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7 Elements of a Blog Blogging

5 Ways to Visually Improve your Blog Posts

5-visual-improvements-for-blog-posts

Have you ever come across a blog you loved what they were saying but just trying to read it exhausted you?

You have 3 seconds to impress your readers. Even if you have caught them by your web design and your headlines if you haven’t take these 5 simple steps in improving your blog posts your readers are going to leave.

1. White Space
In art and design there is a term called white space. This does not mean literally the color white. But just empty space, with nothing in it. This gives the eye a place to rest.Make sure that your blog design has space between each line (aka line-height). You also want to have a good amount of space between your paragraphs. Putting space around even your images will make a difference fo your readers when looking at your blog.

2. Short Paragraphs, Short Sentences.
When someone looks at your blog and see a wall of words, they become overwhelmed and tired just thinking about reading your blog post. Most readers only skim posts but if they see the wall of words they may just skip it all together. Use short sentences.

Make your paragraphs are short. They should only be a few sentences each. You cannot overdo paragraph breaks!

You can even make a paragraph just one sentence.

3. Edit, Edit, Edit
Make sure and edit your posts. Read your posts out loud and really listen to what you are saying. Can you write your sentences shorter? Can you use less words to make the same point? Less is always more and in blogging this is even more true.

4. Use Your Tools!
Use the edit tools in your blogging control panel. Make the key point in a paragraph bold. If you want to emphasize a point put it in italics. Most readers only skim text on websites. These emphasized points may catch their eye and encourage them to read more.

5. Lists
Use lists whenever you can. If you are joining in on the 31 days to Build a Better Blog then you have just learned that lists are great blog posts. But make sure even your lists are easy to follow. Try using bullet points or number your list. Make sure each item has its own line! Even when making a list and then expanding on each point your list item should have it’s own line.

Your Turn

Try out some of these tips on your next blog post and take a look at the difference. Does it look nicer to you? Did more people stop and comment on your post? Did you notice people even commented about something in the middle of your post vs the beginning and the ending?

I would love to see your posts showing off your editing skills, please comment and share your experience with me.

7 Elements of a Blog Blogging

How 5 Words Can Help You Build Your Brand

I have been participating in a great series over at SITSgirls: Think Like a Marketer. Last week we started by focusing on the branding of our blogs. I loved this article because when I work with my graphic design clients I have to explain to them that branding is visual and conceptual. When I’m helping someone build a blog I explain how color and logo will work building their visual brand, but that they need to build their conceptual brand also. I loved that Melissa (@momcommblog) really got this point across so well in her article. The homework for this week was very revealing and a great growing experience. I will be going through the steps to share my experience as I worked on my homework. I hope this shows you how this can really help you to improve your brand and blog.

Your 5 Words

The first part of the homework was to write down five words that you want people to think of when they first see your blog. This was a little hard at first but once I started the words just kept coming. My five words:

  1. Interesting
  2. Inspirational
  3. Informational
  4. Stylish
  5. Clean

Their 5 Words

Now I did not share these words with anyone and I started doing part two of the homework. I jumped on twitter and started asking others what five words they thought of when they saw my blog. Here are some of the responses I got:

subdued, organized, simple, straightforward, great logo! by @stephmommybrain

Clean, Modern, Fresh, Diverse, fun by @MamaofAllTrades

Sylish, Clean, Narrow, Engaging, Personal by @PhotoLynda

organized, pink, uncluttered, variety, interesting layout by @Modern_Gypsy

simple, organized (i love each post has its own box), clean, colorful (but not too much) and easy (to navigate) by @OurTypicalLife

organized … creative … variety … honest … feminine by LifeLovesLeah

girly … organized … honest … plain … mom by ThoughtsFromHer

These are just some of the few that I received, but you can see that specific words started repeating: clean and organized. That’s great I’m really happy to find that my blog gets described as this! My style for my graphic design business is exactly this: clean & organized, so this is branding my blog for my business. Perfect!

Growing and Learning

Now, time for me to take this information and start learning and growing. One of the words that I’m missing is: Informational. I need to start working on growing this concept on my blog. One of the things I think I need to work on is my post titles. I need to work on communicating more about the benefits my readers will get from reading my blog. If I had awesome post titles this should communicate to visitors that Pepper Scraps is  informational and educational.

Now Your Turn

Did you participate last week? What did you learn from your words? Do you need more words? Feel free and ask me in my comments and I will be honest with you.

Photo by Cappellmeister
7 Elements of a Blog Blogging

7 Steps to a Better Comment Area

After last nights Comment Cocktail Hour I had one of the ladies, ManWifeDog from Man, Wife & Dog, ask me about how to clean up her comments section of her blog. I always love to share with people how to simplify the look and feel of their blogs. This has been one thing I have been starting to write about over at Unicornbeauty, my design blog, but I wanted to share this one with you right away.

Step #1

Make sure your version of WP is up to date! The current version is WordPress 3.1. WordPress has built in some great commenting features. We used to have to have special plugins to be able to reply to comments and make sure the people who commented knew we replied. Now that is all built in.

Step #2

Deactivate all the comment plugins you currently have installed. You may decide you want some of these back but the fewer plugins you have installed the better. And you don’t want any of your plugins to start having confllicts.

Step #3

Look at your comments on your most current post. Does everything look nice and clean?

When I am working on my blog or a clients’ blog I will have the dashboard open in one tab and the actual blog open in another. This way I can quickly check my changes.

Step #4

Before we start installing plugins you need to sit back and think about your readers.

Do you have a lot of readers from twitter? Then you will want to let them link up their twitter accounts. Do you have a facebook page? Then you will want to encourage your facebook friends to share or like your post. Are your readers usually other bloggers? Well you will want them to be able to share their link and give them encouragement to comment.

Step #5

Now that you know who you are targeting now is the time to start adding plugins, but remember less is more!

Here are some great comment plugins:

CommentLuv

“Plugin to show a link to the last post from the commenters blog by parsing the feed at their given URL when they leave a comment. Rewards your readers and encourage more comments.”

CommentLuv is great way to encourage your blogging comments to comment even more. Of course, they love the free advertisement of their most current blog post! I like it because I can instantly jump to a blog post to share some comment love.

Subscribe To Comments

“Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry”

Another very similar plugin to this is Comment Reply Notification. These plugins just give your readers an option to know if you or someone else has commented on your blog post. And really your goal with comments should be to interact with your readers and to start conversations with them and between each other.

Twitterlink Comments

“Plugin to show a link to follow the comment author on twitter if they have entered in their username at least once in the comment form”

I have a lot of twitter followers and readers so I added this to my blog so that they have the option to share their twitter id and page. This is also a tool for me for Comment Cocktail Hour.

 

Step #6

You would think that we are done, but I would say that social media sharing is a part of commenting these days. Make sure that you have a clean and precise “call to action” for your social media lovers. Remember again less is more!

I use an all in one social media plugin:

Sharebar – “Adds a dynamic bar with sharing icons (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that changes based on browser size and page location. More info and demo at: Sharebar Plugin Home

Sharebar is kind of because you can adjust it to fit just perfectly with your layout and you can have it float as your reader scrolls. This plugin also gives you multiple social media options, but don’t overwhelm your readers with options. Know your readers and where they are most likely to share your posts and only set these up.

Also, in the past I have used Sexy Bookmarks which is also a good multiple social media option. I would say your choice between these two would depend on your theme and style.

Step #7

Delete all plugins you deactivated earlier and are not using. Remember you don’t want to have to many plugins installed. This can cause your site to be slow, cause conflict problems and it just makes it harder keeping your current plugins updated. You can always reinstall anything you want back later.

Are their other plugins you would recommend? Or are you looking for a plugin to do more and you haven’t found it yet? Feel free and let me know in the comments!

 

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