5 Lessons About Blogging

Posted April 15, 2007

As you may have noticed, a bit of buzz was generated by my review of the Grand Canyon Skywalk. Keacher has a great analysis of the traffic. This post was my first big blogging success: it made the top of Reddit and the front page of Digg. Overall, I recorded over 120,000 unique hits, over 70,000 in one day alone. As my goal was to get the word out about the questionable pricing of the Skywalk, I think it's been pretty successful.

The experience has taught me a few things which I hope to apply to my future posts. I've grouped them into five main points:

1. Don't get discouraged by negative feedback. There is always a group of people who, no matter what you write, will think you are nothing more than a blathering idiot. This is obvious due to the effect of the corollary: the more a person thinks you are a blathering idiot, the more vocal they will be about it. It shouldn't have surprised me, flamers and trolls have been around since the first bulletin boards appeared on the Internet. I was mostly surprised by the venom in some people's responses. It seemed that some people were confused, thinking that I'd researched the price on Wikipedia. But after adding an explicit clarification to the post and seeing the same types of comments coming in, I realized it was not my problem to worry about. Their opinions were set, they were going to think I was a moron no matter what, and it wasn't worth the effort to try and change that.
2. Omit Needless Words! My posts have a tendency to ramble, especially when I am telling a story like the one in the Skywalk post. While I feel like I was able to pare down the text somewhat, a more concerted effort would have produced a clearer result. The lesson cannot be stated any better than Strunk and White's . "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
3. A good headline is key. One of the main reasons this post hit it big was the word Joel used when he linked to me: ripoff. One of his readers took that word and used it as the title for both the Digg and Reddit posts. "Grand Canyon Skywalk is a Ripoff" grabbed a lot more attention than "My Review of the Grand Canyon Skywalk" would have.
4. Don't be afraid to be controversial. I have seen many reviews that were so foul and harsh that I found them virtually useless because of the bias implied by the writers' tone. To avoid losing credibility that way, I tried to write the post in a neutral, matter-of-fact way. For the most part, I reserved judgment on most of the points and kept my language pretty bland. I should have spiced it up a bit and let more of my personal opinions come through.
5. Post Frequently. Since getting this much exposure, I've had a little trepidation about my next post because I really want to make it a great follow-up. But the fact is, I don't have another big expose or anything else sensational to write about. But that doesn't mean I don't have good things to write. I should be writing shorter posts more frequently. Not all of them will be gems, but it's better to get it all out there, because every once in a while, one will be, and I'd rather write some flops than miss out on getting a good one out there.