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Ways to be Kind to Your Readers - DailyBlogTips


6 Ways to be Kind to Your Readers

Posted: 18 May 2010 08:18 PM PDT


This is a guest post from Bamboo Forest. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Kindness can go a long way, regardless of what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to build a popular blog, well, you might wanna be kind to your readers, as this will improve the chances of them coming back and becoming part of your community. Below you’ll find 6 tips for this purpose.

1. Kill or shorten introductions. They are often unnecessary and can make your post longer but not better. Every time you find yourself writing an intro, ask yourself if it’s necessary for the reader to understand what you’re trying to say. If it’s not, then just cut to the chase.

2. Champion quality over quantity. Sometimes the obsession for a certain amount of posts begins to infiltrate our consciousness. People are reading our posts for what they have to say, not because you just wrote another one. So if you’re only capable of writing one good post a week, then stick with that. Your readers will respect you for it. This concept is especially important to observe when you consider the competition. Your posts have to compete with other A-listers in your niche. How’s a mediocre post going to do that?

3. Commit to having every post be entertaining. For example, I had a long blogging hiatus. While I could have written a post explaining to my audience that it’s going to be a while before I write another post, I concluded that would be the most boring post in the world.

That said, when you just have to get that informational post out there–make it as entertaining as humanly possible regardless of the boring nature of the subject. Humor can work well here.

4. Write clearly. The sign of a great writer is when their readers can start from the beginning of the page and get to the bottom without having to read any sentence twice. Do you have that kind of clarity and simplicity in your writing?

5. Keep your posts as short as possible. Blogging is not about us the authors–it’s aboutthem, the readers. So if you have a post that “requires” 1000 words, see if you can be extremely concise and get it down to 700. Or to put it another way,

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”~Hans Hofmann

6. Step up your game. This isn’t the most conventional way to be kind to your readers, but blogging is highly competitive. Show your readers on a regular basis that your writing is getting more concise, more compelling as well as more entertaining. The best way to do this is to read more, write more and think more. Every few months your writing should not only get better, but it should also become more creative. You should be evolving all the time.

“You can raise the bar or you can wait for others to raise it, but it’s getting raised regardless” says Seth Godin.

What will you do this week to show more kindness to your readers?

About the Author: Bamboo Forest created Tick Tock Timer, an online timer that helps make bloggers ridiculously productive. He also writes for Pun Intended, a blog that’s hilarious and enlightened.

Perjelas Tujuan Blog Anda

Barangkali anda sering berpikir, apakah content blog saya sudah cukup bagus? Apa yang kurang dari content blog saya ya?

Untuk mengetahuinya, anda bisa saja menilainya sendiri. Tapi biasanya karena khawatir dikira subjektif, anda kemudian meminta orang lain untuk mengomentarinya. Bisa teman anda, para pengunjung blog, atau para pakar blog. Tapi semua itu belum cukup. Selain dari diri anda dan orang lain, ukuran keberhasilan content sebuah blog diukur dari diri blog itu sendiri. Maksudnya?

Maksud saya anda bisa menilainya dari niat awal anda membuat blog. Biar lebih jelas, mari kita ingat kembali…

Kemarin saya memposting tentang 8 cara praktis membuat blog sukses spektakuler. Di bagian awal, saya katakan kalau setiap orang bisa saja memiliki tujuan yang berbeda dalam membuat blog. Bisa misal untuk tempat curhat, berbagi informasi, sebagai ajang latihan menulis, mungkin untuk menyimpan dokumen, dan 1.001 satu tujuan lainnya.

Tak ada yang salah dan tak ada yang benar. Karena semua tujuan anda pilih sendiri berdasarkan kepentingan anda. Tapi pastinya saat anda memutuskan membuat blog, anda memiliki tujuan. Sekalipun cuma iseng-iseng, ya itupun tujuan anda.

Nah, berdasarkan niat anda dalam membuat blog inilah, keberhasilan content anda dinilai. Kalau tujuan anda ngeblog adalah memperbanyak kawan, maka content anda dinilai berhasil, bila makin banyak kawan yang anda punya. Begitupun kalau tujuan anda ngeblog untuk menambah pundi-pundi uang, content dinilai berhasil jika uang anda bertambah banyak.

Tentunya, penilaian anda itu bisa dilakukan setelah melakukan promosi blog. Jadi, setelah membuat content, lakukan promosi, dan evaluasi hasilnya. Bila memang sesuai yang diinginkan, content anda berhasil. Bila belum, berarti anda perlu memperbaikinya dalam posting-posting berikutnya.

Maka, menetapkan tujuan ngeblog sangat penting artinya untuk memajukan blog anda. Karena itu sangat saya sarankan sebelum anda membuat blog jelaskan tujuan anda. Apa sebenarnya yang anda inginkan dari blog anda. Dengan memiliki tujuan yang jelas, pengembangannya menjadi lebih mudah. Dengan arah yang jelas, langkah-langkah yang spesifik untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut juga lebih mudah dilakukan. Dan dengan menetapkan tujuan yang pasti, anda bisa menulis content sesuai tujuan itu.