Ever had one of those days where the words just refuse to behave? Where it feels like every word you use is the wrong word? And you continuously rewrite the same sentences.
Worse Still! You finally finish the post believing it’s your best ever only to find no-one comments.
The unfortunate fact of blogging is writing good blog posts is more than just the words. Spend time observing probloggers and you’ll see they use various strategies to make each post count. If you want to use blogging for your personal learning you need to be effective at engaging and having conversations with readers.
So here’s my first 5 tips for better blog posts:
# 1 Use Short Paragraphs
I can’t count on all my fingers and toes the number of posts I’ve tried to read that are just one paragraph! One incredibly long paragraph. What The? And many of these were written by educators.
Posts with really long paragraphs are really hard to read making it less likely for your post to be read and/or your readers to miss the point of your post.
Very simple:
- Break your posts up with paragraphs
- The more paragraphs the better!
- Short paragraphs are better than long
- Make the first sentence of each paragraph make me want to read the rest of the paragraph!
Photo adapted from Flickr photo uploaded on December 14, 2006 by wiccked licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.
#2 Use Headings!
Use headings and where appropriate bullet points and number lists to break up the post into manageable bit size chunks.
WordPress, which Edublogs uses, provides Heading Styles. Use them! Which you use will depend on your theme.
Trial each heading style to select which visually looks the best:
- Write a test post
- Use each Heading Style
- Click on Save and Continue Editing
- Click Preview to see what each looks like in a post
Heading 3 works the best with my blog themes.
#3 Remember to Hyperlink
If you write about an article or another blogger’s post link to it! Why? Because your readers often want to check it out in more details.
When you link to someone else’s post it’s good practice to mention their name, link their name to their blog, and then link to the post you’re referring to (it’s also a good way of getting people to visit your site).
Photo from Flickr uploaded on February 13, 2006 by Rigmarole licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.
Here’s an example of hyperlinking (click on each to see why I used):
Larry Ferlazzo says Scribd is a great tool for English Language Learners (he’s voted it fourth best tool for 2007 for ELL). Why? Because he gets students upload their papers and illustrations, and Scribd immediately also converts it into audio so, in addition to seeing their story, they and others can hear it, too.
Check out this example Larry created for how Scribe can be used for Talking Stories (press the play on the Listen toolbar on the bottom right hand side below categories and tags).
Here’s how to add hyperlinks:
AVOID using underlining when writing posts because your readers expect all underlined text is hyperlinked.
#4 Always Comment Back To Readers On Your Own Posts!
If readers have made time to comment on your posts the very minimum you should do is respond back to your readers (ideally each reader) in the comments on your post. This is very important for building your blog’s community; it demonstrates that you value your readers and their input.
Commenting back also increases community interaction. Look at how Lee is interacting with her readers on “What Posts Stimulate Readers To Comment?” and while you are there make sure you leave your thoughts on what makes readers comment.
Photo from Flickr uploaded on March 26, 2008 by Morbit Photography licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.
PERSONAL RANT!
There are well known edubloggers who almost never respond or acknowledge their readers who take time to write comments or link to them. Sorry but I have to say this! Shame on you. Not good enough! Your readers are part of your personal learning community and you should be showing you value them.
Please don’t interpret my words to imply I’m saying all well known edubloggers are like this! There are ones that do and the ones that don’t comment back. You also get to see some incredible well known edubloggers who spend considerable time helping and mentoring others!
Photo adapted from Flickr uploaded on November 7, 2007 by Minds Move (Mountains) licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.
#5 Subscribe To Your Own Blog Feed!
Always, always, always subscribe to your own blog feed using your feed reader (e.g. Google Reader, Bloglines, NetVibes)!
Your blog has two main audiences:
- Those who read your post on your blog
- Those who read your post via a feed reader
Your blog posts have to look good, visually, for both audiences. Subscribing to your own blog feed means you’ll see your posts how they are seen by your subscribers. This allows you to troubleshoot issues with font sizes, image size/alignment and removal of content (e.g. embeds like SlideShare, Voicethreads and videos are often removed by feed readers).
You’ll never know about your blog feed issues unless you subscribe to your own blog (check out this example of what can happen when your blog feed goes astray and you don’t realise).
PERSONAL RANT! — Never ever, ever set your blog feed to partial feeds! With the number of posts I read do you honestly think I have time to click on READ MORE?
YOUR THOUGHTS
This post was in response to a request from Darren Draper and Robin Ellis to follow up on to provide blogging tips and etiquette for their Open PD session on using Edublogs.
It will be part of an ongoing series and since we each have a different definition of what makes a “good blog post” I would love you to share your thoughts.
So can you please tell us about:
- What are your 3 most important tips for writing better blog posts?
- What blog post recently has made you want to comment and what was it about this post that engaged you?
- Has a post recently inspired you to write your own post? What was it about the post that made you take action?
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Sue, I realised about ten or fifteen years ago that every educational concept ever conceived has been (or will be) covered by a “Simpsons” episode. “Family Guy” and “South Park” are definitely catching up, and all three shows have had their share of hilarious “Star Trek” parody episodes.
I’m sure your students have at least seen the impressive logic brought to the Springfield monorail episode by its guest character, Leonard Nimoy!
Ian,
I might have to confess here that I love watching Star Trek. I don’t watch a lot of TV except for the SciFi channel. The kids and I have certain shows that we watch during the week. Mr9 and I live Star Trek but both kids and I watch Star Gate (for some reason hubby isn’t into SciFi — thinking he has a problem).
Did make the unfortunate mistake of trying to explain to students that statistics is like being a Vulcan – that it’s all about logic. Only to discover most never watched an episode and their idea of good viewing is Simpsons and Family Guy (students are 17 years and older).
Kerrie,
Definitely agree. I checked out your personal blog and realised that we both have similar love of the same types of books.
How pleased I was to recognise each of these tips as something I think I do 🙂
Hi again Sue,
Thanks for the speedy response! Re my comment about eclectic blogs – I must admit that my personal blog, “Have Phaser, Will Travel” is quite random – although I do warn people that they may well encounter frequent posts about “Star Trek”, Andorians, “Number 96”, superheroes… and Jack Russell terriers. So a happy medium: the freedom to blog about anything and everything, but with a tendency to specialise.
My interstate nieces reckon they only skim the blog when I’m raving on about “Star Trek” again. They demand their daily chuckle, but obviously aren’t into science fiction, even when I make it funny!
Early this year, I started up a more professional learning blog, “Booked Inn: Heroic adventures in teacher-librarianship“, and my teaching anecdotes tend to turn up over there. Again, the humour is important, and breaks up more serious posts. I tend to be a glass-half full kind of guy, and a little comedy can help me see the positive aspects of even the worst professional problems.
Thanks Ken!
Definitely the follow up do help by creating a sense of commmunity 😎 . I went and read through quite a bit of Caleb Clark’s document. There are so many layers to online communities and encouraging participation. If you look at all different online tools for creating communities there are so many reasons why they will succeed or fail.
Mathgeek,
I haven’t tried your theme but have you tried a test post where you use the different headings styles like I did? And if so how did that go?
Greg,
Definitely a good tip. I used to worry about the need to post. But now with two blogs there is no time and so post when I do.
Jilo,
Good luck with your new blog.
Ian Mclean,
Humour is so important. There are some people whose blog I love reading because of their great sense of humour.Unfortunately I fail with your second tip because on my personal blog I tend to be quite random in what I post because I blog as part of my personal learning. That is such a lovely (and humourous) story about your nieces. I’m wondering if I stopped blogging if my readers would notice? I know I got contacted when I stopped podcasting. Oops “she’ll be right mate” I’m sure they get the Aussie slang eventually (I wrote “main drag” in one of my posts and an Aussie friend reminded me that I had used slang). So want to write a post about use of images in posts — it’s on that increbildly long list of to-dos.
Ken (again),
LOL you and Ian Mclean both make me laugh. Your sense of humour comes out when you write. Make sure you keep that when you write your blog posts (since you are a new blogger). I like your tip #6 I think I will definitely keep that one 😎
Gee Sue! You deserve another bar of chocolate!
I am commenter number 43 on this post and it’s been up for less than 10 days! That’s more than 4 comments per day even if you discount your own very informative comments!
Wow!
Anyone would think you’d put up a blog post on how to write better posts 🙂
Great tips, and (obviously) great responses. Your commenters say it all.
You ask for my tip? I’d say number six would be take a look at Sue Waters’ post on First Five Tips For Writing Better Blog Posts 😉
Ka kite
from Middle-earth
Great post Sue,
My five tips, to add to your five, or expand them, would include:
1. Use of humour – especially if I find myself telling a funny anecdote more than once. That usually tells me it’s worth repeating as a future blog entry. (It’s amazing how often I check back through old entries now, and find humorous stories I’ve almost forgotten writing. If they hadn’t ended up in the blog, they’d perhaps be gone forever.)
2. Know your topic(s). I think that sometimes bloggers try to be too ecclectic. Focusing on a few topics you know well helps the audience to anticipate your future blog entries in those areas. You become “the guru” on a topic.
3. Know your audience – but also remembering that your audience may well be bigger than you think. (If you miss blogging for an extended period, you are likely to hear from them! I had no idea my two young nieces regularly checked my blog – until I was on vacation, far from an Internet cafe, and they emailed me wondering where I’d vanished to.)
4. Keep in mind the international nature of the World Wide Web. Be prepared to be informative by embedding a few clues in your posts. Remind them where you are writing from. Some quirky, localized things will seem quite bizarre to those of your readers not familiar with certain terminology, places, customs, the local slang, etc.
5. A picture is worth a thousand words. A picture can help explain Most of my new visitors seem to come from people following a link to posts via my Flickr photos, which they found during a search of Google Images!
This is my first time knowing what is a blog? I loved, I know it that I will working on it.
Great set of tips, Sue. Here’s my one tip for writing better blog posts: Have something to say.
Don’t just write to write. Don’t just post because you’re worried that you aren’t posting frequently enough. In short, don’t waste the time of your audience.
Thanks for a great set of tips, but I do have one question. I am doing a blog, but I can’t change the heading size. Can you tell me why, here is the blog: The CPS Help Blog. Thank you for your help.
Thanks Sue!
Five very useful tips – with follow-ups that are obviously encouraging further contributions to this page 🙂
Your point about always commenting back is cracker! I do not have a blog (yet) but I’ve a passionate interest in online learning and what you’ve given here is so rich!
Caleb Clark says “communities grow best when there is value to being part of them”. Anything that encourages people to give more is so useful, especially if they don’t think what they have to offer has value. What they can give is at the very heart of a community’s value!
Ka kite
from Middle-earth
Anne Marie,
Thanks I hope my tips have helped. Regarding partial feeds if you use a feed reader like Google Reader and someone has their blog feed set to partial feeds you will only see a bit of their post e.g. 200 words. This means you have to click on the link to their blog to read.
Bud,
I just gone across and checked out your post. I can see that you have definitely taken on board the layout tips I gave. Well done. It’s annoying that blogger doesn’t include heading styles so using bold for your headings it the best solution. The other thing you have done which I didn’t have time to share was start with a short paragraph that grabs the readers attention. BTW excellent post about the importance of play.
You are right about “realize that I don’t have to write a treatise; just share thoughts and engage in conversation”. It’s really hard to get that balance of engaging the conversation by sharing the right amount of information.
Sue,
Thanks for the tips. Since I read these, I’ve written a post (url below) on the importance of play as a learning experience and tried to incorporate the idea of chunking information, adding an image, bolding text to provide an overview of thoughts, etc. I’ve basically tried to do the same things in earlier posts, but your list helps me realize that I don’t have to write a treatise; just share thoughts and engage in conversation.
All the best,
Bud
See http://exploratorylearner.blogspot.com/2008/05/play-first-learning-experience.html
Sue
Thanks for sharing- very informative and helpful, especially to me, a “Newbie” to the world of Blogging! Still don’t quite understand the whole feed issue- partial vs. full, but I will!!!
Thanks again.
Lee,
Thanks for the nice comments. You do an excellent job of interacting with your readers on your blog. Glad to have been of assistance. See I’m a horrible writer but have learnt some tricks for post layouts. When it comes to writing think of me on 1 wheel.
Definitely the conversations are important. Funny though – it’s a bit like twitter – really hard to work out what will engage and what doesn’t. Also just because people don’t respond doesn’t mean it hasn’t made a connection with them. Weird.
See how I’ve gotten bored with my other way of commenting back. Let me know which style of commenting back to a reader is a good method. Would love to hear your tips.
Kristin,
I’m going to have to study the run on Sentence more – I’m probably breaking all the rules. But you seem to get away with it more as a blogger — provided it’s readable.
Clay’s post has been incredibly popular and I’m glad you were inspired to write a response. The best part of the commenting can be the fact that people disagree and your own views are challenged; making you reflect on everyone’s viewpoints. Always happy to share.
Your Librarian (Ann),
Thanks the blog is helping you.
Simple is an excellent tip. It’s funny I had been visualising a post about commenting for weeks but Lee (Geeky Momma) did such an excellent job I decided it was better to link. You know I’m figuring it out all the time.
Pat,
Thanks. And it’s best that you don’t know maybe I should let my hubby explain 🙂
Sarah,
There is an overwhelming amount of information on Web 2.0 and many of us feel it becomes too much. My goal is to break it down into bite size chunks that you grab onto and eat as you go. Excellent work on the commenting back. Regardless of if the original commenter sees the comment it does matter to future readers. I’ve tried to add everyone back on twitter please let me know it I didn’t. Glad to have you with the comment challenge.
Free2b,
I wanted to write 10 but knew it was too many. Then as I was writing I really wanted to expand each out but that would have meant a tip per post. So I’ve gone for balance.
Sarah,
I remember the post but not sure it was boring. That is such excellent news about the International Congress of Midwives. You can’t tell. I would have thought my post on Being Fat would have worked — so you can’t tell.
Hey Dr Mike
I suppose the answer is you have to make a decision between posts being stolen and being read? I just can’t read partial feeds takes too long.
Totally agree about writing posts in advance. It works really well for some people.
Stephen,
All those tips I’ve written about I’ve broke them all myself. Check out my really early posts on my personal blog and you will see. If you have partial feeds generally I won’t tell you and I will unsubscribe. With 200+ subscriptions I can click to read more. I’m already reading enough. Good luck with your blogging and I’m glad the information has helped.
Sue,
This is some great information. As still a somewhat “new” blogger I am always looking for more ways to improve my blogging. It is easy to see why I found this article. I had not tried the different headings or subscribing to my own feeds. The feed I do have is a partial. Looks like I need to change that to a full article.
Greets:
I don’t like setting feeds to partial either but with all the blog scrappers out there and the ISPs that host them and don’t care, it’s too easy to see one’s writings being swiped and used to the profit of others. I can understand why folks are hesident to set their feeds in such a manner.
One suggestion that I’ve made a few times is to write posts a day or two a head of time before they get published. That way you can always go back and edit them if you have a second thought and check for typos and errors.
Hi Sue, I’m so excited! You know that long, boring midwifery post I was telling you about the other day…the one I didn’t think anyone would read but I had to write it for my own personal reasons and you replied about it?
Well, blow me down, it’s been picked up my midwifery’s top ruling body, the International Congress of Midwives. How cool is that! Just goes to show, you never know how your posts will be received.
Thanks to you, Sue, for the helpful information. (Five tips are just the right number) If you wrote ten tips, I probably would’ve scanned it.
I’m a “newbie” to Edublogs and blogging in general, and can’t wait for some great dialoges to begin.
Thanks so much for all of the great information. My mind is whirling with so much Web 2.0 information these days that I enjoyed your very practical tools and etiquette strategies. I went back to my blog and added comments, began to follow you on twitter and signed up for the comments challenge. Your modeling is just stellar!!
Hi Sue,
I really have to admire the tremendous effort that you put into the layout of your own posts. I don’t know how you find the time!
Hi Sue,
Thank you. I love your blog! I always learn from it for sure.
One, I try to keep it simple.
Two, this post and the connection to Geeky Momma.
Three, since my post is like a daily dose of Dear Abby for students about library-ish resources, I like to post pretty frequently to give them something new. I don’t like to post too often since I want to make sure they’ve had a chance to see the latest post. I want my blog to be a resource for them….Now how do I start measuring that? Hmmph. I’m figuring it out daily!
Thanks again.
Ann