Consistency and quality: Developing a visual and editorial voice for your blog
The definition of a high-quality blog is one that’s convincing, cutting-edge and classic. Flowery, fancy language is great for novelists and authors, but when it comes to writing a blog you need to develop a visual, editorial voice that reflects and reinforces your brand values. This voice also needs to be consistently implemented across the board in all content you choose to put up on the web.
Writing about design can be tricky – as the saying goes; pictures tell a thousand words. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create a vivid image in the mind of the reader without having to resort to a catalogue of pictures. It just means you need to work hard on developing a strong writing voice. It’ll take a bit of time and a degree of patience, but with plenty of practice you can create the kind of high-quality design blog that’ll have readers coming back for more every time you post a new entry on your site.
A unified, unique visual theme makes your blog much more attractive to readers. Firstly, you need to think carefully about navigation at the top of the page. You don’t want to overwhelm your readers with too many options, but you don’t want to appear as though you’re short of content either. Three or four categories are usually enough – with home and contact pages essential inclusions. Incorporate links to related content throughout your blog pieces, and always remember to stuff in a Call-to-Action at the end. There’s no point reeling an audience in just to let them go once they’ve finished reading the article. Think carefully about the psychology of color when it comes to the design process, and be strict with yourself when you need to be. A lot of the time – less is more. Too many buttons here and logos there could give the reader too much to look at, meaning they’ll miss the good stuff or simply click away to a less intimidating site.
Developing a distinct personality for your blog is vital – and it’s not difficult to do either. If you want to be seen as playful and fun to your readers, use colloquial terms, idioms and everyday phrases they can relate to – the sort of words and expressions they’d hear in everyday conversation. Perhaps a few humorous GIFs or videos sandwiched in between paragraphs to improve readability may be useful in this instance. On the other hand, if you want to appear like a knowledgeable industry leader, implement esoteric terms across the board in your content, perhaps with an accompanying footnote so these words are defined clearly at the base of the page. If you want to show that you can talk the talk, you’ve got to have the evidence there to back it up, otherwise a ‘clever clogs’ reader will pop up in the comments section pointing out the flaws you’ve so foolishly decided to publish. It’s crowded online – and your blog will need to have a distinct personality in order to attract a specific type of audience. Pick some attributes and stick to them.
Good blogging websites don’t materialize overnight. As an example, the writers at BAE Daily worked extremely hard to develop a distinct voice over time. They wanted to produce the kind of content that readers could get a kick out of and really enjoy – exclusive, quick, high-quality content “before anyone else”. So what does BAE mean: The definition of a successful blog is one that demonstrates an interesting editorial voice; a vital element in a meaningful blog, as this will allow you to keep hold of the audience that your blog’s personality managed to attract in the first place. Your blog’s writing voice and visual design ought to go hand in hand in order to create a cohesive feel to your site and reinforce brand values – and this can take a bit of tweaking and experimenting when you first start out.
Producing exclusive, unique and well-written written blog pieces on a regular basis will ensure the reader soaks up the content and memorizes it, as opposed to half-heartedly skip-reading it in order to locate the beef and substance of the piece. Start strongly by immediately telling the reader WHAT the piece is about and WHY they ought to read it. Web users don’t have the time or patience to read something that isn’t going to enrich their lives in some way or another. Get to know your audience and research what their needs and desires are so you can tailor your content accordingly. Draw on your own experiences as a writer and implement them where you can. People like reading stuff they can relate to. Cut through the fluffy stuff and attempt to produce content that’s practical and useful from start to finish.