1. Headlines Matter Most
If your goal is to get people to click on something, you need a killer headline. It has to be interesting, short, and hopefully provocative without being bullshit linkbait. The headline (and blog post) I’m most proud of is “He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died.” That headline poses multiple questions — Why did he take a photo every day? How did he die? Who is he? — but it also gives you a big “spoiler” by revealing that whoever this post is about died at the end of his project. I would argue that the spoiler is the biggest hook of the whole thing. It’s also short enough to be forwarded via Twitter with room for added commentary.
2. You Don’t Have to Write That Much
It’s better to write one sentence than a huge article.
If I were Strunk and/or White, I’d stop there, but it’s worth repeating for new writers and bloggers: avoid the instinct to catalog and obsessively cover the subject. Get in there, write the most interesting part as quickly as possible (you want the subject clearly explained in the first sentence), and if you really want to write more, put it below the fold (after the jump, so to speak) or just point people to further reading.
I’m also constantly surprised by what strikes a chord with readers. Often the most slapdash efforts cranked out in mere minutes get the biggest responses. Examples: “Gotta Read ‘Em All which” was written in less than ten minutes on a Thursday morning before I started work (and received 224 comments); “What Books Can’t You Put Down?” which was written in five minutes at most (and received 157 comments).
Having this happen over and over (and having posts involving hours of labor get no response), I’ve finally realized what’s going on here — if the subject is immediately understandable from the headline (see above), if the subject itself is interesting, and the post is short enough to be approachable, people will read it. It’s not rocket science, but it took me a long time to figure that out.
People who comment on my blog posts are usually pretty nice, just saying some variant of “oh, cool” or “check out this related thing.” That’s great and sweet and validating. On the other hand, there’s an unstoppable army of jerks out there ready to jump on you. Grumpy people love writing blog comments. Pissed-off people are a lot more motivated to leave a comment than people who are simply enjoying your stuff.
4. The Jerks Come Back
You’d be shocked how many commenters (particularly trolls) bookmark a post and come back later in the day to continue the fight. Disengage. Post comments on your own posts only to clarify something missed in the post but raised by another commenter (if you dare), point to other sources, and/or acknowledge making corrections to the main post in response to a comment.
6. The Past: There’s Always More of It
Credit to John Hodgman for the headline here.
When I started blogging, I sat down and wrote a long list of interesting trivia: topics I knew something about, interesting historical tidbits, lots of computer nerd stuff. Literally a big long bulleted list, in a file on my desktop. I then proceeded to write a blog post for every single one of those items. When I ran out, I panicked. What would happen? How would I keep coming up with a new thing every day forever? I had run out of interesting stuff!
When it’s your job to find and highlight one interesting thing every day, you quickly become a specialist at spotting interesting things. If you have any human interaction, and you keep your eyes and ears open, you will constantly encounter topics. You just need to notice them, then write about them. Go to the post office and listen to people talking in the line, look around the room, look at what’s for sale — something about that experience is almost certainly bloggable. (Forever Stamps, anyone?) So my job as a blog writer changed when I ran out of ideas in my back catalog — I became a finder of interesting things, and worked to become good at briefly describing those things. The finding skill can be harder; you need to develop a clear sense not just of what’s interesting to you, but what’s interesting to your audience, and also what can be briefly described.
7. Credit Where Credit is Due
Always, always cite your sources. If you found a topic via a blog, link to that blog (the specific post, if possible; in fact, this post had a previous incarnation on my website) at the end of your post. If you’re quoting something, say so and use the HTML blockquote tag. Don’t steal photos — Flickr has a great Advanced Search feature which allows you to find Creative Commons licensed photos (including those licensed for commercial use!).
Also, be sure you’re conversant with the FTC’s Guidelines for Bloggers. In short, don’t be a shill.
If you aspire to write for print but are starting in the online world, you’re going to need to learn how to deal with citations and footnotes. Better to figure that out while you’re blogging than when you’re on a deadline for a print assignment. (I’m not suggesting that you need footnotes in your blog posts, but you definitely should keep a list of sources and, wherever possible, include them in your post.) Also, as much as I love Wikipedia (and link to it all the time), beware of basing a story on something you find there — there’s plenty of bogus info floating around, and you’ll look like a sucker for buying it. Run everything through a Snopes filter or at least a Google filter with the word “hoax” attached.
(Should you start your novel with a prologue?)
8. Don’t Blog Something That’s Already Been Blogged
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of a great idea, only to find that it has already been covered by other bloggers on my own site. Now, I do read the site, but the volume of posts is insane — and my memory is short enough that I don’t remember what people were posting about three years ago. Use the site search. If you don’t, people will yell for reposting stuff. Also, get familiar with the Google site: syntax (example: site:www.mentalfloss.com “chris higgins” will turn up posts including my name from that site).
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