2009 June

Coming Soon: Blogging 3.0

June 26, 2009 By Charles 6 Comments

stairs It’s time for Wordful to move up the ranks of blogging.

Instead of solely focusing on ways to be more expressive, free-thinking and creative with your blog, I’d like to put more energy into how you can build your blog into a viable media publication. This implications of this shift have huge upside potential, as it follows blogging’s natural evolution towards mainstream publishing.

A Brief History of Blogging

In the beginning, blogs provided soapbox-like platforms for personal expression (Blogging 1.0). Then, a few smart bloggers started posting useful content and hustling for readers. From this they built traffic and loyal audiences and began making money. Enter the blogging goldrush. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: Blogging, death of blogging, future of blogging, future of problogging, old vs. new media

The Easy Way to Simplify Blogging

June 24, 2009 By Charles 1 Comment

water For those of you who think blogging is too much work, you’re almost right. Growing a successful blog requires about 30 different disciplines, all of which can take a good 10,000 hours to master. So where to begin?

The most simple trick to blogging efficiency is to prioritize your work. This means you need to identify and concentrate on what matters most with your blog. And for everyone, the answer should always be the same:

Your Content Matters Most

Ask any top blogger or social media guru what the most important aspect of content marketing is and they’ll unanimously tell you it’s your content. I’m here to tell you the same thing: content matters most. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: 80/20 rule in blogging, how to blog, simplify blogging

Cut “That” Out

June 12, 2009 By Charles 4 Comments

Try snuffing the word “that” from your writing. Most of the time, you don’t need it. This sentence:

She knew that she loved him and he knew that he loved her, too.

can be reduced to:

She knew she loved him and he knew he loved her, too.

This tiny change will tighten your writing and make it sound smoother, too. From Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style,”page 78:

The ear, for example, must decide when to omit “that” from a sentence, when to retain it. “She knew she could do it” is preferable to “She knew that she could do it”—simpler and just as clear.

Of course, don’t always cut “that” out. Again, Strunk and White:

But in many cases the that is needed. “He felt that his big nose, which was sunburned, made him look ridiculous.” Omit the that and you have “He felt his big nose…”

Remember this advice the next time you write. You’ll be thankful soon enough.

Photo by aussiegall.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: cleaner writing, getting rid of the word "that", omiting the word "that"

Do People Have You Figured Out?

June 11, 2009 By Charles 1 Comment

Picture your blog as a storefront in a crowded section of town. People come in, browse around, read some of your content, hopefully buy something, then leave. The attention feels good, but how do you know they’ll be back again? Or better yet–back for good? The answer is more subtle than you think. For starters, go ahead and eliminate the obvious Big Three: content, design and optimization. Every blogger should know these three assets form the basic foundations of any serious blog. Now go ahead and eliminate some of the finer points of blogging: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Mindset and Productivity Tagged With: effective blogging, element of mystery in blogging, pulp fiction blogging analogy, theme and variation