What’s Wrong With The Way Bloggers Write?

I was with some bloggers last weekend over at Kape Isla in Serendra- and we were all hanging out with Butch Dalisay and the good people of the Blog and Soul Movement.  I’ll be blogging more about that later on, and probably in another blog of mine.

In a nutshell though, we were all hanging out that afternoon to learn more about Creative Writing and how that all fits into blogging and the blogging lifestyle.

Besides that, there were a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes and discussions that came about.  For me, there was this very thought-provoking tidbit:  thanks to blogging, almost everyone has become an author and publisher- but what you don’t have is a whole lot of editors.

I couldn’t agree with Butch more.  A recent post I’ve read (gotta find it so I could link it here) says that, in the Philippines alone, you already have an estimated 200,000 bloggers, up from just 40,000 from a couple years back.

It should be a great thing, right?  After all, I’m one for encouraging self-expression- and what better way than blogs?

So why is it that when I randomly visit blogs through Multiply, or on Blogspot or WordPress, and even worse, on Friendster, I can’t help but feel dismayed at how some of these bloggers write?  The list of atrocities can go on and on- but right there at the top- abyssmal grammar, diction and sentence construction, writing as if texting on a mobile phone, and straight-out plagiarizing.

So out of the 200,000 bloggers in the Philippines- how many are actually coming up with quality blogs?  20%?  5%? Ask yourself this question- out of the last 10 or 20 blogs you visited, how many of those to you plan to visit again?

I have to admit, I’m not perfect as far as English usage is concerned- and many more would admit to the same.  But what we all really need is an active effort to improve the way we communicate with others, especially our blogging audience.

Here comes the importance of really thinking about giving something back to your audience- a lesson learned, some valuable tips and information, at least some entertainment.  So yes, you can blog about “I woke up at 7am today and went to the gym…”, but in the end, it’s really about having a good story to tell, which your audience would also want to share with their other friends.

If anything, that afternoon with Butch Dalisay and the Blog and Soul Movement has inspired me to do something more with my blogs- I’d like to be able to help out other bloggers.  Not just with building blogs, but also with writing.

Definitely a project worth exploring in the very near future.  And I welcome anybody else who’s willing to work with me on this.

Cheers, everyone.

Fixing and Re-positioning This Blog.

To be completely honest, I may have neglected this blog a bit- it’s been weeks since I last posted anything here. Mainly because I’ve been working on a few other projects these past couple of months.

The good thing is that is has given me a sort of clarity- an understanding of what this blog is supposed to be in the grand order of things.

I was just reading Aaron Wall’s SEO Book the other day (which is a highly recommended read, if you haven’t checked it out yet), and it sorta gave me an idea of how to go about fixing up my site.

Simply put, I have to consider three very basic things:

1. Who’s my target audience? Or more like, who would I want my blog to appeal to?

2. What do I plan to offer? Exactly what kind of content do I plan to put in “The Life and Times of The Renzie Man?”

3. What makes this blog different from all the millions of other blogs out there?

Those things considered, lemme go ahead and figure out what this blog really is all about. Here we go…

My Intended Target Market.

Who do I want to talk to? I want to reach out to an online audience who’d like to know how it is to live in the Philippines, from the point of a 30-something dude. That means reaching out to all kinds of travellers, locals interested in the bachelor lifestyle, my fellow Filipinos abroad who’d like to have a glimpse of home, and pretty much anyone genuinely interested in me- though I can’t imagine who, and exactly what kind of people those would be :).

What Kind of Content Would Be in this Blog?

This blog is a personal blog masquerading as a lifestyle-oriented piece of work. So while it is definitely something for shameless self-promotion, it aims to share useful tips, articles and opinions along the lines of…

• Bachelor Living in Metro Manila.
• Living Life Easier - Work-life Balance Tips and other useful bits of info to get the most out of our 24 hours a day.
• Workplace Woes and Worries- Don’t quit your day job- but don’t let your life revolve around work either.
• A Healthier Lifestyle- my attempt at losing the extra weight at least.
• Fun in Metro Manila- where to dine out, great spas to visit, local destinations, etc.
• My current projects
• Making money online- a little extra cash is always good, wouldn’t you agree?
• What I’m into- again, it’s all about me.

My Unique Selling Proposition.

The truth is, the blog is all about me, and therefore, I am selling me. This blog represents one of my first efforts in blogging. It is a true online journal of me and my little misadventures, not some blog meant positioned towards a particular niche. Of course I will come up with a concept blog from time to time, or pursue some online project- yeah, I’ll be linking it up here, so anyone who’s also interested can also check it out.

Now that I’ve pretty much figured it out, let’s get back to blogging now, shall we?

Blog About Stuff You Care About!

The following post originally came out in one of my other blogs, “Blog. Blogger. Bloggest!”. Check out the rest of that blog for more insights on the world of blogs and blogging. Particularly useful for you who are just starting to blog, and those wanting to build better blogs. Enjoy!

I just read this article on the New York Times about “Blogging Your Way Into a Business”. I find it interesting that regular folks like you and me can find their way into a lucrative enterprise by way of their blogs.

If its one thing I’ve learned- no matter how hard you try to get into it- you can’t write about stuff you don’t care about for long. I have this blog- “Blog. Blogger. Bloggest!”- mainly because I care about learning how to blog better, and helping other casual bloggers to build better blogs.

Over the past few months, I’ve positioned myself as a writer-for-hire. So I end up writing for anything from pet care products to industrial packaging and memory foam. I can tell you right now that it didn’t quite work out very well. I can only care so much about how memory foam is made, right?

So I started working on a couple of other blogs- I now have one on radio and the music industry, another on gaming, and then another on food reviews. Kind of shows exactly what kind of guy I am, right? They’re all in the content development stage right now, and not meant to be marketed yet until a few more posts. I also plan to write up one on TV, another on movies, another on business, and the project list can go on and on.

I know it’s not going to happen just yet, or at least not anytime soon. I mean, it’s great if I managed to stumble onto something lucrative doing this, but it really doesn’t matter. For as long as you’re doing something you absolutely like, something you feel really passionate about, you can just focus on developing good content.

Okay, maybe the money matters a little. Got bills to pay too, you know. But that’s what the day job is for

Bottom Line: Blog about something you care about. Keep at it. You’ll never know when opportunity comes knocking at your door. And when it does, you’ll be more than ready to take on new challenges, and reap the rewards of what you’ve sown.

Cheers, everyone!

I Like AddThis.com!

The following post originally came out in one of my other blogs, “Blog. Blogger. Bloggest!”. Check out the rest of that blog for more insights on the world of blogs and blogging. Particularly useful for you who are just starting to blog, and those wanting to build better blogs. Enjoy!

In my quest to find out how they put little “Bookmark This!” buttons at the bottom of every post on your blog, I have managed to stumble upon (no pun intended) a rather useful service on AddThis.com.

As a blogger, you’ll want the buttons from AddThis.com because of several reasons, all pretty much pointed out on their homepage.

1. It allows for easy bookmarking. Once a reader likes one of your posts, you have a button right there that allows bookmarking on several services- Technorati, Digg, Facebook, MSN Live, Furl, Ask, Del.icio.us, Google, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Yahoo MyWeb, Twitter, and so much more.

Note that I probably haven’t even familiarized myself with some- okay fine- a lot of these services, but let’s leave it at that for now, and get back to them in greater detail later on.

2. It helps promote your site. Sending content to social bookmarking services like those mentioned above helps bring traffic to your site. So, yes, you’d want to do this.

3. It increases your rankings. More traffic means a greater likelihood of people linking to your site, and therefore, higher ranking on search engine results pages.

4. It reduces overall clutter. No need for separate codes and buttons for each bookmarking service. One less thing to worry about, so just keep on churning out good content!

5. It’s easy to install. No shit. If I have been able to figure it out, so can you. Assuming you already have an account on AddThis.com, just click on the large ‘Get Your Button’ button on the home page. Pick the kind of widget you’d want- whether one for bookmarking or one for subscribing to your feeds- and how it looks like.

You go to a page which enables you to put an AddThis button on your blog, and gives you a code to put on your template’s html coding so that all your posts have an AddThis button at the footer of every post.

6. It comes with free statistics. Because sometimes, you’d like to know more on how readers are bookmarking and sharing your content.

7. It’s very reliable. Heck, a lot of sites and blogs already use this service, including Time.com, TechCrunch, ABC, Lonely Planet, Freewebs, Tower Records, just to name a few

8. It’s free! Can’t argue with that, can you?

So if you’re building a blog, go right ahead and sign up for an account on AddThis.com. Get the buttons for your blog, and keep on posting!

Cheers!

Diddling with Del.icio.us

The following post originally came out in one of my other blogs, “Blog. Blogger. Bloggest!”. Check out the rest of that blog for more insights on the world of blogs and blogging. Particularly useful for you who are just starting to blog, and those wanting to build better blogs. Enjoy!

I was playing around with my del.icio.us account the whole day today, mainly trying to figure out how to slap a del.icio.us script at the footer of each post, versus just having one at the side of my blog.

Del.icio.us is a free social software web service for sharing web bookmarks. See, there used to be a time when you’d bookmark your favorite websites from whatever PC you’d be using at the moment. Del.icio.us takes all that bookmarking several steps further because, not only can you store all your personal bookmarks on an easy-to-use, easy-to-access online account, you can also share your bookmarks with other people, as well as check out what other people are bookmarking.

So in essence, del.icio.us allows you to create your very own list of links, categorize it, and share it with others. You can access this list anytime you’re online, so you can practically bring your list of links and bookmarks to any PC or laptop you’re working on.

As a blogger, you want this service. For several reasons:

1. On the front page, you can see what are the hottest topics/pages/blogs at any given time. You’ll want a quick way of finding the newest, or the most popular resources online, especially on subjects related to your blog.
2. It’s a great way to market you and/or your brand, or in this case, your blog. You would want to use del.icio.us to promote your blog and your individual blog entries with other people.
3. It’s really meant for networking. You’d want to hook up with people who also look for the same things you do, and share bookmarks with them, as they share theirs with you.
4. It’s a great way to archive your blog. Del.icio.us allows you to keep track of what you’ve already writt