In the last decade, if not longer, blogs have become a huge part of multimedia communication. They provide an easy and flexible way to share information and are just plain fun. Running a successful blog takes some work, but if you use these tricks, then you shouldn’t have any trouble. These tips can be applied to a professional or a personal blog and I can personally attest to their success! 1. Give them the punch line at the beginning. There is a lot of information on the internet and, if you want someone to commit to read your whole article, your reader needs to know EXACTLY what they are reading about pronto. 2. You’ve caught their attention with the title…now keep their attention. Your blog needs to be appealing and engaging, both visually and verbally. When it comes to design, avoid being overly flashy by sticking to two or three colors at the most. Four is sometimes okay, depending on how you play it. I tend to find that three colors are about as much as I can handle from a reader’s viewpoint. 3. Your tone and voice is important. Blogs are not research papers, so a formal tone is not necessary. Keep it light and pretend like you’re having a conversation with your readers. 4. Be concise. It’s very easy to ramble and stray from your original topic, so if you catch yourself going off track, work your way back. Avoiding long, wordy sentences helps to keep your blog posts focused. Think sweet and simple. 5. Link back to older pieces in your posts. I do this on my personal blog a lot. For example, if I’m writing a new blog post and I want to reference a point I made in an earlier post, I might write, “As I stated in my previous post about Virginia Tech Football…” and “previous post” would be a hyperlink to that post. This is a great way to refresh your readers’ memories, and to direct them to a post they might have missed before. 6. Pictures, pictures, pictures! No one likes reading a giant wall of text because it strains the eyes. Break it up with some related images. I wouldn’t use more than five images, depending on how long your blog post is. Two to three is ideal.
7. Headings are another great way to break up text. If you can, use bolded headings to separate different parts of your blog post. 8. Have a reason to blog. Don’t blog just for the sake of blogging. Blogging once a week, or even once every couple of weeks, is okay if your posts are focused and about specific topics. Otherwise, it comes across as if you’re blogging just to take up space on the Internet. Write with a purpose. Lastly, have fun with your blogging. If it’s fun for you, it will definitely be fun for your readers. Edited by Melanie Ford, Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief 2013-2014
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