A Life Reset

Some time back, I came across an article (no link available) about the habits of bloggers that could create problems for their blogging and being able to create a base of steady traffic. Seven in all, I decided to compare my own personal blog against what the author sees as detriments to a successful blog.

1. Using Free Blog Hosting Services
• His take: if you want to be considered to be a serious blogger, then avoid using the hosted services like Blogger and use a dedicated host for your blog and a off the shelf web application like Wordpress or TypePad.
• My site: my blog is hosted on a server under my domain name of www.brianleon.com and runs on WordPress. Score one for me!
2. Ignoring the Basic Principles of Good Web Site Design and Usability
• His take: a badly designed website turns off viewers. Focus on good color combinations, clean layout with ample white space and a clearly defined navigation and avoid flashy graphics and animation and background music.
• My site: with the redesign I put into the site this past winter, it has received very good reviews. The sectional format and the front page look manage to draw people in to the sections they want to see rather than scrolling through an unrelenting list. The magazine format is increasingly popular though I wonder though if I can keep up the pace of posing articles to keep it fresh.

  Score this as one for me again.

3. Being the Jack Of All Trades
• His take:“The better thing to do is focus one subject and be the master at it.” People are drawn to some blogs because the author has become an authority on some topic whether it be politics, popular culture, or cats and they post just on that topic with very few side tangents into other topics.
• My site: This is probably my most glaring sin as anyone reading this site can recognize that I discuss any topic under the sun whether it be the economy, hurricanes, photography or my family. Hence the many sections of the site. But this site is A Personal Journal, a place for me to express my thoughts, observations and opinions much like I would do if I was writing into a journal. It is just that I share these thoughts with the world rather than just myself. I do not posit myself as an authority on any topic so it is unlikely my blog will ever become a single topic focus blog. Which is not to say that in the future, I may roll another site or two using Wordpress as the main engine but with more specialised subject matter like photography or sports.
4. Not Posting Regularly
• His take: Try to post at once a day on a regular schedule and you will find that you will cultivate a loyal readership who will return to your site regularly. This ties in with the third point of being an authority in your field.
• My site: At one time in the past, during the week, I would publish daily and several times at that with fewer posts on the weekend. Once again referring to the third point, the varying topics of my posts means that it may be several days between posts of the same topic like photography but you will find posts on sports, Winston Salem and a new dining spot in the interim.

  With the new magazine format, my posts have to be fewer but more lengthy which means less output but then again I did then to write blog posts on very trivial items. Now, I have not done much substantial blogging lately as my parents are now here, but I intend to pick up the pace again.

  I score my self as a half of a sin.

5. Publishing Badly Written Posts
• His take:Write in properly structured paragraphs with minimal spelling and grammatical errors and be able to convey your thoughts clearly and effectively.
• My site: When an idea strikes along with a turn of phrase or sentence, I find myself rapidly typing as quickly as possible to get it on record before I get distracted and lose my train of thought. In the process of doing so, I can make quite a few errors. Spelling is fine as I use a spellchecker for my posts but sometimes when I re-read a post, I find that my thoughts were muddled and expressed poorly. For example, on a recent post about Costco, I re-read the post after reading a comment by my brother. I cringed at some of the paragraphs I wrote so I rewrote them and provided more clarification and detail. This is typical of some of the longer posts I do as I rewrite them for clarity sake especially if I see that a post is getting heavy traffic. Score this sin as half.
6. Spamming and Stealing
• His take:Do not spam other sites with bogus trackbacks and do not appropriate other people’s work as your own.
• My site:I do not spam at all. When I post an opinion about something I read on-line, I always try to blockquote relevant parts of the article and always provide a link back to the original source. I paraphrase extensively but always ensure that the reference always belong to the original author and is not my voice. Score one for me.
7. Failing to Establish a Personality
• His take:Establish yourself with a particular personality conveyed through your own original writing so that you stand out from all of the other 20 million people who have blogs out there. Establish an opinion or position and stick with it.
• My site: This is the hardest sin for me to quantify. Do I really stand out? When reading my posts, can it be readily discerned that it is I who is writing not someone else? The best measure of having a personality is the traffic you generate from people willing to visit your site and from my stats and inbound links, I have a small but noticeable amount of them. Let’s score this as a half for now.

So I score 4.5 on my ability to avoid the Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging. A decent score I guess. The best way to address them all is probably stake out an area of expertise and blog exclusively on that but that will probably not happen. I am the kind of guy who can go to a coffee shop with friends and talk about subjects far and wide all night long. It is an endearing trait of mine.