Who else wants to be a better blogger?

Saturday, 19 August 2006 @ 12:55pm by Kathleen Bright

I'm doing well with the whole blogging enterprise so far.

"If you want a powerful, publishing platform that gives you an enormous amount of functionality, you won’t do better than Wordpress."

It seems I'm on the right track. Everywhere I turn, I see generalised endorsements of the choices I've made. I chose the right blogging platform, I'm focusing on the right advertisers, it's a good idea to be blogging professionally in the first place.

But that's not what I want. I'm glad I'm going in the right direction and that researching my options is leading me to make reasonable & rewarding choices. However, none of this praise is helping me to improve. I need to be learning what it is I'm doing wrong. The whole premise of one of my blogs - Make More Mistakes - is that one of the very best ways to learn is by doing the wrong thing. It is through failure that one can be successful.

I'm happy about my gradual success, but I want to challenge myself. I want to be optimising & improving. If you stand still, you end up behind.

So, I invite you to tell me what I'm doing wrong!

Next steps - development of All Things Bright

Linkbaiting

There are numerous blogs & articles devoted to the practice of systematically linking to numerous (relevant!) posts, offering three parts praise & one part criticism. I think this is a great practice, so I'll be starting my own regular programme too.

No related posts.

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5 responses to “Who else wants to be a better blogger?”

on 19 Aug 2006 at 8:28pm IanW

It's difficult to say what's wrong; your designs are eye-catching and pleasing, the functionality on your sites is pretty complete, even your advertising is non-intrusive.

The only thing I could think of — and understand that I'm reaching here — is that maybe instead of half the posts on here being about how to improve the site, maybe you should have more 'ordinary' content instead?

For example, of the ten posts on here currently, five are about improving this site, two are poetry, one welcome message, and two are about Macs.

Personally, I like the range of subjects so far, but as I say, maybe a little heavy on the improving side? It really is all I can think of :-/

Ian
on 20 Aug 2006 at 12:34pm Kathleen

Ian, thanks for commenting and for your kind words about All Things Bright.

I agree that I need to write more 'ordinary' content - All Things Bright is definitely a reflection of my main concerns & focus; I've been focusing so much on making it brilliant that I forgot that 'content is king'. Doh!

Thanks for the timely reminder.

My next update is due tomorrow, so look out for some shiny new content - more interestingness, less meta-content.

In the meantime, I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve, as well as more general ideas about what I should write about. So keep commenting! :)

Kx
on 25 Aug 2006 at 1:18pm Michael Pollock

hey Kx:

thanks for the link.

in answer to your question … what are you doing wrong … it depends upon your goals. but i detect a little impatience in your writing; like you're trying too hard maybe.

best - mp
on 27 Aug 2006 at 8:48pm Kathleen

Thanks for the comment, Michael; it's really helpful to have feedback.

I am quite impatient, although I hadn't realised this had carried in to my writing. I suppose I feel that being a voracious consumer of tonnes of blogging advice I should be a household name by now. :)

I notice you've got a recent post linking to 'Unsuspecting Secrets to Fast Blogging Success' - looks very apt for me, thanks for that.

Kx
on 26 Mar 2007 at 5:42am Phil

Design can be a personal thing - I like things uncluttered and neat with not too many distractions. You blog is somewhere in between for me (just my opinion though!)
When you first arrive it takes a little time to orientate yourself - its not really clear. The posts are very clear though which I like and advertising isnt intrusive but some stuff just isnt user friendly. for example on this page the 'recent posts' section is a long way down below no way near any of this post - you have a lot of stuff in that side bar. the resources section seems quite unorganised and i personally dont see the point of those calendar things. You have some really good stuff on this site - good content and your certainly committed but i think it would be nicely to try to compact and organise it a little better. On the upside you havent gone graphic crazy which would kill it for me being on a dialup.
Hope im not too harsh - just trying to give honest critisism.

http://makingmoneywith.blogsome.com/