How to be Heard

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=2

^Read this if you want some tips on how to be heard.

So you’re new to this blogging business, eh? So am I. So you want to be heard by everyone, eh? Well I really don’t care. Now, if you don’t mind blogging for no reason, wasting your time, wasting the time of whoever stumbles across your page, then don’t bother with this article. It’s that simple, but this is Stephen Downes, blogging extrordinare! How can you simply ignore him?

Now, what is it that you need for a successful blog? According to Mr. Downes, you need: a purpose, a plan, a process, content, inspiration for said content, a good design (web designers can get something out of this too), good format, and basic manners/conversation skills. That means that you can’t just keep talking, but you have to listen. There’s an old saying about that, but I don’t quite remember. Anyways, you need to listen to be heard. If you don’t listen, you don’t know what people want, or people just start not to like you. The things that you talk about will start to lose relevance. Now, Mr. Downes didn’t say all of this, but I’m adding to it. Because blogs do have a reactive element to it. You don’t have to make up something everytime you write. Sometimes you could just respond or add to something that you have experienced, or read, or heard.

Of course it’s hard to just respond to any and everything without any direction. Just like anything you do, you need to know what you want to accomplish before you accomplish what you want. Once you figure that out, you need a plan of action. Let’s say that you’re a new college student and you want to survive it all. First of all, you need to know how you want to survive it. Do you want to simply pass or do you wan to pass without being buried in debt? Let’s say you want to be able to manage your debt once you’re out of school. You now have a purpose. Now you’ll need a budget.  This counts as your plan. Then you’ll need to constantly check your budget and adjust your spending accordingly. That is your process.  How does any of this tie in? I’m applying something personal to add to the content. That way, people can connect to me. Making a blog is similar to making a college budget. You need to know what you’re writing for and what it is you’re writing. Then you’ll need to develop a writing schedule. Then you’ll need a writing process.

Oh, look at me. I’m summarizing the article like I have nothing to say. Let’s get to the part I appreciate most out of the article. The design aspect of any website is one of the key components to success. You could have the best content in the entire world, but have nobody to read it if the place that it’s stored is an eyesore and hard to access. Don’t have so much stuff on a single page that it’s hard to load. Archives are your friend. A few well organized navigation links could work wonders for everybody. Use text that’s easy to read on your background. Light colored backgrounds with dark text are also recommended, but I prefer my sites to be dark. Large text in an easy to read fonts are an essential to any successful site. It doesn’t have to be outrageously big, but don’t type in a size or font that would get you a failing grade in school. They fail hard to read fonts for a reason. Well, that’s all I have. It’s a great article, very useful, simple enough to understand, and it covers all kinds of things. I’ll make note of it whenever I start a new blog. That’s what this one guy happens to think.

2 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI