As a continuation of last week’s post about blogs vs articles, I
recently read an article that purported to show the differences between a blog
post and an article online. Let’s look at some of the elements they listed:
Article: Casual
writing style on a blog post, scholarly in an article.
MC: If you are writing on a travel blog about your
vacation or recent mission trip, you could be casual with lots of photos and
comments on the fun you are having and give some historical information about the
site without being scholarly. However, if you are writing an article for an
online encyclopedia about deserts in Egypt, a scholarly style is in order
without your comments about the fun you had sliding down a sand dune in Egypt
with your children. Note I said scholarly; I did not say boring.
Article: A blog
post is primarily your opinion about the topic; whereas, an article post is
more factual and doesn’t allow for your opinion.
MC: Don’t be fooled. Readers want to know what the
topic will do for them, and they depend on your help to see that.
Followers are Key: Readers
expect more from
those they follow. They expect well-researched information, but they want more
from you. They want your opinion. They can find a list of facts in any
encyclopedia or a quick Google search. If you want them to follow your
site regularly and recommend it to others, they must “tune in” to find out what
your take on the subject is. They want to know what you think, feel, and opine
about the facts based on your experience. A few clicks and they know whether you
are regurgitating a list of facts or interpreting the list to assist them to
understand the topic. And, yes, they want to be up close and personal.
Caution: Giving out personal information may come back to
haunt you. You’ve seen the cops and robbers television shows that send shivers
up your spine. Use some practical safety guidelines when giving out family
information like home address, children and grandchildren names and pictures,
your social security number - gotcha ya! Be smart about what your share with
the world you cannot see.
As a freelance blogger
and newsletter writer for a wide variety of clients from plumbers to physicians
(although what they do is similar in construct: analysis and treatment), I do research
on a specific topic with a request from my client. Coupling that information
with client personalization: opinion, their services that address the topic,
coupons, specials, recipes, etc. all in the same vein, is the difference in whether
someone signs up for their site and cashes in the coupons they offer. I could regurgitate
facts from Internet research, but the post would be dry as dirt and far too
technical for their average client. When I write for IT companies, I include
the products—software, hardware, apps—they have tried, along with information
on what worked and what didn’t meet their expectations and the hype. These are
the experts readers turn to when making purchase decisions.
Article: Grammar
and spelling correctly are optional on a blog and optimal in an article.
MC: Ridiculous on sooo many levels.
Do you honestly believe that misspelled words and grammar mistakes,
which aren’t intentional like using the word “sooo”, improve your professional appearance
online? However, having fun with regional idioms and words you create like I
wrote last week with “bloggish” make you as the writer more human and win
followers, which is the name of the game. One thing I have always liked about
Hope Clark on her Funds for Writers sites is the casual and friendly pictures
she posts of herself, her dogs and chickens, her gardens. They bring her to life
on the page. I learned quickly to respect her weekly editorials and referral
sites for freelance work, contests, grants, etc., but it was her smiling face
that lured me in that first year. I’ve been following her for ten years!
Article: A blog
post has no interviews; an article has research and interviews from experts.
MC: This no longer applies. They both have interviews
and research.
Interviews build
credibility for the
owner of the blog/website and the person being interviewed. You gain
respect for your contact capability and insider knowledge. The expert, well,
you know that part.
Create a list of questions to draw from. Use four to six of them that
speak to the expert’s specialty. Be sure and include “insider” questions such
as what is your favorite writer, quote, book, food, or vacation - anything that
makes them more human and humane. Think this doesn’t work? Look at any magazine
on the newsstand. Almost 100% of them have at least one interview. Pull
questions from those lists to make your list reader-friendly. If you are knowledgeable,
readers will keep coming back.
Article: A blog
always focuses on SEO’s (search engine optimization); an article doesn’t.
MC: The assumption here is that search engines don’t
care about keywords in an article; they let the length do all the work. Not
absolutely true.
When Google tightened down on keyword stuffing, some people
assumed keywords were a waste of time. If your piece is to promote your new fiction
book about preppers in the United States, and you don’t use the title of your
book, the words preppers or United States or better yet, preppers in the United
States, frequently in the article, particularly the title of the post, how are
browsers going to find your piece? I won’t go into the standard way of
calculating keyword density here, but there is a basic formula to use. If you
want more info, go to http://www.bestseoideas.com/seo-factors/keyword-density-formula-calculation-for-google-seo-6
or http://www.ehow.com/how_2341682_calculate-keyword-density.html.
If you type calculating keyword density into your browser, you will see
hundreds of other sites as well.
Responding
to Comments
Never ignore a comment to your post or article.
Never.* Unless you don’t care about what your readers have to say or think it’s
stupid, or your disagree so vehemently, you snatch out a handful of hair when
your read it.
Take a few minutes to think
about what you want to say and then type. A simple “Thank You.” isn’t enough.
Come on, you’re a writer, you can think of at least one sentence to explain
what you are thanking them for.
Example 1: “Mahala, I agree with your comments about freelance blogging. My
experience is….”
“Thank you, Marilyn. I had
a similar experience when….”
Example 2: “Mahala, I completely
disagree with your comments about freelance blogging. The people I wrote for
were rude and never wanted to pay me more than $10 for a 300-word post! What a
waste of my time!!! You shouldn’t encourage writers to take that kind of money.”
“Thank you for your
feedback, Marilyn. I’ve also talked to potential clients who wanted to pay low
fees, some as low as .0001 a word. I never work with people who aren’t willing
to pay a respectable fee for the research and time it takes to create a
professional piece. Best of luck with your freelance work.”
If James Scott Bell, Rhys
Bowen, James Patterson, Hope Clark, Stephen King, and other very busy and
popular authors can take the time to respond to hundreds of comments weekly, I
can do my part in my slip of the world. And, yes, I know that these authors may
pay a person to do the responding for them, but what does that say about them?
They respect their readers enough to pay out of their own pocket to ensure that
each comment gets a personal response.
*Except for obvious spams, which we were inundated
with several years ago. This brings up another point. Always, always, always
have administrative control over the
posting of comments, so that a comment is never posted online for the public to
see unless you approved it. It’s a control mechanism that comes with every reputable
blog and website vendor, and you can opt in or out of the control.
Headlines
(aka as titles)
One
final thing about headlines to encourage readers to click on your post/article.
In September 20, 2013, Marcy Kennedy, author of Strong Female Characters wrote a guest article on http://writersinthestorm.com, an
excellent site with valuable information. It did a beautiful job of explaining
how to write killer headlines and why that is important. I mentioned this last
week, but it bears repeating. Go to their archives to read the rest of the
article. The example on bacon is wonderful. This is the idea Marcy explains:
The
Shocking Truth About Doctors (vague) What shocking truth about what?
Overweight cardiologists? Anesthesiologists who steal from patients under
anesthesia?
The
Shocking Truth About What Your Doctor Might Be Doing to Harm Your Health
(specific)
Marcy
reminds writers to follow with a piece that gives the reader an obvious
benefit. What’s the takeaway from the piece? In a piece like this, it obviously
needs fact-based research with article references to back it up. This goes back
to my post last week. What do you want the reader to see, know, and learn after
they read your piece. See previous post in Archives on Blog Post vs Article/August 26, 2015.
If
writing headlines send you around the bend (Southern for drive you crazy), go
back to the magazine section of the library or newsstand and look at the covers.
Magazine marketers are experts at writing headlines, so we will buy their
magazine.
Drop me a comment about your experiences with your freelance and
personal writing of blog/site posts and articles!
Write Like You Mean It ~ Mahala
So, where did his worldwide success come from, besides
having some natural talent for story telling? What he did was set about
learning and analyzing the genre he wanted to write, so he could become the
best writer he could be. Like most authors (I think the generalization is true),
he started out writing part-time because he had a day job. Now, he writes
full-time, every day but Sunday. As of January 2016, his books have sold more
than 350 million copies worldwide. 
Those possibilities exist for all authors, even James
Patterson, Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell, et al., and sometimes, though not often,
they have a book that doesn’t sell. Fortunately for their fans, they
never stop writing their wonderful stories.
I also suggest that you write for yourself first. When you’re the
only one you have to please, it reduces the stress of arranging coherent
sentences into a story arc on a blank page. 
