A “detour” is a “deviation from a direct course of action”. Given the perspective of this blog, providing value in and within each post is somewhing we strive for and given the nature of our personal life (medical internship/journalism), this is far from being a possible task. This is where I see many bloggers succumb to the universal blogger problem:
Quality or Quantity?
When trying to settle for a compromise between quality and quantity, many bloggers miss the essentials of blogging. Blogging as it is, is a powerful, growing medium and the following ways will show you how to yield this power carefully.
1. Attribute Your Material
In copyright law, attribution is the requirement that an author be given credit for their work in any context in which it is used. It is required by most copyright and copyleft licenses, such as GNUFDL and CC-by.
In simple term, attribution is giving credit to one person’s work or idea. Often, I see bloggers quoting awesome statistics or work without providing any source or proof behind these alleged facts. As the web is evolving nowadays, knowledge too is evolving rapidly. It is therefore part of your duty as an authoritative blogger to inform your readers about the source of your material and clearly indicating recognized information quoted in your article.
Essential Points:
- Where does the information come from (A http link is sufficient.)
- Who wrote or disseminated this piece of information (Blogger/Author name suffice)
- Plagiarism is a serious offense and is intricately linked to attributing your sources. You should be aware about rules governing copyright.
“Copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally “the right to copy” an original creation. In most cases, these rights are of limited duration. The symbol for copyright is ©, and in some jurisdictions may alternatively be written as either (c) or (C).”
You will earn people’s respect by following these bloggers’ Rights and Duties.
- Ignorance of the Law does not make one exempt from compliance thereof.
- Make it easy to distinguish paid and editorial content.
- You should ask author’s permission to translate his/her article.
- You should not present stolen content.
- You should use copyrighted material only if you have explicit permission from the author to do so
[Smashing Magazine : Copyright Explained]
2. Write Articles, Not Blog Posts
In no dictionary will you find a definitive meaning to the term “post” or “blog post”. A blog post can be a simple line, a rambling of several paragraphs, a picture or a well-written and carefully thought out piece of useful information whereas an article is a written composition in prose, usually nonfiction, on a specific topic, forming an independent part of a book or other publication, as a newspaper or magazine.
To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.
[UseIt : Write Articles, Not Blog Postings]
For a further indepth knowledge on why articles serve a far better purpose than blog postings, go and read this highly informative ARTICLE: UseIt : Write Articles, Not Blog Postings
3. Do Not Write News, Create News
The blogosphere is highly filled with “contagious posts” that starts somewhere and spreads itself everywhere, with many bloggers coughing it here and there.
This is of course malpractice for the blogger aiming to make a name in his or her niche. Voicing one’s opinion is one thing but having many people voicing their opinions on a certain subject at the same time devalue your blog. Why do people visit your blog? To learn something. So why will they bother to visit your blog if your blog is telling them the same thing which can be found easily in thousands of other blogs.
4. Post Frequency Myth
Every blog about blogging I have seen has been focusing and writing about the need to post frequently.
8.9 Posts Per Week - Too Many? Not Enough?
Why blog post frequency does not matter anymore
One obvious post frequency most bloggers use, is a post per day. Albeit this is a good technique for improving page impressions, I do not recommend this method. Unless you have a blog network with a team of talented writers like the newly created Freelance Switch, or you are a full-fledged problogger, I say post only when you have something useful to say. Credibility is a very thin line and you should walk this line carefully. Do NOT undermine the trust bloggers have put on you one day when you wrote a flagship content, only to let them down the next day when you tell them how your girlfriend dumped you. (I know this is not a very realistic example but I hope you get the idea! 
)
One of the most successful blog I’ve seen defying this myth is the North x East blog. Collis was posting every day but due to strenuous circumstances, he had to drop his posting frequency to only an article per week. But guess the result? His feed subscribers increased from around 400 to around 1161! This is a x3 growth. The only underlying reason behind this growth is the fact that the quality of the articles have increased as a result of posting less. Readers prefer high quality articles, even if they are spaced out in time to daily blurbs that teach them nothing.
5. Gain a Status
Your information must be authoritative. You must indicate your qualifications as a blogger. I consider that all information presented on your blog must be attributed and all training/qualification in the niche you are blogging must be mentioned. One interesting discussion I had with Leo Babauta of Zen Habits was the fact that he had no medical training and yet gave out health tips on his must subscribed blog.
But he had the courtesy of mentioning that he found his tips from more reliable sources and he doesn’t claim to judge their validity. He does attempt to make it known he is no specialist in 16 tips to triple your workout effectiveness where he says:
Disclaimer: First, I’m not a certified trainer. These are tips I’ve read elsewhere that work well for me. Second, you should always get a doctor’s approval of any new workout plan….
Thus, Leo as a blogger has gained my esteem, not only because of his well-written posts, but because he was honest to state that in certain
field, he had not the required qualification but he is doing his best to circumvent this “problem”.
6. Privacy
This principle is applicable to all sites , even if your site does not contain a blog.
You must describe how you treat confidential, private or semi-private information such as email addresses and the content of emails received from or sent to your visitors. You must inform your visitors whether their data will be recorded in your own database, who can access this database (others, only you, nobody), if this information is used for your own statistics (anonymous or not), or if these statistics are used by third party or other companies.
7. Advertising Policy
Clearly distinguish advertising from editorial content.
Advertising policy
Whether or not advertising is a financial ressource of the site, an advertising policy must be plainly stated. All advertisements and any promotional, commercial or information in the form of articles, or display advertisements (banners or logos), must be clearly indicated and easily indentifiable as such, and distinguished from other information.
Advertising indicator
All advertising (including, but not limited to, pop-up windows and banners) should be identified with the word “Advertising” or similar identifying clearly the sponsor.
If banners are served from a free web hosting service or ‘banner exchange’, the webmaster must clearly state that the advertising banners are from the free Web host and are not endorsed by the site editor.
8. Be Your Own Editor
Although this point has been hashed and rehashed by many bloggers already, I still consider many bloggers lacking in this respect. Improve your article by drafting them first, proof-reading them twice and doing thorough research on the subject beforehand. Of what use is spending two-hour writing an in-depth article which has already been covered extensively on other blogs.
For a further read: Make Your Blog More Powerful by Optimizing the Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Image: GemSuite
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Tags: 35 Comments
35 responses so far ↓
posted by ????? Hans ???????
euhh .. sry, thought it was Hans [ currrently wanted
] who wrote this article …
nice article, though its a bit toooo long for me to read ..
Probably Yan. anyway, yeah, Hans-kun is currently wanted
Nice article
i drifted through some of the points, but will soon check it again when i have the time.
Great post. As a previous journalism teacher I know that attributing information can be difficult for some people…but it has to be done. All you have to do is copy and paste the URL.
It also will get you trackbacks, especially if you are using blog traffic.
You are also correct about the medical stuff. Many people try to pass off biomedical and therapies and it can be dangerous. ALWAYS cite that information. I have a biomed site that I make sure to cite information for because I have all of my information from experience only.
Definitely some food for thought
.
I personally am sorely dissappointed when I find a blog I enjoy and hten a few months into it the writer of said blog begins to post nonsensical ramblings that are of no value to anyone but themselves. You’ve put in some great ideas that really do increase the value of blogs. Did you know that these is a conference happening in November about making blogs more succesful? I recently came by it, PostieCon. Succesful bloggers sharing their knowledge with the world…
It’s by Yan. Hans is currently unavailabe!
To lost wanderer, I tried to condense it as much as possible!
Thnx for your kind words kyushiro!
To Pickel: Most bloggers I see do not follow this principle. They quote incredible statistics from dunno what test without any proof to substantiate this. It can be a real pain!
To Dani: Thnx for pointing out PostieCon but I doubt we will make it because we will be in France!
Good comprehensive thought….yeah I see more often people are trying to make a couple of posts by writing some news or other….If they add their view it will add value to what they have found and written about but more often they are just trying to spread the news….
Very nice, I need to stumble this blogosqure.com as it seems to me I’ll constantly come back
Nice one. Though I probably don’y do most of them =P
[…] In copyright law, attribution is the requirement that an author be given credit for their work in any context in which it is used. It is required by most copyright and copyleft licenses, such as GNUFDL and CC-by. … …more […]
[…] from 8 Powerful Ways To Add Value To Your Blog: A “detour” is a “deviation from a direct course of action”. Given the perspective of this […]
So why will they bother to visit your blog if your blog is telling them the same thing which can be found easily in thousands of other blogs.
I think there is a balance here, depending on what your general topic and audience. When something starts spreading quickly through the web, some people expect you to tackle it. I’ve had readers email me and ask why I haven’t commented on certain stories.
I think for some, people want to know what you think. And if you have a unique perspective or are a particularly good writer, go ahead and tackle it. If, on the other hand, all you really have to say is, “what he said,” maybe that’s all you should say.
Yan,
I simply cannot add another thing to this comprehensive primer. You’ve covered some key points here and have done so in an easy to read and understand fashion.
Thank you for this!
[…] 8 Powerful Ways To Add Value To Your Blog - BlogoSquare […]
I’ve tagged and faved you, all the best
Technorati Train
Hope i got response
Best regards
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hey cuza lovena in vin ene mari joli manger li n’est pli ti zanfran..
ales mo kit twa.. mo coir mo al boir ene boutile bordofine haha..
[…] 8 Powerful Ways To Add Value To Your Blog - Making a good point about posting frequency. Something I must confess to have violated… […]
Quite a read, but very usefull. Thanks!
[…] said article, Hans, not post) containing “8 Powerful Ways To Add Value To Your Blog” at Blogosquare. I think I’m only in one bad spot of that list. I write too […]
I don’t agree with point # 4. Simply put the more you post the more your readers will come back to your blog to check out your content. I agree with you in the sense that if you have nothing to say then don’t say it, but at the same time if you want your blog to be successful and get as much traffic as possible then you might want to post at least once a day.
I personally am sorely dissappointed when I find a blog I enjoy and hten a few months into it the writer of said blog begins to post nonsensical ramblings that are of no value to anyone but themselves.
You have made some good points
Love the tips… Gotta say I really like your theme. Just out of curiosity how long did it take to create?
Back on the subject, I believe they are all important points, but the one I think to be the most important is building authority (5). If what you write is worthy enough that people take time out of their day to stop and read, then traffic would sky rocket through the roof.
This information is spot on. These two points caught my attention:
4. Post Frequency Myth - I personally like to post a few times a week. If I were a full-time marketer (hope to be early next year) I would likely post 4-5 times a week. Having said that, I’d rather make one quality post per week than risk even one being not up to my usual standard.
5. Gain a Status - I only discovered Internet Marketing this year, so I’ve had to do a crash course to get up to speed. I’ve made mistakes and learned from them, and I’ve made some recent breakthroughs. However, I’m not earning a sizeable income, which does dampen my credibility, but I never pretend to be a “rich guru” and I did recently add an FAQ to my site in which I address this.
PS. I’m almost envious of how well the article is written. It’s clearly well thought-out and researched. Top stuff! It even influenced me to write more than a simple comment.
Very nice and informative article, i agree in the vact that people do not give enough credit for other people’s work enough. Thanks and noted.
Posting frequency depends also on where you get your content offcourse. If you post yourself, yes indeed maybe go for quality vs. quantity, but if you get 3rd party I think it would become an important factor. Maybe vary from time to time and see what works best.
Wow, this is a nice article. I agree with your point (gain a status). In era 2.0, it’s always important to have a nice image in front of internet savvy society.
Thanks for post, thats the answer of all my questions
Hımmm very nice i am thanx you..
Wow, what a great post. I will try to follow the tips that you provided.
In an attempt to create blogs, most people don’t seem to care about those things you wrote about here.
These are definitely good suggestions but it is very difficult to combat the desire to make more money by embedding aff links into posts and by posting sponsored reviews as most of bloggers blog for one simple reason - to make some money.
These are some really useful tips. I think this is a wonderful post (article rather!)
thanks a lot
very nice