automatically want to read what you write. Work on publicity too. You can put it on social network or at any website you like so more people will know about your blog. Well, I just found out a few days ago that someone posted my blog site on a public forum. The title of my blog post was related to what they were discussing and then I saw the person share my link right there. How I knew? Well, let's just say I installed some security stuff. Try to right click my blog and tell me what you see? I'm not sure if its working properly though.
What else can you do? Write on what you like, what you know and what you constantly enjoy. This way you will always have something to write about and update. You won't need to rely on any source to get your blog content because everything is in your head. But I do Google as I write if I'm not sure of any spelling or if I'm not sure about something.
Last but not least, if blogging is a hobby, just enjoy yourself and let your fingers and your thoughts flow. Speaking from experience, interacting and 'speaking' to yourself then having the world read it is something I can't quite express. Its a great feeling. You never know which article you write will get that 1000 hit or that 4000 views. Its all a pleasant surprise and you'll be shocked at the simple posts you wrote that people actually took time to read.
To new bloggers, don't give up! I have just started 2 years 2 months on this blog and still learning. Drop me your blog link to my email or in the comment box below. I'd be more than glad to share your blog :)
Some people just write for fun. They make it as their diary. They might prefer typing rather than writing so that's why they don't write in their diary instead. But most people blog because they want people to read what they wrote. And once you publish some that can be viewed worldwide you need to be extra careful on what you say. Avoid political issue as much as possible if you're not a politician. Don't write where you're going tomorrow or next week or next month. Its okay to write about the past but not the future due to safety purposes.
Something I learned when I attended Blogopolis 2012 organised by Nuffnang was that people do NOT like music on blogs. Its like a person listening to music without earphones in public. What do you feel? I personally did not know this. Although I do not have music on my blog but I thought it was alright until I realised how may times I mute my laptop everytime I landed on a blog with music. They mentioned in the seminar that people visit your blog to read your thoughts and opinions and not to listen to music they don't like. People have different music taste and its pretty distracting too.
Bear in mind. Write original posts or ask permission first before taking something that somebody has put so much effort in writing and publishing. Its not easy to write in the first place and the fact that somebody just copied,paste and edited your own hard work to make it their own is not acceptable in the blogging world. People will find out especially regular visitors of the blog you took it from. If you really like something they posted, there's not harm politely asking to RE-BLOG. Problem solved :)
When people have blogs, most of us are writing with hope to meet people with the same interest, create a bigger blog circle, share our thoughts with people, connect with other bloggers. And something really unique about blogs is that you won't say most of the things you write on blogs to people. You won't write it in social network either because most of the things you blog about are pretty private and come straight from the heart. I'm sure you're wondering now - what do I mean? Why? How? Well blogs are rather silent and more peaceful to me. When you post something, you're not expecting a particular person to read it. You have no idea who's gonna read it and that's the fun of it. When writing on somewhere public, there's this slight pressure on what people will think when they see this or that, am I right? Then people might judge you publicly when they're forced to read what you wrote. But remember this, people who visited your blog, decided by themselves with freewill to click and read what you wrote. That's the difference. Imagine a blog like sitting in a house where you can't see the people peeking inside. You know they're there but you feel more comfortable because you can't see them directly. However, I really enjoy talking and responding to my visitors very much whether its via email, fb message, chatbox or even a comment. Its nice to hear people responding after you've written things with hope they help people. :)
So how do you get a rush of visitors? Or how to be a popular blogger? I'm still learning myself and perhaps not the best person to advise you but in my opinion, it never happens over night. It needs time and effort. One thing you must remember is that you cannot blog for people. You blog for yourself and because you enjoy it and that's when people will come. If not, you will end up deleting your blog or eventually lose interest in blogging.
Hey, who said its easy to write a 800-1000 word article consistently. Even I strive hard to make at least 1 every week and even that's not very easy. First you have to think what to write, the TITLE, the content, edit, check for grammar mistakes, make it look pretty by changing font, color of font, add pictures to capture people's attention then edit the picture if I captured it myself, then upload from my hand phone or camera to my laptop. Then a bit of editing here and there and finally click PUBLISH. See what I mean? You need interest and perseverance to do all that and maintain your blog. If you don't publish consistently, you may lose visitors and that happened a few times with me, especially during the time that I changed my blog link to littlemissmeen.blogspot.com which was much more convenient. Unfortunately it didn't work out when Google couldn't sync that new blog link with my older posts. It became more complicated when it started saying my blog no longer existed. I lost a lot and a lot of visitors at that time...
Finally I decided to create a backup blog with my current bloglink that directed people to my new blog link. However, all the previous posts were linked with littlemissmeencollections.blogspot.com so in both blogs it said "This post no longer exists." With no clue what to do next, i just changed it back and thankfully have been able to regain those visitors back or at least the ones who clicked my blog for a 2nd time after the false alarm that my blog no longer exists. During that time, even my Nuffnang Ads couldn't be synced with my new bloglink which was clearly telling me that the old one was calling me back.
Other than that, when you intend on getting a lot of visitors, you cannot just write a blog about yourself. Unless you are publicly known even before creating a blog, people have a lower tendency of reading the life stories of people they do not know. People who visit your blog need to know you because of something then they will read your personal stories. For example, this is the girl who .... this is the guy who.... When you they label you or know you because of something interesting then they will automatically want to read what you write. Work on publicity too. You can put it on social network or at any website you like so more people will know about your blog. Well, I just found out a few days ago that someone posted my blog site on a public forum. The title of my blog post was related to what they were discussing and then I saw the person share my link right there. How I knew? Well, let's just say I installed some security stuff. Try to right click my blog and tell me what you see? I'm not sure if its working properly though.
What else can you do? Write on what you like, what you know and what you constantly enjoy. This way you will always have something to write about and update. You won't need to rely on any source to get your blog content because everything is in your head. But I do Google as I write if I'm not sure of any spelling or if I'm not sure about something.
Last but not least, if blogging is a hobby, just enjoy yourself and let your fingers and your thoughts flow. Speaking from experience, interacting and 'speaking' to yourself then having the world read it is something I can't quite express. Its a great feeling. You never know which article you write will get that 1000 hit or that 4000 views. Its all a pleasant surprise and you'll be shocked at the simple posts you wrote that people actually took time to read.
To new bloggers, don't give up! I have just started 2 years 2 months on this blog and still learning. Drop me your blog link to my email or in the comment box below. I'd be more than glad to share your blog :)
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