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November 21, 2004

Blogging 101 - Value Added

By Matt Wood in Blogging 101

Every blogger deals with the malaise that sets in after a few months of posting. We wonder where the fire went, and we struggle to find the motivation to update our sites. We read the past few posts and discover that we apologize for the lack of updates more often than we actually post something new. And when we do hold forth, we ask ourselves, just what is so different about my site that will make people want to read it?

Unfortunately, of the millions of sites published today, very few bloggers take the time to differentiate their site from the rest. In this installment of Blogging 101, I will show you some strategies for getting beyond that default Typepad template and adding some value to your blog.

Technical Tricks
 The easiest way to make a blog stand out is to flex your geek muscles (or convince a ringer to help you). Most popular blogging tools like Movable Type, WordPress, or Blogger offer ways to tweak or extend their capabilities. Thriving user communities have taken advantage of these tools’ extensibility and open APIs to develop plug-ins and functionality not included in the standard tool. For example, the Movable Type Plugin Directory (http://mt-plugins.org) catalogs hundreds of code modules that trick out a vanilla MT install by incorporating photo galleries, managing comments, performing special formatting, or even displaying local weather. Most of these plugins come with detailed installation instructions, so you don’t have to be an accomplished hacker to take advantage of them.

Unfortunately, technical options for bloggers who use hosted services like Typepad or Blogspot are limited to the functionality of the tool. These services work well to introduce you to the basic concept of blogging and website management. However, to make the most of your website, you should host it at your own internet service provider. Many providers cater specifically to bloggers, and some will even install and configure blogging software for you. A quick search of the web will turn up dozens of reliable hosting companies.

If you host your own site, you can take advantage of server-side scripting languages like PHP, Active Server Pages, or Perl to build a more dynamic site. With just a little programming knowledge, you can write your own code to manipulate blog content and templates. WordPress is especially amenable to this, as it is written entirely in PHP. Bloggers with hosted sites can also design their pages using Cascading Style Sheets to control content appearance and formatting. A combination of CSS and a scripting language can turn a basic blog into a polished, professional website.

Planning Your Content
If you don’t have the time or technical ability to overhaul your site’s code, you can still make a significant impact by planning and organizing your content. Bloggers, like all writers, should write with a purpose. This is especially true of bloggers whose sites focus on a specific topic or business goal.

A great way to build consistent readership and motivate yourself to keep writing is to develop recurring themes or ongoing projects on your blog. This can be as simple as posting a top five list every Friday, or as involved as producing a running series of columns like Blogging 101. The point is to develop a rhythm, a regular schedule that will keep readers coming back and give you motivation to keep writing. Set deadlines for yourself. Treat these projects as priorities, just as important as your work or school assignments. Last year, Eric and I started a project called 31 Flavors of Blog where we highlighted a different type of blog every day for a month. Researching blogs, finding interesting or unique takes on the format, and writing the summaries was hard work, but it paid off. Word of the project spread quickly, and reader feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Interaction with readers is the most rewarding part of blogging. Every blogger loves to read comments and respond to emails, so why not make this interaction a key feature of your site? Write a public response to a salient email, or highlight the most interesting or thoughtful comments. Maintain a static list of the most active discussions on your site. You can find many plugins or extensions at the sites mentioned earlier to help you do this automatically. Participating in the discussions that evolve at your site and responding to reader inquiries will lend your site added credibility and help you develop a distinct voice as the creator of the site.

A strong authorial presence is a valuable way to improve your blog, but you can also feature other voices too. Invite other bloggers to post on your site. Ask subject matter experts or guest authors to contribute in-depth articles. These added perspectives will provide more valuable information to your readers. And don’t be afraid to feature dissenting views. Controversy is exciting, and the ensuing debate will be both informative and entertaining for your readers.

Added Touches
Pay attention to details and add finishing touches to round out your content. Include relevant images whenever possible. Sites like Flickr (http://flickr.com/) or TextAmerica (http://www.textamerica.com) provide services to help you organize photos and post images to your blog wirelessly from a camera phone. Post links to related subject matter to encourage your readers to research the topic further. Take adavantage of marketing programs to highlight media or other products you mention on your site. The Amazon Associates program (http://www.amazon.com/associates/) lets you post direct links to any of their merchandise and pays you royalties for purchases made from your site. Google’s AdSense (https://www.google.com/adsense/) helps you incorporate targeted advertising by rendering ads based on the content on your site.

The initial thrill of blogging wears off a month or two after you start. Varying your content with technical tricks, regular features, user interaction, and targeted visual media will help you maintain the passion and creativity that sets good sites apart.

Learning More
The internet is littered with sites where you can learn more about the technical tricks and content strategies mentioned in this article. Here are some of the most useful:

- By Matt Wood

Blogging 101 publishes every Sunday and provides blogging tips, advice and tutorials for blog newbies and veterans alike.

Comments (2) TrackBack (2)

Comments  

Dude, you inspired me, I'm dumping stupid blogger and moving on to some thing better.

Posted by: Imran Aziz | November 22, 2004 9:04 PM

We've also got a community just for developers, consultants and professionals who work with Movable Type and TypePad, the Six Apart Professional Network. It's at http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/

Posted by: Anil | November 24, 2004 1:55 PM





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