The Moojik Times

Ari

  • 02:56:27 pm on May 9, 2006 | # | 4

    100% LinkabilityBased on How Linkable Is Your Blog Post by Google Blogoscoped, here is a layout of the Do’s and Don’t’s in detail as explained (extracted from the site without the hassle of counter-checking the pointers, of course).

     

    Do’s

    • Start off by explaining the post’s core idea

    It’s good practice to use an “inverted pyramid” style of writing online. This means that you start off by explaining the main idea of your post, and you later expand on the idea with more details. This way, people with little time can easily decide whether or not they like your post. After all, if someone doesn’t understand what you want to talk about, that someone might just leave. “Prime” your audience in the first sentence so they know what to expect.

    • Write posts that contain more than 3 paragraphs of your own writing

    Make sure you write something original, and not just a few sentences. When people link to content, they usually go straight to the source… so if your blog doesn’t have much content, or just links to the real content (which is nothing bad, it’s what link blogs do), don’t expect to get too many backlinks.

    • Do a Spell Check

    Spell-checking your content (the Google Toolbar for Firefox is great for this) is part of making it easier for people to read. The more concise your writing, the faster people can grasp your ideas. While some spelling errors just make your writing seem sloppy – which might decrease the trust people put in your fact-checking precision – other errors force people to re-read the sentence to understand it.

    • Write topics that had been sitting in your brain for quite some time

    Sometimes the best post ideas are the ones covering a subject you care deeply about (and do care about for a long time already).

    • writing about a subject that is close to your heart

    Write about subjects you deeply care about. This makes your posts much more valuable to others.

    • Be the first to report

    Being original is great – don’t become a mere blogosphere echo chamber, pointing to what everyone else points to (unless you’re a general link blog). There’s nothing more linkable than a real scoop.

    • First-hand experiences are best

    If you’ve researched your blog post’s subject (on the web or in reality) you’re passing on new, valuable first-hand information. If you just report on what someone else blogged about, this might be of interest to your audience, but the chances that others link to this post are slim (they might as well link straight to the source).

    • Have profound implications for a company, celebrity, or politican
    • Have profound implications for your readers

    Your readers come to your blog to learn something, to laugh, to waste time, etc. If you can provide your audience with a tutorial that helps them improve their life, or if you inspire them, or at least amuse them, people will like the post more.

    • Make your posts in-tune with the overall topic of your blog

    If you have a blog about heavy metal music, it will be hard to get your audience interested in a post about teddy bears. The more “in-tune” your blog post is with the rest of the blog, the more likely that your audience enjoys it.

    • Consider yourself an expert on your posts’ topic(s)

    Write about what you know – the more you are an expert on something, the more likely your view on this issue helps others. (Note that the more you cover a specific topic, the more you will become an expert on it… so keep blogging.)

    • Illustrate posts with screenshots, drawings, or cliparts

    Sometimes, a small illustrative or explanatory image can go a long way to improve the linkability of your post. It just makes an article feel more fun, and more complete. Naturally not everyone’s an artist or designer, but there are many Creative Commons licensed photos around on Flickr and others.

    • Include videos, audio files or ZIP downloads, if needed

    Can you offer people some data as part of a ZIP file? Did you make a screencast to help people understand your idea quickly? Did you create a podcast accompanying your blog post? All these additional media types help improve your post’s value to your readers.

    • Use the Creative Commons license to share content

    The more you are willing to share, the more others get the chance to play around with what you create, and the higher the chance your content gets to travel around the web. Licensing your content more freely by applying a Creative Commons license is the best way to tell others that they can play around with your content.

    • Checked your blog’s appearance in at least 2 browsers

    You can install a couple of browsers, at least Firefox and Internet Explorer, to check how most of your audience will see your blog. Additionally, you can use a tool like BrowserPool to check your blog’s template on different Operating Systems (like Mac, if you use Windows, and vice versa) and more exotic browsers.

    • Validate your blog’s HTML after posting

    Sometimes, an unclosed HTML tag can ruin your design… and sometimes, this will only happen in the one browser you aren’t testing your blog with, so you won’t notice it. Pay a visit to the W3.org validator every once in a while to make sure your HTML is healthy (usually the best document type is XHTML1 Strict, or HTML4 Strict).

    • Read my own post for clarity at least twice

    You should read your own post several times to check if you made everything clear. Did you talk about B without explaining A first? Did you omit an argument that is necessary to reach your conclusion? Also, make sure that a newcomer to the subject can easily follow your explanations. (You don’t want to only write for an audience of experts, even if your blog mostly attracts this audience… who knows where a link to your post might end up!)

    • Use links, bold/ italics/ underline/ strikethrough, or lists

    Use links, bold or italics/ emphasis to spice up your post. This allows your readers to quickly scan your post.

    • Blog daily, or rather more frequently

    If you blog daily, you increase the chance of people actually noticing your latest blog post. Not everyone uses an RSS reader. At least regulars who doesn’t use an RSS reader wouldn’t be disappointed when they see an updated post rather than loading your page just to see the same news last week.

    • Write in the most common and universal language: English, if possible

    If your blog is in a language other than English, it won’t be able to easily attract a worldwide audience (as unfair as that may be). If you’re blogging about a topic of global interest, and your grip on English is OK, then it’s best to post in English even if that’s not your native language. Or worse, have that translation babble fish thing accessible nearby.

    • Allow comments, increase interactivity

    If your blog post can’t be commented on, it feels more stale and less dynamic. Also, the chance you will be pointed to a factual incorrectness will get to be more slim. Only certain big blogs (like Boing Boing, or the official Google Blog) get away with not offering comment functionality…

    • Create controversy

    Don’t shy away from saying something controversial if you believe it’s necessary in the discussion. While trolling for controversy is the worst you can do, your post should be an interesting, perhaps challenging read.

    • Submit to top ranking sites such as BoingBoing, Digg, Metafilter to increase possible readership

    Boing Boing is the #1 blog according to many rankings – if you think your post fits with Boing Boing, submit it. Or you can sign-up to post something at Metafilter. Or submit your blog post to Digg.com (make sure it’s original content, not just a link).

    • Send posts to a mainstream news source

    Do you have something news-worthy? Maybe another journalist is interested.

    • E-mail friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbours, the mailman, the milkman to let them know about your brilliant article
    • Make your blog readable by many people

    Tell everyone about your best writings… they might not have the time to check your blog everyday.

    • Cite your sources and deliver proof for what you say or write

    There are many potentially interesting blog posts people don’t pass on simply because it’s unclear where the information is coming from (or it’s unclear whether or not it’s true in the first place). Make sure to avoid this by clearly citing your sources (e.g. a linked “According to the NYT today…”), and by always giving as much proof as possible (e.g. in the form of a screenshot, which while not a final proof, is still a good hint your content is authentic).

    • Be funny, or at least inject humour once in a while

    Humor is a great way to make your readers memorize your blog post or link to it. Also, humor often makes it possible to compress a more complicated debate into a to-the-point statement. (As a bonus, you’ll get away with saying something radically controversial, pretending you were “just joking.” Heh.)

    • Make your website load fast even under heavy traffic

    The worst possible thing to happen is that just when your post takes off, your server goes down from traffic. When you want to take your blog to the next level make sure you are up to it with a fast and reliably strong server package. Just imagine you’re on the Digg frontpage and your server goes down… how likely is it that a) people come back to your post the next day and b) people digg your post? Not very!

    • Include your full name at the top or signing off at the bottom of your post

    If people don’t know who you are, there is less of a chance they trust your writing. And if people don’t trust your writing, they will not link to it. Make sure your are transparent by including your full name somewhere close to the actual blog posting… on every page.

    • Make the “About” page accessible in your site’s navigation. Include your bio and photo in it

    Sometimes someone new to your blog will check your About page to make a judgment on a particular post of yours (“Who’s this guy, does he know what he’s writing about?”). Only if you link your “About” page prominently from every page of your blog will the stranger be able to get to know you better. The more approachable you are, the more linkable your blog is. Don’t be just another faceless blogger… let people get to know you and publish your photo on your about page. Include a short bio as well.

    • Check your blog statistics every few days

    Check your blog stats every other day so you know where you stand as part of the larger blogspace discussion. For example, if you find out that XYZ.com linked to you, and you’re getting 1,000s of XYZ’s visitors… make sure your blog post is understandable to the XYZ crowd. If necessary, update the intro to your blog post so that it becomes easy for the XYZ crowd to grasp it (but do label your changes).

    • End it with a “BANG!”, like Whoaaa!

    The last sentence will be the one lingering in your reader’s mind for the longest. The way you end with an article determines how people remember it. It’s best to end with something funny, thought-provoking, or a good conclusion of your thoughts.

     

    Don’ts

    • Including puns in your title

    You say “My post title includes a pun.” Puns make bad microcontent – they are hard to understand in RSS readers. You don’t want to lose people who figure they aren’t interested in your subject, even when they might actually be. (An example of an actual post headline is “Telepathic Bug In WordPress“… unless you read the full post, you might not figure what the whole article is all about)

    • Having long titles as long as 10 words

    You say “My post title includes more than 10 words.” The longer your title, the harder it is to quickly grasp it. However, people need to get the gist of your idea to link to it.

    • Not customising your blog templates (just like mine! heh..)

    You say “I use a standard blog template.” Often, using a standardized blog template (the kind which services like Blogspot offer) hinders your blog from standing out. Your blog post may be seen as just another discussion of the topic… but maybe not the best article on the subject. Your design doesn’t have to be perfect, but if it’s unique, people will remember it better.

    • Having a more than 250kb post including heavy loading images

    You say “My post is above 250 KB (including images).” If your post is too heavy, people on slow connections might get impatient and leave. This prevents your ideas from spreading. Make sure your pages are quick to load. A typical image doesn’t need to be 100 KB; using JPEG you can compress mostly anything to 20-30 KB. If you use table layout, try to replace it with a lightweight CSS layout.

    • Having a large ad on top of the main content

    You say “I include a large ad on top of the main content.” Everybody understands that you might want to make some spare change by blogging (or eve make more than that, if you’re on your way to become a full-time blogger). However if you include too many ads, and you give them preference over your content – e.g. by placing them right atop your post – it becomes less likely a blogger point to your post (in particular if it’s a rather short post). Always give the actual content the main focus over ads.

    • Ad colors resembling your main content

    You say “My ad colors resemble my main content.” Make sure your ads don’t look exactly like your main content, or people might think you’re a spam blogger. While it’s true that those ads exactly resembling your content get higher click-thru rates, this comes at a price: less people might link to your blog, and thus less people read it. Less traffic, naturally, also means less click-thrus in the long run.

    • Decreasing the font-size quite a bit to make the layout look better

    You say “I decrease the font-size quite a bit to make the layout look better.” One of the biggest readability hurdles for your readers is when you have a font that’s too small – increase its size. A tiny font might also make a blogger think twice before sending her audience to you… after all, that audience may not be able to comfortably read your post.

    • Using affiliated links inside a post’s content

    You say “I’m using affiliate links inside my post’s content.” If you use affiliate links in your content people might question your integrity and objective point of view. If you make money by linking to something, clearly label this link with e.g. “advertisement” or “sponsors” or “related ads”

    • Including animated ads

    While ads are a perfectly fine way to finance your blog, don’t let them become annoying to your readers. Depending on the overall tone of your blog you might want to steer clear from too much animated ads, as they might make it harder for readers to concentrate on your writing.

    • Including an ad that pops up or is overlaid on the content

    Don’t use popups or ads that are overlaid on top of the content – ever. Unless you have the scoop of the year, most bloggers won’t link to you if you do… just to protect their own audience.

    • Using chunks of javascripts in your site

    You say “I’m using several JavaScript widgets (like counters) in my blog.” The more JavaScript- or Flash-based widgets you include on your blog, the more probable it is that one of them goes down and stalls your blog. Don’t let that happen – your blog posts must be lightweight and relatively independent. Only choose those widgets that are most important to you (maybe your stats software tracker code) and make sure to remove them quickly if they go down.

    These pointers are in fact debatable and they are up to your own discretion and decision to how you could make your site a better place for a link back or better increase your readership and traffic.

    Hey what do I know? When I first took the test to check on how linkable my posts are, I only scored a linkability of 68%.

    There could be more pointers to include in the checklist of How Linkable Is Your Blog Post which I am sure many webmasters and bloggers are experts in.

    Personally, having good, original and fun content would be the basis of others linking your posts to their sites apart from having a magnificently, beautiful, navigational and easy on the eyes design that loads pretty quickly.

    Now if you think you are having an annoyingly irritating blog that have chunks of scripts or animated images that could make a machine explode, go change it already!

    Have fun with http://www.howlinkable.com. Be honest and tell me why you scored as much.

     

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