Blogging Tips

Let me open with a short rant.  Will somebody please tell the spelling gods at MS Word that “blog” and “blogging” no longer deserve that annoying red underscore?  I’m just sayin’.

Of course, if you compose your blog straight onto WordPress (another red underscore there… doesn’t anybody at MS blog?), you wouldn’t know.  Which I’m guessing is the prevailing case here on Bloggingtips.com.

Which brings me to my title and my point.  As a fairly new blogger – one who still composes on Word because, well, it’s a comfort zone – I’ve noticed there are four fairly distinct camps out there:

-       Diarists… what-I-did-today lovers of life and all things spiritual and poetic… lots of flowers in their banner graphics;

 -       gurus… those to share the wealth of their knowledge about anything and everything… look for a “Buy Now!”  button in the sidebar;

-         geeks… those who get off on sharing the latest gadget, widget or digital thingamabob;

-         bloggers blogging about blogging… which we’re doing here… the most likely to merge the above categories.

Open source sharing.

They’re all good and deserve a place in the blogosphere.  The upside is that you can go vertical within a niche with confidence.  The bad news is that if you mix expectations with a vague demographic strategy, you won’t be optimizing your efforts.

Optimizing is a word that appeals to geeks who understand what it means.  Diarists think it has something to do with eye doctors.  Whatever.  If you aren’t writing to a vertical niche, you’re missing an opportunity.  And if you are, you know to speak the native tongue.

Diarists, god love ‘em, are looking for friends and a place in the cosmos.   Posting in that space is an exercise in personal expression, always a good thing, and it might just get you to heaven someday.  Don’t expect big stats anytime soon, but family and friends will appreciate you.

Gurus are looking to establish credibility so someone will buy their online products.  This niche is huge, but the competition is fierce and sometimes fiercely chilly.  (Kevin Muldoon, you’re the sparkling exception.)

Geeks assume everybody cares about the next-big-thing as much as they do.  It’s a closed shop, outsiders not only don’t understand a word, they quickly leave in frustration.  (As for me, I call my web guy to ask him what it means.)

And bloggers about blogging are engaged in some combination of commiseration and a celebration of the craft.  Posting in this niche is like singing for the family, the most terrifying public display of vulnerability imaginable. 

Tricked ya, in the name of making my point.

The opening of this post, for example, may have – if you’re still here at all – made you wonder where this thing is going.  Why?  Because this is a hybrid geek-meets-blogging-about-blogging site, but my hook was vintage diarist.

If you’re still here you get to benefit from my point: write within your niche or the clicks will happen quicker than a playing card clothespinned to the wheel of your bike (remember that one?  Good times…  oops, there I go into diarist mode again…)

The key is knowing who you are as a blogger and understanding how an optimization strategy works.  It’s simple and universal to all four niches – deliver reader value, which translates to giving them what they expect.

If you can do it with some personality and credibility, you’ll have essentially crossed party lines, and effectively so.  Because at the end of the day we’re all just readers, and as such we’re looking for a return on our investment of online time.

Photo credit: lilivanili