FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER.

(Or How to Not to Fail At All When It Comes to Blogging)

Writing this post feels a lot a little bit like this:

It’s not just time, really, it’s the topic, and not even because I can’t obediently pull a few tricks out of my sleeve for people to use; I’m just trying not to vomit my scepticism all over the page. But enough about that for now. Let me be useful for a moment.

When you’ve clicked your fair share of links and scrolled down countless pages, you notice things and sometimes even manage to put your finger on what it actually is you’ve noticed. So here goes—the ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s of blogging:

~ First impression. Visually attractive pages.

Extremely important. Some people prefer clear, plain-coloured backgrounds. For all I care, there can be the next world war going on in the background as long as it doesn’t distract me from the actual content. Colours need to fit, not fight for attention, and pictures are always a bonus.

~Font.

If I can’t read it without permanently damaging my eyes, I won’t read it at all. It doesn’t have to be Times New Romans; there are many lovely fonts that are still easily readable. Then again, most of the blogs have this sorted out (and perhaps only forget that links have to be in a colour that is visible on the background, too).

~Navigation.

An overview of history is almost a must, since it makes older post so much easier to find.  Endless scrolling (which Blogger doesn’t support anyway, as far as I know) is a matter of opinion, but it seems inconvenient to me, again because it makes posts harder to find or bookmark.

~Titles.

I expect the titles to tell me what the post is about. Or subtitles. Or at least the first two sentences. If you’re stubborn like me and absolutely need to play around when creating titles (and even if you aren’t), #tagyourstuff! Really, people, tags exist for a reason.

~Cutting the posts.

…but sadly, tags don’t help too much if the post is five pages long and they come at the end. So how about putting four and a half pages under the cut? Nobody is going to read all the posts on a blog, and people probably don’t want to pull a muscle while they’re scrolling. (It would be awkward to explain to the doctor.)

~This is an English blog.

So make it English. Not just the posts, but everything.

~Opinions. Feelings. Passion.

There already is a page that’s meant to present new topics to people—it’s called Wikipedia. Articles that present the most important facts about something and save people an hour of searching the web are helpful. Articles that give personal opinion beside the facts are helpful. Even pure ranting can be helpful if it fits your mood. But the basest of information that one can find by googling the thing and clicking on the first result?

The best posts are the ones written with passion, and passion always goes deeper than a Wikipedia summary.

~Topics. And risks. (Because there are always risks.)

This is where it gets tricky. The posts need to be interesting, therefore not always the same, but usually, blogs have a basic topic. They need a topic, be it cooking, or the life of an English housewife in the USA, or even Benedict Cumberbatch cupcakes (yes, that’s a thing). Readers will search for blogs that have something of interest to offer them. If somebody is looking for beauty tips, they will not follow a blog that posts one beauty tip every 200 posts; it’s as simple as that.

(The problem? Following a single main topic goes against the purpose of this (and all the others) university blogs. If I suddenly spammed this site with DIY projects or frostiron gifs… Well. Let’s just say there’s a reason some people have more than one blog at a time. There’s my scepticism again. However many analyses of blogs we do, however many tips we write—what is a blog without followers? And unless people find somebody’s views incredibly fascinating, they won’t stick around. Oh yes, read a post or two, by all means, but follow for years?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy blogging, and ranting about topics that interest me comes easy. Writing about things I like, things that fascinate me—these are all good pieces of advice worth following, but honestly, there is a cage of propriety built around this whole blog. The anonymity internet offers to people, the chance to talk about everything and nothing without being judged in real life (sadly, anon hate is a thing in internet, so judgement can hardly be avoided there)—that’s not a luxury you get when your words can potentially be dissected and graded one after another.)

Okay, this has gone so far off topic it’s not even funny anymore. Back to successful bloggers. They have blogs that are visually attractive and easy to navigate, and well-written posts that don’t bore people to death with their utter lack of passion and are properly titled and tagged.

What I did/am going to do? Well, I changed the font a bit and added post tittles to history, consequently editing the layout. My mission? Pictures. And more pictures.  Oh, and not writing the last posts the night before the deadline. That would be nice.