Tips For Being A Better Blogger
Greetings All,
Yesterday I spent a good amount of time writing up some helpful tips to different members of ChristianBlog.Com on how to become more proficient bloggers, gain a bigger audience, properly format their blog entries, helping to keep readers attention, trying not to loose readers attention, and the biggest of all, not offending your readers.
For the most part, most of what I shared with our members went over really well. Sadly a few of them took my tips as criticism, but I suspect that is something that one will always face in helping others. Except for those few who did take my comments as criticism, they all suggested to me that I post all of my thoughts into a blog entry for the general public. So, here is a result of yesterdays tip-sharing!
Without a doubt the biggest complaint we here is when people do not use paragraph breaks. Spend some time hitting that "enter" button and put some paragraph breaks into your Blog Entry!
Use BBCode such as bold and italic to highlight - but do not overdue it - and stay away from entire lines of SHOUTING which really annoys most people.
Never criticism a man or women in the ministry. Most people simply do not want to read about a person in the ministry being criticized; it will make them stop reading your blog on-the-spot almost every time.
Try not to over-do smilies. You really do not need a smilie at the first and/or end of every line of your blog 
Try to use "title breaks" when you are switching from one point of thought to another. A title break every few paragraphs does a LOT to keep readers reading your blog entry. Almost every serious blogger I read - regardless of the blogging website - has had to learn to do this. At some point, people just start skipping over stuff, and our job as authors is to keep them engaged, and in the blogging world, this is best done via bold breaker-marks (or whatever you want to call them). See my "Ahh, The Start of Something New!" as a prime example of using "title breaks".
BBCode is your friend! Learning to use BBCode can mean the difference between a normal reading blog and a great reading blog! The use of bold, italics, and larger text can mean the difference between a blog entry that reads great and a blog that is hard to read. Learning BBCode should be one of the first things you do here at ChristianBlog.Com!
When quoting others, or Scripture, always use the "BBCode Quote" to help break things up into a logical format and to help make things much easier to read. Plus, for some weird reason, Christian tend to read everything BUT Scriptures when they are reading blogs... so by throwing verses into a "BBCode quote"... it helps forces them out of the norm and forces them to realize they should read it. (usually)
Perhaps the biggest tip serious bloggers are doing these days is ending their blog entries with a way to engage the reader to respond back. This doesn't have to be an open-ended-question of sort... but just some way to engage the reader to WANT to respond, rather then just responding to say "hey, nice blog". Sometimes this means less factual data and more real-life stories that are easy to relate too (people engage in things they can relate to). Sometimes this means flat-out stating "so this is what I believe, what about you?" (though this is tended to be discourage within every blog a person writes), and sometimes it just means spending a few paragraphs at the end of your blog sharing your own personal thoughts, outside of the direct content of your blog topic, yet weaving the topic into it. You know, some kind of personal story that you experienced in your own life about the given topic. Sometimes Blog Entries read more like "bible study" then a persons thoughts - and most Christians are "bible studied out"... if you know what I mean. Anyway, you should get the point... try to find some way to engage the readers to respond, rather then just leaving it up to chance that they might respond, just for.
Try your best to make the majority of content within your Blog Entry relate to your "Blog Title". There is nothing worse then clicking into a Blog Entry only to find out that 90% of the blog has nothing at all to do with what the Blog Title said the blog would be about. That is like going to a Toyota dealer and all they have on their lots are Fords. (I own both, so no ragging on me here lol... and yes, I've own a chevy too LOL)
The use of A LOT OF CAPS is typically frowned upon too... most people just don't like it when people do that. While we authors think it helps people understand - or to really get - the point, in fact what happens, is when you do that a lot within a single blog entry, people start "reading over" the ALL CAPS... human nature is unpredictable lol.
Try to stay on-topic. "Rabbit chasing" usually does not work as good in blogging as it might in our pastors sermons! People want to stay on-topic when they are reading, so try to honor them as much as possible by doing so. Of course, there are going to be times when you just need to completely change directions within your Blog Entry, but when you do so, be sure to use the "Title Breaks" I mentioned above, so the reader knows you are going to be switching topics.
Another thing most top blog authors have learned over the last few years since blogging has taken off is there is this fine-line between "when to reply and when not too". Most top blog authors agree that you should not really respond to your own blog entry unless there has been a direct question back to you by multiple people. They have learned that you should almost never reply to a challenge from a commentor, as typically in responding to them you tend to loose the "readership interest" of everybody else who might read the blog. It seems that while people -want- the blog author to respond, in doing so that causes others to not respond *after* the blog author has responded. LOL, just count how many blogs between the top bloggers here at ChristianBlog.Com where we have blogs with multiple comments, and the Blog Authors own comments are the last one in the blog LOL... I really don't get why that is so... but it seems to be so. I've learned this one the hard way... and still forget it at times lol.
Try to stay away from terminology that only you know what the meaning of it is. I have this thing my friends laugh at me about all the time... infact they have come to call it "Abela-ism" -- in which I'll just make-up totally weird "one-liners" out of nowhere. In a room of friends that is one thing, when writing to a global audience, it is something completely different. Back when I was a missions director we always use to try to teach those going on their first mission trip to stay away from "churchie terms" when talking with somebody who had zero-idea of Christianity. We Christians have got a whole dictionary of terms that it seems only we use, but in the process of being a really great blog author, we have to realize that we need to shy away from using that whole dictionary
Something else that some of the other top bloggers (at least here at CB) have learned works is to "feed off each other". Take a concept in somebody else's blog and write off of it's concept -- I'm not talking about writing about the "same topic" as they did, but something they've talked about within their blog that you can spin-off of it and go with. When you do this, be sure to include a BBCode link back to the persons blog where the idea came from - what this does is cause a sort of "internal relationship building" between bloggers -- and as certain bloggers gather fans who read their material grow, when they start linking to other bloggers blogs, it can grow your own readership-base. Check out the "BBCode: How Do I Link To Another Blog Entry?" for how to link to another blog entry within ChristianBlog.Com!
Try not to leave people 'hanging' about the topic you are talking about. Most of us are not mystery writers in the process of writing a multi-book series. If you open a topic, try to close the topic. It just really frustrates most people when blog authors open a topic but fail to close the topic. Before you press the "publish" button, go through and read your blog a few times to make sure you've closed all the topics you brought up.
While I am at it, allow me to mention a really great blog entitled "Making ChristianBlog.Com Your Primary Blogging Site", written by one of our Top 5 Bloggers, that goes into detail of how newer bloggers can get the most out of ChristianBlog.Com!
One of the greatest things I think I shared yesterday was this:
In your research, writing, and final reviewing of your blog entries, try to keep those two ideas in mind.
(a) Am I writing this for myself or for others? If for myself, do I really need to share it with a global audience? If I am writing it for others, am I being sensitive to them and will it read like I am intending it to sound?
(b) Will what I am publishing help grow my reader base? Will it be something my existing reader base find this something they will enjoy reading? While this new publication help draw in new devotees?
And, in closing this, I will share this...
Our "motto" at ChristianBlog.Com has always been: "A website where people can be blessed, and bless others!".
It would be my greatest hope that in your course of striving to be a blogger, that you would keep that motto in mind -- really stop and ask yourself, "Is this going to bless others??" -- personally, I hope it will, and I hope with these tips, and any other tips that I invite everybody to share, that we can all help be both a blessing to others, and be blessed in the process!
For Christ's Ministry,
John B. Abela
Founder/Owner, ChristianBlog.Com
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Author: abelajohnb
Location: California USA
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Blog Entries: 160 (archive)
Blog Comments: 624
raised in a private christian school until his senior year, mr. abela has been around the christian faith nearly his entire life. at the age of twenty-two mr. abela was called to the ministry as a lay-minister where he served as a youth minister for nearly seven years and then...
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