5 things I’ve learned about blogging so far
I’ve been getting a couple blogging questions lately, and since I’m feeling a touch under the weather (and I lost my voice thanks to laryngitis), I thought I’d tackle some of those questions today!
Posting schedules matter, but not really
I’ve read lots of articles about blogging over the last few years, and some suggest an optimum amount of blog posts you should have per week. I hear and respect that, but I don’t think there’s an optimum number. I honestly think it depends on what you can reasonably do in the time you allot for blogging. What works for you may not work for me, and vice versa.
There are blogs I follow that post every day, multiple times a day, every week day, once a week, once a month, and whenever. The frequency of the posts don’t sway me as a reader as much as the content does. And I just realized today that at least half of the blogs I follow have a more flexible schedule. Half of the blogs in my reader don’t post but maybe once or twice a week… and that doesn’t stop anyone from subscribing to their feeds.
And as a reader, I don’t care so much. For those blogs that post whenever, I definitely subscribe to their RSS feeds because I don’t want to miss a post. And for those that post once a day, I definitely subscribe to their RSS feeds because I don’t want to miss a post.
So for me, it’s less about a set schedule everyone should follow, and more about finding a posting schedule that works for you. If you can only post once or twice a week, so be it. And as long as I like the content you do put out whenever you put it out, I’m happily following along.
Make your blog pretty – or, at the very least, legible
That’s probably going to come off as shallow, but I stand by it – make your blog pretty. Make it inviting and warm. Make it a place that you want people to visually enjoy when they stop by. There are options for templates and themes for every blog host out there, so take a weekend and make everything look nice and well-cared for.
But even more important than the look of a blog is how legible the content on it is. Lots of blogs now come with the option to change the font. As someone who loves fonts, I dig that as a blogger. As a reader, though, some font choices aren’t as legible as others; some are quite microscopic. And no matter how pretty a blog is, if I can’t read it, I’m moving on.
Truly. Because if people can’t read your blog, not much else matters.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it, especially if it’s your most favorite font ever. But keep in mind that some of those fancier fonts aren’t readable at 12pt or smaller, and readability will vary from font to font, so you may have to experiment. Font A may need to be at 14pt, Font B at 12pt, and Font C at 16pt before they are readable, for example.
So, here’s a good rule of thumb: the fancier, the thinner, or the more delicate the font, the bigger in size it should be. And skip the grungy fonts for your content all together – those generally need to be super big in order to be read easily.
Include a search box and an archive list
Here’s why it’s a good idea – it lets people browse through all of your previous content easily, not just what’s on the first few pages. And since you spent time crafting those past posts, don’t you want people to be able to read them again?
Most visitors, myself included, hardly ever make it past page 3 on a blog. I know this from what my stats here tell me. I know this from my own personal reading habits. Unless I’ve got tons of time to browse, I hardly ever make it past the front page. Which means that I’m missing out on whatever good content came before unless I know it’s there or go searching for it.
What if I want to read that one post you wrote that one time? Having the ability to search for it on your blog will make me a happy reader, especially if I remember the title or keywords. And if the only thing I remember is that you wrote right before Thanksgiving last year, I can target November’s posts and work back from there.
Want to go an extra mile? Add a related posts widget or plugin to your blog. I’ve used LinkWithin before and now use nRelate – both will bring up related content based off of title, keywords, and categories, and is an excellent way to give older posts new exposure.
Use your own images or learn the proper way to give credit
There’s always a discussion going on somewhere about crediting images. It’s one of those things that comes up every so often, and while I’m not going to talk about it very much here today, my opinion is this: if you’re going to blog and you want to feature other people’s work, you need to learn how to credit properly. No exceptions.
This means tracking down original sources, and if you can’t find an original source, don’t post it. This can mean walking away from a beautiful photo because you can’t find out who took it; yeah, it sucks, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.
Sites like Pinterest and We Heart It are full of credit-less sources and it drives me nuts. There have been so many gorgeous images that I’ll never be able to share because I have no idea where they came from. This is exactly why I watermark or put my URL somewhere on pretty much every photo/image/graphic I make and post, because I can’t control which URL people will pin my photos from.
So, if you need a quick brush-up, check out these posts: Let’s Talk About Photo Crediting on Design For Mankind, Online Etiquette and Ethics (Part 1) on Design*Sponge, and Crediting Photos on {frolic!}
Having a blog is like being an art gallery owner…
You get to curate your content.
One of my favorite things about being an art major in college was the day we’d have our class exhibition. I loved being involved with the setting up portion, and my painting professor would let me “organize” the show because I loved decided what should go where. What can I say? Art shows gave me a nice buzz.
Blogging is the same way; it’s just another medium where I get to decide a theme, a purpose, an idea, then tailor posts and photos to match (or vice versa). And I think curating your content is a good thing, whether it’s editing your own posts, cutting out what doesn’t work, or saying no when something doesn’t feel right. Because if your blog is an art show, what are you going to put in it? Everything you can think of, or specifically chosen posts that follow a theme?
What about you? What are some things you’ve learned since starting to blog?
