How Do You Know When You’re Writing a Great Article?

July 16, 2007 ·
Filed in Blogging ·
2 Comments

The top bloggers in the industry advise that for your blog to be successful you only write quality articles, but the fact of the matter is, there really is no way of knowing if your article will be popular before you write it. Sure, there are a few (okay, a lot) of instances where bloggers simply write about their daily routine. We’ve all seen it, a blogger writes something along the lines of “Today I ate at X restaurant...” and they expect the reader to be interested in what they’re saying. Let’s face it, it’s just not going to happen unless you’re a blogging icon like John Chow and have already built up an extraordinary reputation in the blogosphere and have a devoted reader base that hangs on your every word.

Ok, Now We Know What Not to do

Now that we know what isn’t going to be popular, how do we know what will be popular? Like I said before, there really is now way of knowing. Today there are over six billion people surfing the Internet and there is a better than average chance that more than a few people out there will enjoy what you’re writing, no matter the topic, but there is a better chance of gaining readers if you writing contains a little more substance than something like your day to day routine.

So, What’s the Moral of This Article?

Well, the point is, don’t be afraid to write an article about a topic you think may not be popular as you never know when someone might stumble across your article and fall in love with your blog. When I first started this blog, I had all kinds of ideas for articles, but couldn’t get my fingers working to write them. I was so afraid I wouldn’t write a good article. There is only one thing worse than a bad article and that’s an article that was never written. I have since started practicing what I preach and have decided to write about anything interests me (what I had intended to do in the first place), because I know, out there somewhere, someone will find it useful, or interesting.

So, go ahead, unwrinkle that piece of paper and write that article!

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Comments

1Titus-Armand jabbered...

“There is only one thing worse than a bad article and that�s an article that was never written.”

In some cases it’s better not to write at all… A poor article can lower the credibility / reputation of your blog, while the lack of writing only costs you some readers.

Anyhow, it depends on a lot of variables and I guess it’s okay both ways.

Posted on Mon Jul 23, 2007

2Deron jabbered...

Yes, that’s very true. If you write an article, and it turns out to be bad, it could lower the credibility of your blog, but the catch is, there’s no way of knowing if it will be bad before you write it (well, in most cases anyway). Blogging is so difficult in that you almost have to be perfect for your blog to catch on and become popular, but there’s no way to know how perfect you are until you simply take the chance and write the article and hope that it’s decent enough that people don’t laugh at you.

Thanks for checking out my site and the comment! You’ve got a nice site as well (checked it out after I noticed your MyBlogLog visit). Also, I hope you don’t mind, but I edited your comment. I hadn’t realized I made a typo in my article and you quoted it in your comment. I changed the word “good” to “bad” in the line “There is only one thing worse than a good article...” as “good” really didn’t make sense the way it was used.

Posted on Mon Jul 23, 2007