Better Blogging

Some people are obsessed with the popularity of their blog, trying to acquire ever higher rankings and vanity metrics. As a result a lot gets written on how to make a blog more popular. I don’t think popularity should be the reason you do anything, especially writing. However if you do want to improve your writing, specifically your blog postings I’ve given the matter some thought and am happy to pass on my advice.

The two most important qualities to strive for are:

Timelessness and Timeliness

A posting has timelessness if once published it will remain relevant for an extremely long time, ideally forever. If you can achieve this with a blog post it will rank well in search engines for a variety of keywords and continue to be read for as long as it remains online. Yoast would call these timeless posts cornerstone content others might call them “evergreen”.

A posting has timeliness if once published it becomes the first or amongst the very earliest writings online to discuss a particular issue, event, or subject. This is the proverbial scoop from traditional journalism. If you can achieve this with a blog posting you will get a sudden increase in traffic and possibly gain incoming links and new readers. This is more commonly known as going viral.

A third quality to strive for and one which will take more than a single posting is being authoritative. To achieve this it really helps if your blog is focused on a single topic or a very small range of topics unlike this one. In an effort to maintain focus you can have multiple blogs, use subdomains, or rely on tags and your blog software to bring order to your writing. If you can become an established authority on a subject as determined by Google you will continue to attract readers and incoming links through dominance of the search engine rankings.

Improving Your Blogging

If you really want to improve your blogging, particularly how it performs in the various search engines you should also pay attention to the following:

• title – a well chosen title which includes relevant keywords but also entices potential readers to click on it is the most important words in every blog posting.
• quality control – proofread, spell check, verify links, make corrections, update the information through comments or follow up postings.
• link – no webpage is an island, link to other sites of authority and potential interest to your readers, it may attract reciprocal links and will likely improve your search engine rankings.
• participate – it is called the blogosphere and the world wide web for a reason, respond to comments and actively comment on other blogs.
• scan-ability – is the ability for a reader to quickly scan your posting looking for the exact information they want. This is extremely important online and is achieved by using bold text, italics, subtitles, bullet points and other aspects of typography.

If you are interested in further tips on improving your blog and your writing in general there is a lot of advice online though it can be a bit repetitive. I’ve provided links to a few more articles below but the best way to get better at anything is practice. However, if you want to become a better writer, it helps if you become a better reader, this involves taking the time and effort to read more challenging authors and a wide range of subject matter and writing styles.

Expert Blogging Advice

• 31 Days to a Better Blog
• 10 tips on Building a Better Blog
• The Art of Blog
• 26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts

Blogging Longevity

Instafame is what many crave but if you want to become an authoritative trustworthy expert in your niche, if you want to create timeless forever fresh content that day after day, month after month, year after year gets read, stolen, and shared you need to give some thought to how you organize your empire online. You need to focus, choose your niche, choose your keywords, choose your technologies, and develop your voice and brand. You have to be able to sustain your effort for an extended period of time.

What Gets Measured, Gets Done

I recommend you have a plan, a goal, maybe even a philosophy on why you blog, what are you trying to accomplish? Is it just clicks, likes, and seeing your name in Google? What are your passions? You need to keep going, keep doing unglamorous behind the scenes tweaking and patching while you wait to be featured on Conan or Colbert. Be wary of just focussing on vanity metrics and chasing low quality clicks.

In 2019, You need a CMS

What is a CMS? In this case it is a content management system and if you’ve read down this far you may wonder what am I using to do my better blogging? The answer is WordPress. I’ve used WordPress since 2005 and I’ve been self publishing online since 1995. I still code HTML, CSS, even PHP, but the average blogger does not. If you are serious about blogging you should also get a domain, most people will be served fine by WordPress.com’s free hosting, but I have always paid to host Muschamp.ca.

Why WordPress?

There were competitors back in 2005, but apparently I backed the right horse as WordPress has grown to be the most popular publishing platform online. WordPress or whatever content management system you choose can take care of issues both big and small letting you focus on creating and sharing rather than coding and debugging, at least most of the time.

What matters most about WordPress?

Recently I gave some fresh thought to building a WordPress theme and in 2019 I think the three most important factors for a WordPress theme and by extrapolation most any website are:

1. Discoverability
2. Share-ability
3. Speed (especially on mobile)

Discoverability

How do people find your website and thus your content? Most likely they discover it in Google or some other search engine, especially if they are complete strangers. This is why SEO, which stands for search engine optimization matters and is an obsession for some. There are dark arts. There are shady characters. There are Russian hackers. What worked in 1995 might not work in 2005 let alone in 2025. If you have a content management system such as WordPress some of your SEO problems are solved.

Share-ability

Once a new reader finds your website and content, if it sparks joy they may want to share it with others. In 2019, there has been a backlash against social media so even if you choose not to embrace Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest you need to make sure your content shares well on these and other social networks. WordPress especially certain plugins can help get your structured metadata, sitemaps, and analytics in order.

Speed Kills (Your Traffic)

If your blog loads slowly, especially on mobile, most users will not wait for your dancing baby logo in 2019. Google and other search engines are supposedly rewarding websites that load quickly. This is one of the reasons I removed unnecessary plugins and JavaScript including all the little social sharing buttons that have become so common. Social media is now integrated into browsers and operating systems so I think it is more important to ensure your blog loads quickly. If people like your content they will find a way to share it.

How much money will I make?

I’ve got some bad news, for every blogger who gets a book deal, there are thousands and thousands who abandon their blogs without much ROI. I have not abandoned my blog, but I have not gotten near enough return on my investment, none-the-less I persist. I’m not sure if blogging has been good for my personal brand, it definitely has not lead to a better career.

In Conclusion

I recommend you take care. It is not publish or perish. What is done, can not always be undone. Remember you are always writing for your future boss. You are your Google results. In 2019, people continue to learn the dangers of social media. So you should try to monitor your online reputation, celebrate your successes and learn from your mistakes. No blog is an island so be sure to link to this post or at least leave a comment below.

This entry was originaly posted on August 3rd, 2006, it was last edited on November 2nd, 2024 and is filed under: Advice and tagged: Blogging, Timelessness, Timeliness.