The ABC’s of Blogging

Tris Hussey lead a session at Northern Voice called “The ABCs of Blogging”. He is the author of Create Your Own Blog: 6 Easy Blogging Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro and Using WordPress. Here are some of the highlights of his session:

-          People get tied up with technology when they get into blogging. Remember: it’s writing.

-          A good blog post is about the story: whether this is a personal or for business, it doesn’t matter.

-          Sometimes voice is the issue; you may be using a personal or academic voice in your writing when a different voice is more appropriate for your readership.

-          Blogging, and practising blogging, is one of the best ways to finding your voice.

-          Privacy is always an issue. Remember that your blog is public and while you have made the choice to present information publically, the people around you have not made that same choice.

-          “Your blog is your living room”. It is fair to delete negative comments if that is not the type of content you want on your blog.

-          How long should your posts be? Write until you are done. This could be 2 sentences or 800,00 words. As long as you are telling a good story, people will keep reading. But if you are posting long posts, use subheadings for easy reading. Reading on a monitor is 30% slower and results in 50% less comprehension than reading on paper.

-          Short posts do not necessitate using Twitter. If your content is useful, then publish it using whatever medium you feel is appropriate for the audience you are trying to reach.

-          A good posting frequency is 3 – 5 times a week. It is rare to find anyone who is posting too much. There is a direct correlation between post frequency and blog traffic.

-          Is it not a problem to publish first and then edit later. Your post doesn’t need to be static once it is on the web, particularly if you are improving it.

-          Multiple blogs are not recommended for segmenting content unless you are going to update all of them. Use tags and categories to segment your content.

-          Do not duplicate content between blogs! This is an SEO faux pas.

-          “Blogs are like crack to search engines”. (My favorite quote of the whole session).

Technology Platforms

-          If you are tech agnostic, try Posterous or Tumblr. Posterous is like a hub to spokes model whereas Tumblr is the reverse and can both pull in and push out content.

-          WordPress is always recommended. For business, start with WordPress.org and host the service yourself. This gives you more control over the platform and gives you more potential to grow.

-          WordPress does not own your content – this is in the user license agreement.

-          There will be a new WordPress 3 platform launched shortly – possibly next week.

-          Woopra is a great WordPress plugin for stats.

-          You cannot have Adsense or Affiliate ads on WordPress.com – unless they are Amazon ads for your own books. Hosting yourself allows you to get away from this restriction.

-          Personal bloggers may want to start with WordPress.com, the hosted service. Less control, but easier for those who are not tech savvy.

-          Moving your blog is worse than moving your house. Files can end up in mysterious corners that are difficult to find.

-          There is nothing technically wrong with using Blogger, but it is not one of the products Google is focusing on. They have not been keeping up with the latest changes to blogging platforms.

-          Getting a domain host is like living in a condo – you mostly own it.

-          Using a hosted service is like living in a dorm – the basic elements are standardized and the same in each room (for each site).

-          GoDaddy is a poor hosting choice due to the poor interface.

You can find out more about Tris and his work on his website at http://trishussey.com/.