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Watch Your Tone, Find Your Voice
By Max | August 24, 2007
I have been wondering what makes some bloggers so successful. A lot of bloggers have an easily identifiable catalyst which propels them to the forefront of the internet. John Chow’s blog hit the front page of digg a couple times in a week. Then he changed his focus to making money on the internet with regular transparent updates. This proved interesting enough to keep people coming back. Shoemoney’s blog started gaining popularity when that huge adsense check began circulating around the internet. A few other blogs I read became popular because they are such a trainwreck. Casey Serin is a good example of this.
However, I think there is more to it that that. A lot of blogs get dugg, but then have trouble maintaining the traffic. I think this is because of a writers tone. In my opinion my writing style on this blog is pretty boring. I have good information, but perhaps its presented too much like a text book. My personal blog does a little better job of sharing a glimpse of my personality. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of compelling posts over there. So now, I am going to try to write in a style that is more personal. If your readers get to know you, they’ll be a lot more likely to come back. Maybe I’ll be successful in finding my voice, maybe I won’t. We’ll see. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
I suggest to you bloggers, that you go back and read some of your old posts. Ask yourself if they are interesting to you. Do you want to know more about the writer? I can always tell that I have found a good blog when I want to click the “About” tab on their site, to find out who is behind the blog.
Topics: Article |
August 24th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Writing with emotion is a good one.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Also writing with a in extremes, i.e. you’re either totally for or totally against something and making it clear to the user by the way is which you describe something to be ‘totally amazing’ or ‘totally crap’
August 24th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
damn I hate how you can’t edit your comments, i sound asian (bird-english grammar) lol.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Yeah polarizing the audience is a successful tactic of bloggers. If you make them passionate enough to comment, you’ll have them hooked.
I think if you create an account on this blog, you could probably edit your comments. I can edit mine. Or I could edit yours for you.
August 24th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Your content is what hooked me on your blog to start with. Over the time I have been a reader I feel I have gotten to know you somewhat but I wouldn’t say you have a persona identifiable to your blog so to speak. I have blogs in my reader because of the bloggers personality or charisma. But most of them are in my reader for their content.
By the way, I like the textbook style because there are fewer of those available out on the net.
August 24th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Asking oneself if the content is interesting is not the best bet. Asking someone else if the content would be interesting is better.
The content on my site would only be interesting to a small minority of people who think like me. Most people don’t care to hear about FOMC repos or irregularities in their composition. Most people don’t care about net international investment position, balance of payments, etc.
So why do I write about it? The other piece of advice given often is to write something about which one feels passionate or it will suck anyway.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
It was the site content that got me hooked on this blog. The lack of personality you speak about doesn’t bother me because your posts are so informative.
Still, if you’re considering revising the tone of this blog, you may want to think about consolidating your personal blog with this one — your Million Dollar Ideas and Business categories would fit in this blog nicely.
But that’s just my 0.00002 cent.
August 25th, 2007 at 1:19 am
I totally know what you’re saying about the tone…it’s bringing a certain personality to the page.
It helps differentiate your site from the corporate websites that blogs are so desperately trying not to be.
And I agree that the content here is the hook. You are REALLY BORING!
Kidding! But when I think about it, I definitely attribute your personal blog to my forming an opinion about your style or tone.
And I’m really killin the gramma tonight, my apologies!
August 27th, 2007 at 7:31 am
For this website, it’s the content that I care about and not about your personality. I’m here to pick your brain, not date you!
It’s well known that a blog’s success depends on the writer and that they write what they are passionate about. Some blogs can get away with a diary of a personal’s day but that person will have to be a great writer in order to get people to empathize with them and keep coming back.
On that last note, I’ve been paying especial attention to the number of repeat visits that I get to my blog. My unique visitors’ number has been much higher than I would ever have expected with a number of well over five hundred for this month when I never expected more than a couple of dozen a month but, more importantly, the repeat visits’ ratio shows me whether or not people keep coming back for more.
I’ve also been paying attention to how long people stay at my site. It’s one thing for people to simply drop by for a few mins for an update and it’s quite another when they spend hours reading your posts. That’s pretty flattering.