It never fails that as soon as we come up with a new idea it is followed shortly after by those inevitable top 10 lists of the right way to do things and the world of blogging is no different. Whether it be about the tools we use to get our thoughts and opinions to the web or how to pimp the search engines to get that almighty first page listing those top 10 lists proport to show us the way to blogging nirvana – the Technorati Top 100 (A-Listers).
We constantly tweak our pages with help gleaned from the writers of Top 10 lists thinking that they must know something the rest of us don’t. We scan our referrer logs to see where those inbound links are coming from hoping against hope that we’ve been dugged or at least been mentioned in the hallowed ground of the A-Lister’s RSS feeds. We dream of the day when we get one of those anon emails letting us be the one to first to spread some exciting; or sordid, tech news.
On the face of it this seems to be rather ridiculous but for those of us bloggers that aspire to the A-List this is just part of our daily job of writing good blog posts that hopefully will attract a growing readership. Then there are those that think that bloggers are nothing more than little wannabe journalists and don’t deserve credibility of any kind.
In many cases this might be true as the over abundance of “my day sucks worse than yours” and the “hax0rs rule and Micro$oft sucks” is plainly evident with any Google search easily shows; but even among that verbal chaff there are those blogs that have the stuff of good journalism right there for everyone to see.
So how does one do all the right things to get above that verbal chaff and make your blog worthy of some-one’s RSS client or browser favorites? One of the most common suggestions I have seen on these lists is find your niche. Well personally I think this suggestion sucks for being at the top of a top 10 lists. It might have been as good suggestion during the childhood of blogging but come on folks there are only so many niches available and I am pretty sure they are just about all spoken for by now. That doen’t mean it isn’t a good suggestion I just don’t think it carries the same weight it once might have.
Another of the usual top suggestions in these list is to write passionately about your chosen subject. Well DUH! … about the only ones that wouldn’t be writing passionately are those running shill blogs (splogs) where their words are paid for. The very idea of blogs is to write about things that matter to you and when something matters passion comes naturally – or at least it should.
There is one suggestion that invariably shows up in the Top 10 lists that I agree with whole heartly and that is – take responsibilty for what you post. This means that if you are proven to be wrong in what you have written be man/woman enough to say “Yup I screwed up and was wrong” and most importantly join in in the comment flow from that post. Don’t hide from it and most importantly don’t censor the comment flow – no matter how bad you may look at the time. Censoring; or turning off comments, will only make you look worse.
If there is a number one rule I think it would have to be the 5 second rule. There’s an old business axiom that first impressions are everything and those first impressions are generally made within the first five seconds of meeting some-one. Well blogs are no different – especially if you want to be taken seriously. Flowery borders and pink pastels do not a tech site make; nor does hax0r speak in white on a black background.
Anyone can write Micro$oft sux0rs – Linux rulz and have skull and crossbones fluttering in the cyber wind but would you take what they have to say seriously? Not likely and along with this; regardless of your native language, every effort should be made to elevate your writing skills so that spelling and gramatical errors don’t detract from what you are trying to say – or your credibilty to say it. I know with myself it is a hard thing to do but I am also the first one to leave a site when I see spelling errors that are so obvious it calls into question the author’s ability to impress upon me the reader that he knows what he is talking about.
The one other thing that I believe is one of the prime tenets of blogging; or at least should be, was raised in a post by Paul Stamatiou on his blog (PaulStamatiou.com). It was a lengthy post about bloggers taking time to research what they are writing before hitting the publish button. He starts out with:
One of my highest-ranked pet peeves about blogging regards bloggers who don’t take the time to do a bit of researching before posting an article. This is aimed at “A-list” bloggers more than anything. They are usually in such a hurry to beat the crowd and get something published that the accuracy and factuality of their information is left in the back seat.
I would further this by adding – don’t add your voice to the wilderness. I see this so many times where a story (or meme in blog speak) gets started by an A-Lister and then everyone starts posting the same story or variations of it. Now I realize this is great for link jiuce but jeez just how many times to we need to read the number Firefox 2.0 downloads in one day; or that a bunch of VC’s got enormous Ajax woodies over some silly assed site is hot because it’s so Web 2.0.
The flipside of this is just the fact ma’am .. just the facts type of posts we see. Don’t be afraid to express an opinion on what you are writing about. Afterall there are thousands of blogs out there many of whom are going to be writing the exact same thing you are but what they don’t have is your opinion. If people wanted dry throated reporting of the facts then the traditional media wouldn’t be headed down the proverbial toilet the way it is. Blogs are successfull because of the author, people keep you in their RSS feeds or visit your blogs because of your personality and because they care about the way you feel on subjects.
The last thing I would strongly suggest; well actually two, is get out from behind your blog and get involved in the comment flow of those bloggers who you respect. Many a times I have seen my visitor stats spike after I have gotten involved in a conversation and those visits can be traced back to those blogs I have left comments on. As for the second of the two … follow those links and expand your pool of reference blogs.
Blogging is a job that can take many hours of a day especially if you want the recognition of being a good blogger who can be trusted so make sure to do it right from the very beginning.
As I was going through my midmorning read of feeds I was struck by how little real technology news is continually available. hmm let me rephrase that a little bit. There is a lot technology news out there but it comes to us through a very small blogging channel and the rest of the blogosphere is nothing but commentary on that news.
For bloggers the pot at the end of the rainbow is placing in the A-List of Technorati listing; or at least the high B’s, because with that comes fame and fortune. For some this is quite a literal thing and for others – well… it’s some major bragging rights. I have come to the conclusion though that this Technorati ceiling is not the only one that the Z-Listers need to break through.
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