On Making an Excellent Blog

For someone to ask, “what makes a good website” can easily lead into many ideas and even arguments on the way people express their opinions via social media. It’s a platform that allows anyone and everyone to express their opinions on certain topics as well as to be as informative as they would like.

There are many factors that go into an excellent blog. For starters, the look and web design is the most crucial aspect for a website because viewers can easily x-out of the site when seeing a boring pallet. For one, a boring and bland website would lead me straight to the x button because if the website looks boring, that would lead me to believe that the content in boring as well. Once the website looks appealing to the eye, the content of the blog then becomes crucial. The creators of the website have successfully passed the first step of the blog, but the actual writing content is important including the point of blogs are to be informative in same way shape or form, whether it be through pictures, videos, or writing.

As Sean Michael Morris stated in Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities, he mentioned, “digital writing is a rebellion.” This statement is quite accurate including people are going out on a limb to get their thoughts and opinions out in an attractive manner. Some of the most controversial issues form into great writing pieces or stories to share. An example of digital writing being an act of rebellion would be the website, BuzzFeed.com For starters, BuzzFeed is a website that covers a plethora of topics, from hard news like politics to ridiculous cat memes. But within all of this, there are acts of rebellion and tactics that take place that normally would not take place in a standard paper or essay. The act of rebellion also goes into account with digging a little deeper into a topic. For the Anthony Weiner scandal, BuzzFeed was in fact the website to dig a little deeper and find the women Weiner was sending scandalous pictures to. This clearly illustrates Morris’s idea that “digital writing is a rebellion.” Not only does it go against the normality of writing, but it also goes against social norms of not expressing everything on ones mind due to the fear that the public might judge.

Excellent blogs or websites such as BuzzFeed get information across to their viewers in a shorter manner than for instance a New York Times article. Although the Times has in depth information on current events and stories that go on around the world, a website like BuzzFeed or even a simple blog about fashion expresses information in a different tone and style. A blog that has more voice and character in it are the ones that attract the most attention.

Along with digital writing being an act of rebellion, Peter Rorabaugh discusses how writing digitally isn’t as structural as writing a paper. Instead of starting with an introduction and ending with a conclusion, he recommends that we should start with the body paragraphs and end up working our way to the introduction and conclusion. This tactic is more abstract, which is exactly how bloggers should approach the content that they post on the Internet. One website that is very opinionated but also has descriptions of anything related to style is the website Refinery29.com This website illustrates short and sweet writing techniques that will get the readers wanting more. Along with the writing content, the visualization, when you first enter the blog is clean and pretty. The attractiveness leads viewers to want to explore more. Excellent blog are those that intrigue viewers and make them want to come back and visit the site daily.

Websites:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/

http://www.refinery29.com/