Blog News Watch

Internet users do not care if you can come up with a cute headline.

They don’t care if you can come up with some awesome wordplay or a lame pun to - as far as you are concerned - spice it up.

The attention span of the average internet user as they surf through site after site is microscopic. Nanoscopic, even. You may as well not even call it an attention span because it just doesn’t span.

But while you’re trying to get some of their nanoscopic attention, you have to make it damn clear what they could be clicking on or reading for the next few minutes.

If there is a niggling doubt as to what the page will actually be about, you’re out of luck.

If your pun is really bad… well, expect your RSS subscription to drop to zero. Just kidding about that part. Don’t panic.

Simple, descriptive, and as short as clearly possible.

What are the basic elements of a good blog post title? We all know there are a million ways to get attention above and beyond the basics. I used a “How To” in the title of this post, which makes part of an attractive headline for many web surfers. But forget them for now and leave them until another time; we just want the basics.

1. Simple

Keep it simple, stupid. Save the jokes for the text. Just blurt it out, clearly and simply, without embellishment.

We’re not going for a literary prize here. It’s a friggin’ blog post, remember? It just needs to say what the post is about and…

2. Descriptive

It needs to actively describe what the reader can expect from the post. If you intended to write a post about how to write headlines for blog posts and instead spend a whole post talking about why headlines are important, change the title.

If a reader wastes time reading something that was not what they were told it will be, they will feel cheated. Cheated of their precious time, that could be spent reading an article that truly is about blog post titles. This one, perhaps.

3. Short

“Short” does not mean sticking to a word count. It doesn’t mean cutting good information out for the sake of brevity. It just means: don’t repeat, don’t embellish, don’t make anything any longer than it has to be.

Some people make the mistake that embellishing or repeating facts will help the reader understand something better. If you have simply and descriptively stated something in the first place, there is no need to say it again and again in different ways. There’s no reason to add adjectives to nouns that don’t change the meaning to begin with.

Leave that crap to the tautologists (yes, I invented the word because so many of you bloggers seem to be running your articles on tautologies alone!).

There are a million psychological tricks and tips you can use to improve your blog post headlines. There are all sorts of simple changes you can make.

But without the basics, those tricks won’t make a damn bit of difference.

In fact, you’ll just be bloating something that was already bad to begin with.

When it comes to headlines, first and foremost: say it like it is, no more, and no less.

“Prominence” is a news value that many bloggers claim to hate.

But even they perpetrate it, because when some small-time blogger with two posts does something controversial, it’s going to receive much more coverage when, say, Darren Rowse does the same thing.

And, of course, it draws in more traffic, especially from search engines - why? Because people are actually searching for information on that person.

Prominence refers to how prominent and popular an individual or group is in any given community.

It’s truly the crux of much of the media, and when it comes to celebrity and gossip mags, pretty much the exclusive news value. Doesn’t matter how stupid or trivial something is… you can be sure the gossip mags will pick it up if it’s about someone famous!

Apply this one when appropriate for your blog, and with caution, but when you do use it, it can certainly help.

Prominence and Conflict are great news values to use in combination. On my blog Musician’s Notebook a post about the tensions between Dimebag Darrell and Phil Anselmo of Pantera might’ve been a great post around the time of Dimebag’s death, so long as I kept it relevant to the fact that my readers want information for musicians, not music fans (how to keep tension among musicians to a minimum might have been a good basis for the post).

Check the front page of your daily paper next time you’re walking past a news agency. I bet you that the majority of the stories on the front page have something to do with a prominent individual or group. The past few weeks here in Australia, it has been about politicians almost every day (we just had a federal election).

Now if only I could meet another Australian who cares about politics…

It seems you’re depending on the list you’re looking at; either Impact strikes at number one or number three on the News Values list.

When I was studying journalism, impact was the first on the list, but the list of news values that I used to plan this series had it down on number three. I wish I’d picked up on this before, but it is how it is.

In my opinion, Impact is the most important news value in the world.

Consider these two example story headlines:

Neighbors Fight Over Fencing

OR

Mother Kills Daughter During Fight About Preschool

Both headlines possess the news value of conflict (timeliness isn’t apparent but can be assumed), but which one has more sheer Impact?

Nobody cares about neighbors fighting over fencing, but when a mother kills her daughter because she doesn’t want to go to preschool, the reactions are certainly not so apathetic. Why? Because the story, and the events, made an impact.

When does impact occur?

According to a dictionary, when something has a strong effect on someone. That means when it offends their sensibilities, makes them emotional, or has to do with something the reader has a Strong Emotional Investment in.

The higher the Strong Emotional Investment, the higher the impact

Impact is all about emotions, so think about your readership and what the people in your niche are likely to be emotionally affected by. Remember, impact doesn’t always have to be negative, and I believe that we need more positivity in our information channels while the mainstream media does nothing but pump hate, war, violence and doom into our heads.

So do me a personal favor, and when you first try implementing Impact in your articles, try and make it a positive impact.

It’s a good idea to sit down and really analyze the type of readership you’re likely to attract. What creates Impact in a story depends on your niche and readership a lot more than most other news values.

Here’s what you do: define what your readers have a Strong Emotional Investment in, and what they have a Weak Emotional Investment in (what they don’t care about). You can leverage your list by writing stories with the following components:

• A criticism of something the readership has a Strong Emotional Investment in
• An article criticizing someone who has attacked or done something to damage the subject of your reader’s SEI (this will gain you favor with the audience as their “voice”)
• An article that connects a topic readers have a Weak Emotional Investment in with something an SEI, therefore making their emotional investment in it stronger and opening up further possibilities for future articles

How you use Impact is up to you, but learning to define it is the first step.

Conflict is the first news values journalists use to determine newsworthiness, and the first news value that bloggers can apply to make more compelling content.

The second news value bloggers can apply to their writing is timeliness.

The mistake bloggers make is putting timeliness at the top of the list. Sure, blogging is more time-centric than many mediums for your message, but certainly not as much as newspapers.

And if blogging is more timeless than newspapers, and journalists put timeliness as number two… well, you should to. Get the order right: it’s important!

Timeliness: The When Factor

It’s a pretty simple concept: timeliness as a news value means that the closer in time your blog post is to the event that you are writing about, the more valuable that piece is.

It’s also important if you care about search engines because if you’re first in and best dressed, you stand more of a chance of getting indexed on the first page for certain search terms.

Choose Your Timely Stories Wisely

Sometimes a bit of considered planning is better than being the first to publish a post on something. Use your discretion here. If you can get an article out before everyone else and it’s a considered, useful, valuable piece, you’ve hit the jackpot… while the news is still timely, anyway!

If something requires perusal of long, complicated documents - legal ones, perhaps - then peruse them (and understand them) before you jump to conclusions and write about it. You can be sure of two things:

• Smart bloggers you are competing with will wait until they have perused, so don’t worry about them beating you too much
• Stupid bloggers will fire off a half-assed article because they want to be first and be flamed to hell and back for all the inaccuracies and incomplete thoughts they publish

Want to be flamed because you’re stupid?

…

I didn’t think so.

Timeliness is an important factor. The news values exist because writers have identified what attracts the readers interest; however, that same factor has also imbued many news rooms with an unhealthy mentality that is all about timeliness. It means many papers are driven by disasters and crises.

Value For Readers is your first consideration. News values, including timeliness, are your second considerations; always, always, always put value first.

Here’s the question to ask every time you find yourself rushing: does getting this post out before everyone else really provide much value to my readers?

Don’t get me wrong, I may have spent most of this article warning of the dangers of this news value, but it is still important. And while it’s important, the most important thing that can ever be said about it is a warning.

So use Timeliness - when it is appropriate.

As I begin to type this post, it is 6:14pm. A few hours ago I pulled the keys off my keyboard and rearranged them in the alternative keyboard arrangement known as Dvorak. It’s designed to be faster, more accurate and cause less muscle strain than QWERTY. After only a few hours I’m exhaustingly slow but I can already see the benefits appearing as I slowly get faster. I’m not too shabby with the home row now.

The truth is that I have gleaned some unexpected benefits from this experience. I feel disabled. I feel as though my voice has been muted and it is terribly frustrating, having words in your head but not being able to get them out when at one stage you could think those words and they’d be on the screen already. I have been using QWERTY keyboards since, I kid you not, I was a toddler. This transition could be difficult!

It has, however, given me a new level of respect and understanding for the disabled (not to trivialize their position but that is truly how it feels after a lifetime). That understanding can only be beneficial for my work, because I frequently work with disabled people and admire the amazing outlook on life most of them have.

Can Dvorak help you as a blogger? Yes, if it does all that it claims to do.

Fortunately you have me to do the guinea pig work; I’ll be reporting my progress as I go. Then, you can decide whether or not to try it for yourself. And I’ll be able to decide which layout to teach my son!

I had heard of Dvorak years ago at Lisle’s Forward Motion, but decided to try it today on a whim after reading Cory Doctorow’s post.

To my 451 Press employers: be nice, give me some time before you come after me for not posting as much in the next few days
By the way, it was 6:14 when I started - it’s 6:37 now that I’m done!

Tags: dvorak, touchtyping

“Content is king” - now there’s something I’ve heard again, and again, and again. And again. But it’s the truth, it’s a fact, and that’s why it’s repeated so often.

Sometimes we fail to act on the simplest advice because it seems too simple to be helpful.

It’s how the biggest bloggers built their thrones; plenty of high quality posts, released at a regular frequency. But how do you create great content?

I have six simple rules that I follow. Sure, there are a lot of other factors that can improve your content, but if you keep these in mind, you’ll have the most important basics down.

1. Make it valuable

Creating value for your readers is the single most important thing a blogger can do for themselves, and for their audiences. If you’re creating value, then readers are getting practical advice and great benefits out of reading your content.

Which means they’ll come back, for as long as you’re producing valuable content.

Before you start writing an article, ask yourself: how valuable will this article be to my readers?

If it falls bellow a six or seven, it’s not worth posting, and even then you should be thinking about how to add value.

2. Make it interesting

Keep your use of language lively; throw passive voice out the window. Use language that is in present tense as often as possible - this creates a sense of immediacy, and keeps content fresh.

Use imagery where appropriate, but don’t overdo this. Nobody wants to know what shade of off-yellow the gunk coming out of your ear is, right?

3. Make it scannable

See what I’ve done in this post? I’ve stuck to one or two sentences per paragraph.

This little guideline came from my time as a journalism student, before I jumped boat to public relations; it’s used in news to keep things scannable, just like we endeavor to do to aid screen reading.

It doesn’t matter if your post isn’t news, but one or two lines of text per paragraph can really be helpful. Of course, there will be situations where it’s just not appropriate; in-depth reviews spring to mind.

Using plenty of bold subheadings to break up the text is an invaluable technique.

4. Make it sharable

Here’s a really simple one: when you’re writing your post, ask yourself if you’d forward the piece to your friends.

If the answer is no, use the Delete key liberally.

5. Make it legible

This one is related to no. 3, but has some differences that are important to understand.

Scannability is only one consideration in writing easy to read content. It truly needs to be a breeze to read.

I don’t suggest that you support the dumbing down of society that we’re seeing in this era, but I do think for the sake of web and screen readability that you should keep your word choices as short as you can.

Not all the time. Not religiously. But do this if you can and the quality of your content will be much better for the standard web-reader.

6. Make it snappy

If you can say something quickly, do so.

See what I did there?

You’ll notice that these six rules keep two overarching principles in practice: the principle of giving your readers what they need, and the principle of making it easy to digest and integrate into their minds.

Of course, if you’ve got a case of blogger blindness you won’t be able to tell what’s valuable and what’s not, or even if you can, you’ll ramble on for ages trying to get it out clearly. Clear your head first.

As long as the solutions you’re suggesting are sound, then you’re well on your way to producing great content.

I could just link to it and say “go forth and bookmark.” But that would be doing this post a disservice. We all know what “pillar” content is (or “flagship content” or whatever you want to call it) but the best examples are those that are genuinely helpful, right? Here’s one we can all use. DLM published a list of writing tip links last year, but the referred-to site changed the links. A reader took the time to update the links and send it back in to DLM with a request to republish.

Now that’s evidence of true value!  Plus the links are gold.

NOW, go forth and bookmark!

Technorati Tags: improving writing skills

We’ve all struggled with it from time to time - that feeling that you’d rather clean the floors (with your toothbrush), get a cavity filled (without numbing medication), heck - anything! - rather than ______________ (fill in the blank with the project du jour). When it comes to blogging, it’s oh, so easy to let it slide. Maybe it’s one particular post. Maybe you’re trying to create your blog’s flagship content. Maybe it’s just blogging in general - hey, we all go through those times when we just aren’t feeling the bloggy love! It isn’t just you, I swear.

So, what’s a blogger to do? Angela Booth has some tips at her Writing Blog that are well worth a try.

See, the problem is this: procrastination is not just a productivity block. It’s that, but so much more. It’s the Titanic iceberg - one third visible but this mountain of nasty underneath, where you can’t see the danger lurking. And that subsurface two-thirds? Is emotional. Yes, I said the ‘e’-word!

There is one universal truth of all procrastinators - whether it’s your habit or something that just popped up with this particular project that’s giving you fits - and it’s this:

Now - are you really better off not doing It? Only you can tell for sure, but odds are - no. Odds are, this is a problem of perception and of emotional payoffs. If procrastination is becoming a regular occurrence for you, then before you try the tips and tricks to break through the wall, sit down in a quiet place with some paper and pen and write in a stream of consciousness style your response to these questions:

• What is my payoff for procrastinating about this project? What am I getting out of it?
• What am I afraid is going to happen if I undertake this project?

Once you have those answers, take a short break - get up, walk around, change your posture, do jumping jacks for a few minutes (it helps change your mental state), then sit back down and on a new sheet of paper, write your responses to these questions:

• What’s the worst thing - the absolute worst thing - that will happen to me if I don’t start and finish this project?
• What joy - what wonderful benefits - will I achieve when I do start and finish this project?

By starting with the current state of affairs, you end on a high note. By changing your mental state (using physical means) during the little break, you drum into your subconscious brain that this is a change - a new state of being. It’s signaling to your little internal secretary, “Hold the phone - new policy coming down from the top!” This exercise is really powerful and is a great way to get a handle on why you don’t want to do whatever it is you don’t want to do. And if it’s a must - or a hugely important want-to - it can help you get back on track and focus on the positive.

Do you have any other tips for breaking through the wall of procrastination? Leave them in the comments!

Technorati Tags: writing, procrastination, blogging, productivity

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You’ll hear a lot about “writing for your readers” if you do any digging around in blogging resources and how-to guides. What does this mean, exactly? I guess everyone might have their own ideas but here’s what it means to me:

• First and foremost: knowing who your audience is. If you can’t define the “target” reader for your blog right now, in one sentence, then you need to get to work figuring that out. Use metrics, use surveys, use informal tools like following comment links back to figure out who’s reading your blog.
• Next: knowing why that audience is reading your blog. What are they looking for? Do they want to hear your original thoughts on touchy subjects? Do they prefer how-to posts that lay out the steps to achieve a particular task? Are they revved up by roundups? Figure it out from your stats.
• Keep your posts relevant, timely, and responsive to the reader’s needs. You know now who they are and what they want. Give it to them! Make sure your posts communicate clearly (i.e., don’t ramble off into other topics), are succinct and well-written (i.e., make sure carefree approaches to grammar and spelling don’t get in the way of the message), and are based on the things your readers want to know.

A great tool for figuring out what your readers want to know: ask them! Open up a comment thread and solicit their thoughts. That ought to give you blog fodder for quite some time to come.

If your readers aren’t commenting (either your traffic isn’t that great yet, or you just can’t get them to speak up), that’s a different problem - and one I’ll address in Thursday’s post.

blogging, writing blog posts, blog tips

Take a moment at some point today to read Liz Strauss’s article on “The Writer’s Dilemma and the Blogger’s Secret” up at The Blog Herald. It’s good stuff.