11/26/08 Blogging
Newks nook: Below is an article written by Nick Douglas. The first paragraph is a definition I added. If you're considering writing a Blog, this is the article for you.
A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs.Get Your Start
The first question (and this is important) is, what are you going to blog about? If your blog is going to focus on "everything I like," then fantastic; stop reading and go do it. I have a blog like that and it's a satisfying little hobby. But the blogs that get the most attention focus on one topic, big or small. Valleywag, which I edited in 2006 for Gawker Media, is aboutSilicon Valleyand tech-industry gossip. That covers plenty of subjects, but by defining its boundaries Valleywag defines an instant audience.Whatever topic you first think of, it's been done, but don't worry. Valleywag certainly wasn't the first blog about the tech industry. When it started, TechCrunc and Mashable were already blogging about tech start-ups, so it was up to Valleywag to add a new angle and find stories that were being ignored by existing blogs.
Here are some tips for discovering that perfect blog topic.
Get specific.
Instead of writing a blog about literature, try a blog that zeroes in on magical realism or legal thrillers, topics you could conceivably own. Matt Haughey's PVRblog broke into the overcrowded world of tech blogs by focusing on TiVos and other DVRs. (I'm sure you're very informed and have a fresh voice, but the world simply doesn't need yet another general gadget blog.)
Pick something that interests you.
If you're in this for the money and you pick a topic you don't care about, you'll lose hope when you discover your competitors. If you pick a topic you truly love, every time you find a fellow blogger you'll be delighted to have someone to talk to about your shared interest.
Revel in weird topics.Look at these guys who love beards, or the cheese hounds at CurdNerds. These blogs are so much more fun to read than some guy reporting cell-phone news.
Don't be afraid to get conceptual.Recently popular blogs include Postcards From Yo Momma, Stuff White People Like, and of course I Can Has Cheezburger, all of which rely on good comedic writing and all of which earned book deals earlier this year. Each can be summed up in a sentence but can't be reduced to a consumer demographic.
Choose a PlatformNew bloggers tend to obsess over the same mechanical questions: What platform should I use?; should I get a professional design?; should I buy my own domain name? Honestly, don't worry about this step until you're already getting a few readers and having fun writing. Stuff White People Like started as a typical WordPress blog with no special formatting.
I generally recommend WordPress for blogs with entries over 200 words each and a href="http://www.tumblr.com/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 59, 176);">Tumblrfor blogs with shorter entries. Both have a built-in community that will attract readers, and there are plenty of good-looking custom designs to choose from. Both also allow you to set up your own domain name. (I recommend buying atGoDaddy.comusing adiscount code.)
Write Like a ProFor example, whenVanity Fair published its annual "new establishment" rankings for 2008, Gawker listed the 50 biggest losers. Editor Nick Denton simply counted up those who had fallen the furthest down onVanity Fair's list since 2007. He made his own story. Now bloggers would link not only toVanity Fair but to Gawker.
The most obvious way to own a story is through compelling analysis. This is Slate's bread and butter. The online magazine is known for countering conventional wisdom and playing devil's advocate. Of course, it helps to have experts weighing in; for instance, a story that tells people to lie back and enjoy the bank bailoutis more credible when the author is an economist. But if you've picked a topic you truly care about, you'll be steeped in research and able to educate your readers, and when a specious study or press release comes out, you'll have the insider's take on it. (Never write a story that boils down to "here's something you didn't know about and here's why you shouldn't know about it." Pick something they already, or should, care about.)
Lists and stunts are two other ways to make your own story. Pick up a typical magazine and you'll see that every other story is a list or a stunt. The comedy site Cracked.com is all lists.Esquire writer A.J. Jacobs built his career on stunts like reading the entire encyclopedia and spending a year following every rule in the Bible.
Stunts and lists are fine for one-shot traffic boosts. If you're looking to build regular, long-term readers, try a good long-term narrative. At Valleywag, I spent a year calling Google VP Marissa Mayer a robot. Because she was prone to making ludicrous-sounding statements about her life in interviews (she claims she sleeps 5 hours a night and holds 70 meetings a week), I could always find new evidence that Marissa was aBattlestar Galactica-style Cylon. This is story-telling: pulling out the plots (real or imagined) of real-life characters until your readers actually care about the fate of some executive in Silicon Valley. For more on how to turn a blog into an epic story, read blogger Merlin Mann's thoughts onThe Wire.
Give yourself a year to learn how to blog. You will be wrong a lot, and with any luck people will yell at you every time. The stinging feeling when this happens is called "learning." After nine months of writing 12 posts per day, I got a good start. And if you can blog at least 20 times a week for half a year without giving up, you'll eventually uncover a good story, and you'll attract tipsters. At that point you'll truly have your own stories—like Consumerist, a clearinghouse for shoppers who've been wronged. And then you'll need to promote your work.
Promote Yourself & Get Paid
To be honest, I've learned only one method of search-engine optimization, or SEO: good writing. Getting garbage into the top Google results is difficult and boring. But if your writing and blogging makes you proud, there are several legitimate and effective ways to promote it.
Don't beg blogs to link to you on their blogrolls; don't use other people's comment threads to promote your blog; and don't exchange links for money. Therein lies madness.
Instead, keep it friendly (and human). First, tell your blogging friends—all of them. Then tell the editors of the blogs you most often link to. If you just posted a list of the ten cheapest ways for asmall businessto cut its carbon footprint, send a link to TreeHugger. If you got your barista to sing the Starbucks anthem to you, write to Starbucks Gossip. One way to find top blogs is Technorati, which lists the Internet's most linked-to blogs as well as blogs in dozens of categories. Just remember that a link from a small but respectable blog in your subject area will likely get you more loyal readers than a link from a big blog like Boing Boing.
Still, Boing Boing is a great place to send a one-time stunt that appeals to the masses. So is Digg, especially if you make some friends on the site who help promote each other's stories. But don't get caught in a vote-exchanging scheme on Digg; it's a waste of your time. If you keep earning links from bigger blogs that cover your topic, you'll land on Digg without submitting your own stories.
Get Paid
After a year or so, you should be getting attention from other bloggers. If you're getting over 100,000 views per month, you have just enough traffic to look into selling ads. If your blog is specific and consumer-oriented, try a network like Blogads. If you consider yourself a classy think-piece blogger —and your readers agree —try The Deck. If you're telling personal stories or you have an idea much like the ones above that inspired books, write a book proposal. Then e-mail an agent like Kate Lee, as explained in my three-step plan for turning a blog into a book.
And if you're frustrated because you can't catch up with those bigger blogs that write just like you and often link to you but just seem to outgun you with staff and money—why not apply to write for them? After all, Gawker Media hired me to write about Silicon Valley because they saw me writing about bloggers free.