Comments on: Writing Style to Keep in Mind for Blog Posts — Be Clearer Than Usual, State Main Point Up Front

By: Writing All lowercase Versus CAPITAL Letters. « New Thoughts About Economics

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:10:20 +0000

[...] Writing Style to Keep in Mind for Blog Posts. [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:09:20 +0000

I find that people really don’t read posts that extend beyond 1,000 words. I believe most people read during breaks at work, so they can’t sit there all day lugging through a novel. They have only a quick 2 min. peek online and then must return to work.

By: mindtube

mindtube — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:49:06 +0000

Great post , you can also use a series of short articles to develop a topic within a permanent category to improve SEO and stickiness.

By: Blogging about blogging « Word Wrangling

Blogging about blogging « Word Wrangling — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:33:10 +0000

[...] In the meantime, here’s some homework… Blogging Beginner Mistakes and counterpoints Writing Style for Blogging Blogging Techniques Usability [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 02:48:36 +0000

Scott, I agree with you about how frustrating it is when writers refer to other contexts (e.g., articles, other posts, books), assuming the reader knows all about them.

I was just checking my Google Analytics reports and see that 70% of my blog readers are first-timers. If that’s true, that changes a few things.

For example, if I refer to a previous blog post, I shouldn’t assume people have read it. I usually link back to it and summarize what I may have written about previously.

I sometimes have in mind the idea that I have a loyal following of careful readers. That’s probably untrue. I maybe have a small loyal following, but the majority stumble across me through searches, links, trackbacks, RSS feeds, etc.

Seventy percent being first-time readers also means you could probably just start recycling old posts to the front of the line once in a while. For fun, I’m wondering how many would catch that it’s old.

By: Scot Herrick

Scot Herrick — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:39:52 +0000

This recommendation is very good — and hard to implement!

One of the things I constantly see in the first paragraph is context about something else the reader is assumed to already know rather than the point of the article.

Something like “In response to blah-blah’s article on blogs, I’d offer my own suggestions. Suggestions that would extend the article a lot….(more)…”

Like I know what the original article was all about!

Yes, another good example of the 80/20 rule — as you note, only about 20% of the time does the point of the article show up in the first paragraph.

Now to hurry over and check my own blog…yikes!