{"id":9494,"date":"2013-05-04T05:50:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T09:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=9494"},"modified":"2013-05-13T16:54:54","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T20:54:54","slug":"making-the-grade-what-makes-a-blog-post-successful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/making-the-grade-what-makes-a-blog-post-successful\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the Grade – What Makes a Blog Post Successful?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Imperfect-blogger\"<\/a>With Blog Paws only a couple of weeks away, it naturally got me to thinking of all things, blogging, which led me to the realization after self-analysis of the top basic rules to follow when creating a good blog post, that I was mediocre at best and needed to give myself the \u201cImperfect Blogger Award.\u201d Or, if you prefer, \u201cThe Flawed Blogger Award,\u201d or \u201cThe Blogger who Just Can\u2019t Conform to the Golden Rules of Blogging Award,\u201d or just simply, \u201cThe Bad Blogger Award.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"cat-rules\"<\/a>Now before anyone gets in an uproar, after all, I am up for a Nose-to-Nose Award<\/a> from BlogPaws for Best Blog Writing, let me explain. For those of you that blog, I\u2019m sure you have seen the \u201cmust do\u201d guidelines for being a good blogger and how to create a perfect post. The lists vary, but there are a few suggestions that seem prevalent amongst all those giving advice, with the first one being that ever powerful acronym, SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. In real estate terms, that would mean location, location, location, but for a blogger, it means keywords, keywords, keywords.<\/p>\n

Basically, a blog post and title should be rich in key words that trigger search engines like Google to bring your post to the top of the page rankings when people are looking for a relevant topic, product or service. So, if you are blogging about a review<\/a> you are doing for NVR Miss Litterbox<\/a>, you better include those words in the title and not something generic like \u201cMy Cat Fluffy Meows About her Bathroom Habits\u201d and think that will drive traffic to your site for people who genuinely want to read a review about NVR Miss Litterbox.<\/p>\n

\"NVR-Miss-2\"<\/a>

This photo is taken from the NVR Miss Litterbox review that I did last year – I must have done a good job with the keywords, because I am still getting feedback on this post.<\/p><\/div>I will admit that when I do product reviews, giveaways, and informative posts on subjects like spay\/neuter, that I am very conscientious of this and do my best to help direct traffic to my site by using relevant words. But when I do a general post that is about my cats or something I am pondering about in life, I write with my own style and I don\u2019t succumb to key words, because to me, if I can\u2019t let my natural voice be my inspiration, then my post is not genuine and I am not going to be happy with the content. It\u2019s kind of like watching a TV show and seeing a product placement that doesn’t have any bearing on the plot \u2013 I feel the viewer is smarter than that and knows that it is nothing more than a marketing ploy. That\u2019s why for me, when it is a post about my own ramblings, often the title I use is something that just feels right to me and is not keyword driven at all. So, I guess on average, I would rate myself a \u201cB+\u201d in this category.<\/p>\n

\"zee-and-book\"<\/a>

That’s odd…. I don’t know how my book that would be the perfect Mother’s Day gift got in this shot of Zee in the kitchen…<\/p><\/div>A \u201cB+\u201d is not so bad, but when it comes to the next bit of advice, I\u2019m probably more in the \u201cC-\u201c range \u2013 keeping it short and simple, which apparently all posts are supposed to be in order to retain the attention of readers. Umm\u2026 here\u2019s the thing, guys, I\u2019m a writer who went to college with the intention of getting her Masters to become a history professor. I was going to write a thesis on the overall impact of negative stereotypes on the Native American culture. I\u2019m short in stature, but not in words\u2026 Let\u2019s just put it this way \u2013 I know that some of my posts are long. But not all of them are and\u00a0I try to break them into a series if I know they require a lot of explaining like the\u00a0one I did in February on the various aspects of the importance of spay\/neuter.<\/p>\n

My feeling is this \u2013 you are all intelligent human beings and I respect your time. I try to make my posts as entertaining and compelling as possible, but if you don\u2019t want to read them in full, or at all, then that is your prerogative and I don\u2019t begrudge your decision either way. There are plenty of blogs that are written in a variety of styles \u2013 some with less content than mine, and yes, believe it or not, some written with more content than mine. I am not going to bend on this one and humbly except my \u201cC-\u201c with no intention of changing my style to conform to the cookie cutter, sound bite world we live in. And, to my credit, I do fill my posts with a lot of great pictures to keep the topic interesting and not one big, long article, which brings me to the next bit of advice that is given to have good blog posts. Pictures\u2026<\/p>\n

If there is one area where I can easily say I follow the golden rules of being a good blogger, it\u2019s with pictures. No matter what the topic, I always make sure to have at least one or more great photos, as a matter of fact, watch this:<\/p>\n

\"CUTE-CATS\"<\/a>

Gratuitous picture of adorable kittens that has nothing to do with the post at hand, other than to momentary distract you from the overwhelming length of this post. These kittens do not pertain to my life at all and I have no idea who they are, other than being cute… .<\/p><\/div>There, see, for no reason whatsoever, I just threw in a distracting<\/del>\u00a0photo of some stunning\u00a0kittens to keep your attention.\u00a0 I think I deserve an A+ for that little move\u2026<\/p>\n

The last \u201cto be a good blogger rule\u201d that I break on a weekly basis, giving me a pitiful grade of \u201cC\u201d is the one that suggests you must blog every day to keep your reading audience. People, I\u2019m sorry, but my cats and my life is just not that interesting, not to mention, I work a full time job and can barely keep up with posting twice a week. I do my very best to be relevant and keep up with things, but just how many national this and that days and themes are there? I pick and choose the ones that are important to me, but I leave the rest for other bloggers who do it so much better than me. Not to mention, if you don’t want to miss any of my elusive\u00a0posts, all you have to do is subscribe to my post notifications and that problem will instantly be solved.<\/p>\n

\"lady-in-tub\"<\/a>

Between all the causes, themes, and everything else to keep up with in the blogging world, sometimes it’s just too overwhelming and I want to say, “Calgon, come take me away!” (Remember that commercial?)<\/p><\/div>So, what about you? If you are a blogger, do you follow the rules to the tee, or are you more like me, somewhere in the middle? And what about you, dear readers? Do you gravitate more towards the blogs that follow the rules or do you have a different method for what you look for to hold your interest in a blog?\u00a0I would love to get some feedback as to what readers enjoy. I know for me, just like reading a good book or watching TV, I like a variety of styles and am grateful for all the talented bloggers that offer such a plethora of options.<\/p>\n

\"deb-and-peanut\"<\/a>

I love an editor like Peanut who tells me to take a break from blogging and play Fairyland on Facebook instead… Priorities people, priorities…<\/p><\/div>Oh, and unlike other blogging awards, I won\u2019t choose 5 bloggers who I\u00a0also feel are rule breakers to pass the \u201cImperfect Blogger Award\u201d on to and make them answer 7 questions about why they are suched flawed bloggers like me.\u00a0But if you want the award for yourself and feel like chatting about your blogging style,\u00a0then by all means, please feel free to grab the award badge for your blog!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Blog Paws only a couple of weeks away, it naturally got me to thinking of all things, blogging, which led me to the realization after self-analysis of the top basic rules to follow when creating a good blog post, that I was mediocre at best and needed to give myself the \u201cImperfect Blogger Award.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,3],"tags":[330,598,203],"class_list":["post-9494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-blogging-writing","category-inspiration-healing","tag-blogging-2","tag-keywords","tag-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Imperfect-blogger.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9494"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9612,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9494\/revisions\/9612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}