Blogging – Page 2 – Harmonia Philosophica

Free Blogging Advice (FBA) – Episode 3: Develop your story.

Free Blogging Advice: Writing is hard. And easy. The goal of the Free Blogging Advice (FBA) series of short articles is to provide some free advice on… blogging! All you have to add is some time and effort. And love. Lots of love.

FBA Episodes

Now that we have decided to start writing (see previous episodes), we need to develop the story of our site.

Story: The narrative that describes the intent of your blog. The story will explain to the visitor why he or she is here, what they should expect to read and what the blog will offer them.

You need to publish the story in your About page. In that way you will establish the identity of your site for anyone to see.

But what should a story look like? First of all it needs to be simple. If you do not have it clear in your head then your readers will be confused as well (and most probably will not come back to you site).

Secondly, it needs to be emotional. Emotions is what drive the world around and you need to invest in the emotions of your readers to capture their interest.

Last but not least, your story needs to be a… story! What I mean by this is that you need to convey your message to your readers through an actual story, i.e. an anecdote, a tale that will have a hero, a problem that her or she needs to overcome, a climax and a resolution. This is easier said than done. But you need the story element in order to reach to your readers with a compelling and attractive way. Just stating what your site is about is not enough. If you just just wrote down the goal of your site like a corporate statement then it would look like a… corporate statement. You need more than that to engage with the visitor of your blog.

Stories captivated us when we were children. And still do. Everyone likes a good story. It is more probable to remember something that you heard in a story than something you just read.

As an example you can read the story of Harmonia Philosophica here. It is a short one, as a story for a site must be. And it tries to convey the message of this site, i.e. that being irrational and non-thinking is the best way to think.

Whether you like it or not is another story…

To be continued…

Free Blogging Advice (FBA) – Episode 2: What to write about…

FBA Episodes

So you made the decision to start writing.

The world is split in two categories of people: Creators and consumers.

You chose to be the first. Good for you!

But now that you did, there comes the first big decision that you must make: What to write about?

There exist millions and millions of possible things that can be the subject of a good blog/ site. From philosophy to cooking, from military aviation up to jokes for atheism and religion. How do you choose?

The answer: You do not!

If you already have made up your mind to write (see Episode 1), it is most probable (almost certain actually) that you have already made that decision without knowing it!

Wanting to write is always accompanied by the urge to write about something specific. Do not try to analyze what will have the greatest potential for more readers, or what is more viral these days. Don’t lose time trying to figure out what subject is the most promising when it comes to attracting viewers in your site and do not spend time thinking what subject would be more amazing to show to your fiancé (or fiancée).

Creating content is all about you!

And your heart already knows what it loves.

Just stop thinking and listen to your self.

(I know what I like…)

This is your subject!

No matter how weird or niche this subject might be, the basic advantage is that it is what you like! And this makes it not only an excellent choice but also the only choice at hand! You can only sustain writing about what you really love. Anything else is just work. But with blogging you want to enjoy yourself! And what better way to do that than by writing about things you enjoy writing about? (Yes, this is a tautology and that is why it is true – read more Harmonia Philosophica about this)

And who knows…

You passion for what you love might one day convert that small blog into a multi-million dollar business.

(Although I would never recommend that, but we will speak more on that in another episode)

Free Blogging Advice (FBA) – Episode 1: The beginning…

FBA Episode 1: The beginning

How does every journey starts but with a first step? And how important that first step is cannot be exaggerated enough. Whether you do it or not will determine whether you will be called a writer or not. Whether or not you take it will determine if you will be a creator instead of just a consumer of creations.

So before everything else, one should do the obvious: Start writing!

It is as easy as it sounds. And exactly because of that, it is so difficult!

Many people dream of writing but never do. There exist a ton of excuses not to. It takes courage to overcome that first hurdle and doing so is solely on you. There is no magic pill, no magic recipe, no magic advice. If you cannot just open your computer and start writing then this series of articles is not for you. If you cannot open Word or any other writing application and start producing content then there is no need to discuss advice in good blogging and writing.

So that’s it.

If you have already started writing and you have content already created then you have successfully passed the first stage for successful blogging.

If not, then do so immediately.

Next FBA episode: Decide what to write about!