How to Let Your Blog Speak For Itself

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If you're starting a new blog, or looking to increase the readership of an existing one, you should at least consider letting your blog speak for itself. As most people think of a blog as inanimate, this may seem at least a little alien sounding, but it will greatly help your blog to tell the message you intend. For some people, their blog is sort of an alter-ego, for others, an unemotional series of articles. Like it or not, your blog will be speaking, you might as well let it speak for itself.

There are two main methods of writing a blog.

There is the systematic, calculated or programmed approach. This method usually involves sitting down and deciding beforehand what topics to cover and in what order, to most effectively take the reader from the first post through a (hopefully) engaging series of posts that provide sufficient interest to keep the reader coming back for each new lesson. As you can imagine, this approach appeals to people that lead structured lives, or are looking for more structure in their lives. It also works well for step-by-step teaching situations, where each post builds upon techniques or knowledge provided in a previous one.

On the other end of the spectrum is an approach I like to call "stream of consciousness." This method rarely involves any planning or forethought, and the blog posts are typically inspired by what is happening in the life of the blogger, without any particular goal or preconceived awareness or plan. Thus, it is easy for this sort of blog to appear scattered. Another way to think of this is more of a "what I did today" than providing a service or theme.

Both of these methods speak more about you than the content of your blog, and each approach can be good in the right environment.

With either method, you CAN control the voice of your blog if you wish. You first have to decide what sort of voice you want your blog to have, then put yourself into the appropriate "mood" or "mindset" before you start writing each post. You can also have several blogs, and embody each with a different voice. This can be helpful if you have several blogs that have very similar topics or themes. Without independent voices, it can get wearisome writing about the same things. With a different voice for each, the content can be similar, but stated in quite different ways. This can actually be used to test alternative approaches to determine which approach works best in a specific niche.

Begin with an idea or basic plan of what you are going to blog about. Next, put yourself into the mindset of the voice you wish to convey. Imagine your self as the stereotype of the voice. Studious, scholarly, helpful, playful, humorous, witty or whatever. It is much like character acting. Once you have the stereotype firmly in mind, then sit down and begin to write. Periodically pause and read what you've written, and make minor corrections to make it fit the voice. By the time you've done this a couple of weeks, you will find it easy to do, and your blogs will benefit from it.

If you prefer to let the blog speak for itself, you can use a slightly different method, look over the previous posts of your blog and see what the voice has been. Refine it, and put yourself into that state of mind when you write the new posts. Over time, if you re-read your posts before each new one, you will be able to adopt the existing voice and help your blog be itself. The last option is to just go for it, and let the blog be what it is, without any outside influence. However, I bet that after reading this article, you may pay more attention to the voice of your blog.

Before long, you may see significant increases in readership as the voices of your sites gel and others take notice.

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Source by Rick Dayle