Writing In & For Digital Environments

I think that asking people what makes a good blog or a great blog post is like asking what makes a good sandwich – you’ll get some similarities within the answers but each will be unique as the person you’re asking.

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Let’s consider good writing the bread of the sandwich. It’s what keeps the blog together. Without good writing, you have no readers, and without readers, what’s the point of writing anyway? Blogs are meant to be shared and linked through various articles and pathways. As Michael Morris says, “text becomes functional” within the blog and the more it’s shared, the more meaning it has. Although good writing increases the likelihood for a greater audience and more connections in the blogosphere, the other features that make a good blog tend to be specific for the person who’s blogging. To continue with the sandwich analogy, the meat of the sandwich is where people’s preference comes into play. For me, a good blog has two other main features, a clean design and transparency.

As a reader, a clean design is what initially keeps me on (or off) of the site. White space is key – I don’t want to be overwhelmed by ads or lists of previous articles. Everything is best left in it’s own little box or compartment, and believe it or not, studies have shown that this is not unique to me. The human eye is drawn to the shape of a golden rectangle and content displayed this way is more easily absorbed!  A really great example of this clean and minimalist design in a blog that I read is the I Am That Girl blog.

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Both myself and Brain Carroll, author of Writing for Digital Media believe that transparency – that is sources clearly linked or cited as well as having labels when needed, is  key to running a successful blog. Carroll says it best, when he says, “Post deliberately.” To have a good blog, the author must only post what he or she knows to be true and then link back to where that author found the resource, therefore adding another link to the network and hopefully increasing future shares. Second, a good blog has an author who has provided enough information for the reader to create a clear identity of who the author is.

Some of my favorite blogs feature authors with distinct consistent voices and content and I’m able to create an identity for them based on the information and interests they share along with any photos posted on their page. Because blogs are usually a one-person narrative, it’s important for me to feel like I understand the person behind the content. So, to conclude, like a good sandwich, a blog has a myriad of components; the foundation of a great blog is good writing, but from there, it really launches into personal preference and style. For me, the perfect blog is a mix of good writing, transparency, and simplistic design all wrapped up into one platform.

First of all, yes. The title of this post quoted Barney, from How I Met Your Mother. And yes, you’re welcome.

My impression of blogging stemmed largely from this show; a place for individuals to complain, brag, recount their days (now that I think about it, a less concise version of twitter.) That being said, blogging can be engaging, well written, and well designed with just a bit of thought behind them.

In my experience, the blogs that I have found most successful have a few key points in common.

1. They are engaging on multiple levels. While compelling writing is imperative to a word-based blog, visual engagement is crucial to a blogs success. Think about it; if a 5-star meal in the finest restaurant in Paris comes out looking like your dogs bad reaction to medicine, and you’re going to get it out of your sight. Blogs are no different. First impressions are lasting, and the appearance of a blog is the first opportunity for judgement on the part of the reader. (To be fair, that analogy isn’t exact. I’ve never seen a blog that outrageous in appearance, but I’m getting the point across, right?)
2. They are both engaged with and respectful of their audience. As digital media scholar Brian Carroll wrote, “When you get comments, react to them. Encourage them. Affirm your readers and continue the conversations your posts have begun” (163.) Blogs represent a unique opportunity for consumers to become producers and vice versa, where those who write blogs can accept and engage with comments and criticism from readers. Providing space for readers to engage with the material, especially given the standard personal opinion that litters blog posts, is crucial to the community that blogging creates. On the same level, community is impossible when blogs ignore some basic ethics of publishing online. Carroll notes that of these ethics, stating the difference between fact and speculation, linking to referenced material, and correcting mistakes are key to maintaining ethical standards. Respecting the community involves respecting those ethics. To ignore them is to disrespect the reader, plain and simple.
3. Lastly, their writing is organic. By organic, I borrow from Pete Rorabaugh’s definition of organic writing insofar as that it develops in often different ways than it might have been originally intended (2). When writing is as personal as many blogs tend to be, E.M. Foster’s quote “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?” comes to mind. Organic writing is a process, and in blogs, could develop over multiple posts through both the writing of the author and the contributions of the community.

Now, it isn’t perfect, but I often turn to the travel blog The Bucket List Family for a good example of blog writing. On the negative side, it doesn’t leave space for public comment. That being said, it’s visually stunning, rightly transparent, and provides space for public engagement with the authors, always keeping me coming back to hear their travel updates and tips.

That, however, is just me. Maybe you’d read Barney Stinson’s blog despite it’s mundane appearance. What keeps you coming back?

So you want to start a blog. Great! It’s as simple as joining Blogger or WordPress and starting to type, right?

Wrong.

The internet moves at a breakneck pace. Your blog will become one in a sea of millions of average blogs before you know it. It takes more than just being a good writer to have a good blog. So what makes a blog go from average to excellent? Here are three ways to get you started.

1. Make your blog visually appealing and easy to navigate.

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The first thing people see when they visit your blog is its design. Hot pink and lime green might be your favorite colors, but hot pink text on a lime green background won’t make a good first impression for your readers. Some things to keep in mind when designing your blog: make sure to use a cohesive color scheme, don’t make the main page too cluttered, and pick fonts that are simple and large enough to read. Here are some more pointers for how to make your blog more visually appealing.

Navigation is equally important; if a potential reader can’t navigate through your blog you’ll lose their interest in a heartbeat.

Lance Hosey puts it best in his piece “Why We Love Digital Things”: “Good design, often in very subtle ways, can have such dramatic effects”.

2. Incorporate images and links into your posts.

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Images enhance writing. They provide a break in what otherwise would have been a wall of text and they allow readers to make a more emotional connection; a picture is worth a thousand words, after all!

Links provide readers with the opportunity to follow up on ideas they find interesting. They also give you a quick and easy way to show the readers where you’re getting your information. As Brian Caroll says in “Blogito, Ergo Sum”: “Online readers ‘deserve, as much as possible, access to all of the facts’”.

3. Be yourself!

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I know this one sounds cheesy, but it’s the most important. There are millions of people with blogs out there, but there is only one you. You have your own ideas, opinions, and voice. Let your personality shine through in your posts. Don’t blog about something you feel pressured to; blog about something you want to. If you don’t want to write a piece, your readers certainly won’t want to read it. Your enthusiasm and unique perspective on the world will draw in a community of readers that you’ll be proud to call your own.

And that’s it! Three simple steps, and you’re already on your way to being a better blogger. That wasn’t that hard, right? Now go out and blog and I promise; the first post is always the hardest.

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Excellent blogging is more than interesting writing and topics, you also need to have a visually appealing online space that will attract readers and keep them coming back, and you also need to create meaningful interactions and networking space with your online community.

Nuts and Bolts

It’s important to create a visually appealing online space where your ideas, interests and thoughts can grow, flourish and connect with others. So getting people to want to look at your website is important, and having people read, interact and engage with your post is even better. Lance Hosey notes in his article, Why We Love Beautiful Things, “It should come as no surprise that good design, often in very subtle ways, can have such dramatic effects.” By utilizing colors to attract, patterns for appeal, material organization and pleasing proportions, web spaces can transform into becoming more attractive and user friendly.

Etiquette

As with posting anything online, the author needs to be respectful of others and be held accountable for what is said online. Anything can be posted online and it’s your responsibility to maintain a healthy and productive online community. Brian Carroll lists out in his book Writing for Digital Media, that one should post deliberately, link other articles you reference or use, publicly correct misinformation, connect with audiences to build trust, follow up ideas and interests, act independently and never delete (as this could harm your credibility and transparency as an author to your community). This online space will give you the chance to create meaningful connections and networks.

Writing

Sean Michael Morris says that digital words have a life of their own. And that’s very true, they can be taken so many ways and mean different things to various people. So its important to have your writing be interesting, brief, precise, direct, consistent and aware. Pete Rorabaugh notes in his article, Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs, that there is no right way to evolve your writing, and utilizing the digital space to share ideas, comment and critique can only enhance our compositions.

As you embark on this journey to create a successful blog…

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If you type in “blogs” on Google, you will probably find multiple websites that consist of people or people’s talking about their personal life and writing articles on their opinions toward something. You will come across blogs that are about sports, travel, food, fashion, daily life styles, art, religion, politics, and many more. But the real question is, “what makes a successful blog and how do you find the perfect one?”

The first thing that someone will notice on a blog is the style of it. For example, if you look at buzzfeed.com you will find a blog that is not just written by one person but many people. The blog consists of colors, images, emojis, and eye catching phrases. The articles are
funny and the titles are catchy. Gray Matter, the writer of “Why We Love Beautiful Things”, which was published in the New York Times tells us how to catch an audiences eye.

Matter’s starts out by talking about science and how shapes and colors can alert a part of the motor cerebellum. He writes, “Last year, German researchers found that just glancing at shades of green can boost creativity and motivation.” Matter’s then goes on to write about how shapes and designs help trigger our interest and keep us invested into what we are looking at. “These so-called magical proportions (about 5 by 8) are common in the shapes of books, television sets and credit cards, and they provide the underlying structure for some of the most beloved designs in history…” Just by looking at a rectangle or as he calls it, “The Golden Rectangle” you can automatically feel more relaxed when reading something or looking at something. Look at your surroundings, almost everything you look at is a rectangle. The desk you are sitting at, the bottom of your chair, the chalkboard, the window, and even for the majority of people, your cellphone. Layout and design is a massive way to get an audience to check out your blog.

Another important piece of information that beginning bloggers needs to know, is the right way to go about your blog. Brian Carroll who wrote a chapter on blogging in the book, “Writing for Digital Media” explains in great detail about how to be a good blogger. The first piece of information that he shares with us about blogging is the connecting aspect of a blog. When you are a blogger, you want the audience to feel connected to what you are talking about. Carroll writes, “…it would be customary to provide or link to a complete transcript of the speech or to an audio recording or podcast of the event, making it transparent to the reader where fact leaves off and where opinion begins.” You never want to have a source not be cited when talking about something because the reader won’t know who to trust. Carroll also writes that it is very essential to always correct something if you make a mistake in the blog, but do it in the “Corrections” box next to the blog. “The option to erase mistakes in the entries has caused some concern for blog writers about how corrections or changes should be handled.” Never delete information and also, never delete a readers comment in the “Comment” section. The reader is supposed to feel a connection towards the article and the writer so you should always listen to their comments and they might even be helpful towards your next blog.

Blogging today has sky rocketed and many companies have said they are using and planning on using blogs to get feedback and information for their customers and fans. Blogs are an easy way to tell a story, share a fact, and connect on a personal basis to people around the world and that is why these steps are very important when it comes to writing your first blog.

A website should be appealing, it should catch your eye and make you want to scroll down the page. As Hosey said, “It should come as no surprise that good design, often in very subtle ways, can have such dramatic effects.” The such dramatic effects keep people reading and make people want to revisit the page. A person would much rather read a page that had eye catching design and images than a page that is bland or boring, no matter the content. In regards to content, it is important to tell a story or write in a way that people can connect to it. Carroll writes about this concept of “targeted serendipity” and describes it as a “shared point of view and information and sources a reader perhaps didn’t know he or she even wanted to see.” I find this concept very important in good digital writing, if you don’t relate your content to your reader or present things in a way that makes people contemplate topics people won’t keep reading. If as a writer you don’t challenge your audience and draw their attention there is nothing drawing them to come back. Carroll continues to say that blogging is a type of expression where a writer can make their views public. But a writer can’t make any view or opinion public if no one is reading. A writer needs to capture people immediately in the first post, they can’t wait until the third or fourth post because they wouldn’t have any readers. Now a days on the internet if you don’t grab people’s attention immediately, whether in a title or the first paragraph they won’t continue reading. As Morris writes in Digital Writing Uprises, “Good first sentences prompt us to perk up our ears. We read a good first sentence, the lights go down, the music starts, and we look around for our popcorn and candy.”  A first sentence peak people’s interest and draws them in. A good website not only catches people’s attention through the title or first sentence but catches someone’s attention visually and keeps their interest throughout the entire article or post.

Carroll, Brian. BLOGITO, ERGO SUM. N.p.: Routledge, 2010. Print.

Hosey, Lance. “Why We Love Beautiful Things.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.

Morris, Sean M. “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-Order Thinking In The Digital Humanities.” Digital Pedagogy Lab. CC-BY-NC, 08 Oct. 2012. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.

A good blog is only good as long as there is an audience who continuously follows it (so please, follow my blog).

At the heart of blog writing lies a sense of community. That is why I think that in order to create a good blog, one must promote communal participation. According to Carroll, in order to do this you must post to your blog on a regular basis and feature other blogs. You must be open, and invite readers to look at sources, blogs, and other platforms from which you gather thoughts and inspirations from. The very platform of writing in the digital environment promotes a sense of community. As stated by Morris, “digital writing is communal writing,” and our thoughts are active and buzzing amongst our readers. We must form a relationship with the reader, because it is feedback from an audience that drives certain work. In fact, Rorabaugh says that “growth is determined by the encouragement and critique of the community.” Sometimes, we, the blog writers, need a little “tough love” in order to produce our best product.

In other words, as stated by Morris, “we create the choir as we preach and the choir creates us.” So, I ask all of you to come together and actively participate in the process of constructing my blog.

In order to create a good blog you must forge a relationship with the reader. How do you go about doing this? Transparency. As a blogger, you must open yourself up to your audience. Give them your background and any biases you might have so they can begin to understand where the roots of your writing are grounded. Carroll supports this idea by saying, “speak plainly and transparently, and therefore build trust.” Step out of your comfort zone, and walk the fine line of being too revealing and not revealing enough. Your audience will appreciate this, and in turn, you will be one step closer to creating a good blog.

Finally, a good blog must have a good design. According to Hosey, “we think of great design as art.” Therefore, a good blog must have an artistic component that is appealing to readers. After all, as stated by Hosey, “beauty is in the genes of the beholder.” We are all naturally drawn to beauty, thus if a blog is visually appealing it will draw the attention of more readers. My artistic ability needs work, so I will save you the pain of observing me attempt to be artistic and point you to some beautifully designed blogs below.

Beautiful Blogs Within a Blog