Write Stories, Not Just Entries

Guy Kawasaki recently wrote, in "The 120 Day Wonder: How to Evangelize a Blog" -

If you want to evangelize your blog, then think "book" not "diary"...

While he was may have been speaking from the perspective of marketing your blog as a 'product', this line stuck with me for another reason; books have usually have better content than a diary - they're generally more interesting/exciting/adventurous.

If you want to pull people into your site, you have to write great content. We all know this; it's one of the first lessons a "pro" blogger (or any blogger) will be told. The thing is, what makes great content? Which is the content that pulls people in and gets them hooked.

Today I caught up on my podcasts. Yaro Starak is one of my favourite podcasters, who in one recent episode interviewed Darren Rowse of Problogger.net fame. During the interview they get talking about the content they've had most success with. Both agreed the more "personal" entries feature highly. Those entries that come from the heart.

I'm not surprised. As readers, we are attracted to blogs because they are more personable than a traditional newspaper or corporate web site. Unfortunately, we see many blogs turn into little more than rewrites of newspapers. These blogs aren't interesting. The interesting blogs are the ones where the author takes the nugget of news and relates it to his or her own self. By putting a piece of themself into their entry, a blogger can make a connection with us, the reader. Interesting blogs don't just tell us what happened on a given day, they also tell us why they happened and what the author took from it. Even the dullest subject matter can be made interesting if you can weave a good story around it - just look at The Da Vinci Code!

Even less obvious sites like Engadget write the more personable, "story" entries. Although it may look newsy, Engadget uses a very conversational style of writing. It's a bit like chatting with a friend. Even when they're talking about something I have little or no interest in, I usually read to the end of the entry because they pull me into it.

If you keep your writing in a personable, "easy-going" style, and relate what you write to yourself, readers will be drawn in. They will warm to your content more an more with every little bit of yourself you give.