Friday, February 02, 2007
Things to remember when blogging
On more than one occasion, I'd gotten comments on my old tagboard (you know, before it conked out) asking me for tips on blogging. After visiting numerous blogs that irritate me for one reason or another, I've finally come up with my top nine Things to Remember When Blogging! (Hey, better late than never.)

[Before I get going, I want to give a shout-out to Sir Martin and his entry on writing good blog posts -- thanks for reminding me to get my lazy butt around to double-clicking this ancient Word document and copy-pasting it onto my Blogger. Cheers!]

Here we go:


1. Never ever ever ever EVER put background music. Anybody with a computer and speakers most probably has their favorite songs already playing, and my God, if your blog music, no matter how awesome it may be, disrupts the song your reader is already listening to, you'd better pray that your content is worth it. Otherwise, chances are your readers will be clicking the little "X" button faster than you'd like them to.

2. Go fucking easy on the fucking expletives, fucktards. Cuss words do not make you sound cool, and when used in excess they just get annoying. Use only when necessary, i.e. when you're really, REALLY ANGRY. And even when you're really angry, you don't have to swear. By the way, putting asterisks on your swear words (ex. "that f***ing b*tch!") doesn't make them any less offensive.

3. Avoid highfalutin words. It doesn't matter whether or not you're a walking dictionary, blogs are not for showing off your vocabulary prowess. (Unless your readers are all Proust scholars or Jeopardy champs.) Besides, people like to read things they can actually understand. Save 'em big ol' words for your term paper, buddy.

4. Contrary to what you might be thinking, you don't have to put EVERYTHING on your blog. In other words, you don't have to let everybody know that you just ate a sandwich or took a dump. Choose your topics wisely.

5. D0n't p0sT lyK d1s. Ugh. It's irritating.

6. Don't post...like this...either. Why would you want readers to think you have some sort of mental disorder?

7. Be aware of your audience. Remember, posting your thoughts online, especially on hosts like Blogger, makes them open to EVERYBODY on the internet. If you want to write more personal posts, I suggest you get a LiveJournal so that you can choose who gets to read them.

8. Readable always trumps pretty. Forget flashy, bright-colored blogs with too-tiny fonts. Your blog can be pretty, by all means make it so, but make sure that your readers don't have to squint to read your posts. Simple isn't always bad. (And yes, I'm still on the hunt for a neater-looking blog layout.)

9. Blogs should be an accurate window to your personality. Don't worry if your blog comes off as too emo, or narcissistic, or shallow, or dorky. It's who you are, and you should embrace that.
JC got bored @ 4:57 AM

Get awesome blog templates like this one from BlogSkins.com