Why Do So Many Blogs Look The Same?

Why do so many blogs look the same?

If you’ve been snooping around the internet for a while, you’ll start to get a bit blog-blind.

What do I mean?

Well, think: what was the last blog you visited that really stood out? Are you getting so lost in a haze of hyper-feminine brush text that you can’t even read what the blog title is? Or have you seen the same image so many times that you get déjà vu every time you go online?

Here are a few reasons why we’ve started to look the same.

The Internet has grown up

Back in the day, web designers used to let rip… with weird results.

Now that the Internet has grown up, and every established company has a web property and knows how to squeeze every last cent out of it, there are established conventions that are more or less followed when designing websites.

These conventions make websites and blogs easy to read, understand and navigate. It might be boring, but it’s generally for the best.

We’re copying one another

Yep, we’re just plain old copying each other. On purpose. You’ve seen a successful blogger whose site you love, so you’ve gone out and found a template that looks like it.

Like when you see someone in a dress you love, so you go find it, buy it, and then dread running into them when you’re both wearing the same thing.

Hey, the truth is that this is a natural by-product of the lowered barrier to entry that web publishing has experienced. Most bloggers are simply regular people who like to write, not coders. Creating a fantastically unique site from scratch would be impossible for them, just like most people go shopping instead of designing and sewing their own clothes, and that’s ok; after all, you don’t expect everyone to walk around naked just because they can’t run up a frock on their own.

Unless you’re developing your site from scratch, you’ll probably end up bumping into someone who’s wearing your dress. Just try to customise it a bit so it’s not so obvious (think chunky jewellery… and by that I probably mean changing your fonts, colours and widgets).

We’re all playing by Pinterest’s rules.

Ever spend any time on Pinterest?

You’ll risk overdosing on brush script fonts, flowers and PINK.

Pinterest is a huge driver of traffic to blogs, so we’re all dancing to their tune: all vertical images (usually 735 x 1103 or longer), flat lay photography, and things that women are meant to like.

Spending too much time on Pinterest gives me the visual equivalent of eating too many sugared almonds after a wedding… it hurts my teeth.

There are definite trends towards visual hegemony in the blogging world - why? — Carefully planned to fit perfectly into Pinterest’s optimum size and ratio, this stock image is no different from the rest.

Stock photos have taken over the world

We’re all swamped with all of the things we’re told we need to do for the sake of our blogs. Is it any wonder we have no time or energy to take our own photos?

I’m not going to knock stock photography. With my other blogs, especially when I first started, I’m not gonna lie – my photography stank. I’m a writer and a painter. I’m not a photographer. So yes, stock photography has saved many a blogger’s butt, including mine.

But… I’m sick of seeing the same photographs over and over andoverandoverandover. I’m sure you are too, or you will be once you start hanging out on Pinterest more. If you need to use a stock photograph, try to make sure it’s one that hasn’t been overused, or try to edit, crop, flip or change it a bit to be more personal.

This is one that’s easy to get wrong, as even if you source a little-used photograph for your article, it can become popular after the fact. However, if you’re settling on the first few images that pop up in Canva, then you can be sure that lots of people are doing the same.

That’s why we’re all starting to look the same…

There’s nothing wrong with focusing on what works well when it comes to blog design and using those principles for yourself. Still, we ought to try for a bit of originality… although remember, the thing has to be legible if you want to actually get and keep readers.

Personally, I’m pushing it a bit with my current typeface of choice – it’s nearly illegible but I love it! Very, very naughty.

Well, what do you think? Is looking the same a good, or bad thing?

Writing Vs Blogging – 5 Things To Know

Writing Vs Blogging

When I started blogging seriously in 2015, I didn’t really have a clue about the craft of blogging, or that there even was such a thing. The concept of writing vs blogging didn’t cross my mind.

Doesn’t good writing conquer all?

I assumed that good writing would translate to good blogging, and good blogging would eventually translate to a successful blog. However, I failed to appreciate the conventions that have grown up around commercial blogging, that have separated it from other forms of writing or even from personal blogging.

I’d been chipping away at a blog since 2014, putting together posts with witty, intriguing titles and sparky, self-referential language: posts that I was pleased with, and thought would be helpful.

Little did I know my writing wasn’t helping anyone at all, and it definitely wasn’t helping my blog. What was I doing wrong? I hadn’t grasped the difference between writing and blogging.

Literary Vs Literal

Blogging – and by this I mean commercial, or ‘for-profit’ blogging (whether you make a profit or not) does not function in the same world as literature. This doesn’t mean that it’s inferior; it means that to succeed at it, you must learn its conventions and why they exist.

Blogs exist online, and their functions are primarily to entertain and inform. Some people read blogs to gain an insight into the blogger’s personal life; others read blogs to learn something that they think will be valuable for their own lives. So far, we could say that we read books for the same reasons – isn’t that what biographies and how-to books do anyway?

The internet changes everything

Well, yes, but the fundamental difference is the medium – the internet. The internet changes everything. It makes that chunk of information immediate, accessible and (usually) pinned down to a point in time. If you want, you can follow in real time, never miss an update, and it’s usually all for free.

And there’s the other difference – the cost. The internet appears free. I say ‘appears’, because there’s always someone paying – not just for the monthly broadband connection, but for the content itself. Just like tv, those being entertained or informed aren’t the consumers, they’re the products; the real paying customers are the brands who want to advertise to readers/viewers.

So because information is free, and you can find almost anything, the internet is the place to turn for answers to all of your questions. Solutions come fast and easy (and because of fierce competition from an ever-increasing amount of content, will only get faster and faster) so no-one has any time for slow information. Readers go online to search for answers and solutions, not to browse idly until they find you.

Blogs have got to pitch their answers and solutions in a crowded marketplace. Print authors don’t need to worry about titles, SEO and keywords, but bloggers do.

In this world, the literary yields place to the literal.

It’s personal.

When I took some time to look at some successful blogs, I was initially shocked by the low quality of the language structure, grammar and spelling used… but it dawned on me that it simply didn’t matter to the people who counted – the audience.

The readers of a mummy blog or a fashion blog aren’t likely to care about the mistakes that will be certain to rile the readers of a blog about grammar.

That’s not to say that these readers won’t notice the mistakes; what I mean is that if they do notice, they are willing to make concessions for them. When readers connect with a blog author, they are willing to skip past typos, spelling and grammar mistakes.

They want to connect with the author’s life and experiences, and formal writing skills aren’t necessarily the key to that emotional connection.

The Craft of Writing Vs The Craft of Blogging

To adapt successfully from literary writing to blogging, bear these essentials in mind:

1: Straightforward titles.

Titles which are clever allusions to the body of the article might work well for your novel’s chapter headings, but your readers of your novel are already invested, and they’ll read that chapter anyway. If a blog reader can’t tell what your post is about when they encounter the title on a cluttered search engine results page or Twitter feed, they’ll click on something they can decipher more easily.

Further reading: The Psychology Of Blog Post Titles

2: Short paragraphs.

Reading online is different to reading on the printed page; keep your paragraphs short – even a single sentence if necessary.

3: Language.

This might depend entirely on your audience, but if you’re writing for the general population as opposed to a technically minded, specialised group, you will have to adapt your language to be simple and easily understood. This is not the same as dumbing down; it’s just a question of selecting the right tools for the right occasion.

My art posts tended to suffer from the kind of academic tone I’d been using for my MA essays, until I realised that this gave me the appearance of being a lot more stiff than I actually am, and also put me off writing anything for the blog in the first place!

4: List articles.

I used to rail against these, but they are successful for very specific reasons: they deliver a bite of their content immediately, hooking the reader’s attention, and they let the reader know how much time they will have to commit to the article.

Take it easy with the listicles though – too many and you’ll disappear into the homogenous blog quicksand.

5: Images.

The internet has fuelled a surge in pictorial communication. Your blog posts will need images in order to stand out and be shared on social networks… even if these images are simply a mashup of coloured fonts.

More…

As for search engine optimisation, keywords and marketing – these are things that artists and writers may be reluctant to get to grips with, but can’t be ignored. I’ll get on to those in another post, but I’ll leave a question for another post as well – do you really need a blog anyway?

What do you think about my ideas? Let me know – leave your thoughts in the comments below.

The Psychology Of Blog Post Titles: How Being Mean Gets Readers

The psychology of blog post titles: how being mean gets you readers

Do you want more visitors and subscribers to your blog? Of course you do – we all do. How can you get them? You’ve probably searched all over the internet, and I’ll bet you’ve found lots of articles.

Which ones did you click on?

I’ll bet you found three kinds of posts:
1. The negative-biased post
2. The survivor-biased post (or reverse-engineered success post)
3. The clickbait post

All of these draw on basic principles, which I call the psychology of blog post titles. What do I mean?

The Negative Post

Negative bias is real.

Bizarrely, it’s been proven that people are more likely to click on your headline if it contains negative superlatives like ‘never’ or ‘worst’ rather than positive ones like ‘always’ or ‘best’.

Even stranger, people respond to being manipulated by fear.

If you scare them witless and then promise them the solution to their problem in your post, then they’ll be compelled to click through to discover what to do.

I’ve seen this manifested in posts called something like, “x reasons why your blog sucks, and how to fix it.” So after the reader is insulted and a little hurt, she starts to think, “actually, my blog does suck… everyone else’s blog is better than mine… everybody else knows it… I need to fix this or I will fail.”

We’re all a little insecure, so having someone point out our fears and insecurities is going to grab our attention, and offering a quick fix is going to reel us in.

It reminds me of negging, where someone (someone sleazy) makes an insulting remark to another person in order to undermine that person’s confidence and make themselves seem more desirable.

If putting people down to build yourself up is your thing, then off you go. On the other hand, you can use the principle behind this negative bias more gently, and present a known problem along with a clever solution.

The survivor-biased post

Survivor bias is seen when conclusions are drawn using only the experience or opinions of people who have succeeded.

For example, you may see a headline that says, ‘how to make $3,000 in your first month of blogging’, and excitedly click through to read how you can do this, only to find that the article is about how the writer made $3000 in her first month of blogging because everyone in her apartment block used her Bluehost affiliate link to start their own blogs.

The only thing you get from the article is that to do what she did, you need to be her.

But you can’t be her. You’re you.

You can learn from successful people, but working backwards from their end points and plotting your own way to success is not feasible. You cannot reverse-engineer success.

What about all of the lessons you can learn from the people who got things wrong? People who may be dealing with the same issues as you are, but gave up? With negative bias, we are drawn to finding out what not to do, but with survivor bias, we are only presented with what someone did. The other side of the story stays silent… because there’s no-one telling that story.

Don’t mislead your readers by dressing up a “how I” post as a “how to” post. If you’re going to write a “how I” post, be clear on the steps that anyone can take to come to a similar result, or the factors that gave you an extraordinary advantage.

The Clickbait Post

We all know about the clickbait headline – how about this one: “She had no visitors or subscribers, until she tried this one trick!”

It’s hyped, and it offers conflict along with the prospect of easy (one trick) resolution. The thing is, when you’re reading it, you know it’s clickbait. Clickbait draws on emotion, outrage and curiosity, and it’s so powerful that even though you know it’s probably going to be dreadful, you end up clicking anyway.

Ask yourself if you want to trade clicks for self-respect. Maybe you do, I dunno.

It’s clickbait! Pure clickbait!

What kind of headline should you use?

Let’s face it – we want clicks, and we want results. Still, there has to be space for ethics in the world of online publishing. Leave the dirty tricks aside and use aspects of these headline tricks in a responsible way, and you’re more likely to win the respect of your readers.

Manipulating psychological biases doesn’t need to be sleazy…

After looking at the psychology of blog post titles and more, do you think that we’re able to create catchy headlines without straying into irresponsible manipulation? What do you think about these title tricks?

Why You Probably Shouldn’t Start A Blog

Why you probably shouldn’t start a blog

You’ve been clicking around the internet, looking at how you can start your own blog, but now you want to know if there are any reasons why you shouldn’t start a blog.

Hello!
There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t start a blog – where should I start? As with any venture, there are pros and cons, but too often the drawbacks are glossed over by the most vocal proponents. So here are three reasons why you might find that blogging isn’t for you.

Now, let me stress that I’m talking about a commercial, for-profit blog – not a personal blog that’s meant only for fun, friends or family.

Reason 1 – You already have a life.

If you’re like most people, you already have a life. You’ve got some kind of social life, some kind of family life, and likely some kind of job.

Blogging can quickly turn into a full-time job, trust me. If you want to do everything properly to give yourself the best possible chance of building a successful blog, you’ll end up doing a lot of work.

Wait – scratch that – blogging is actually more like five full-time jobs.

There’s writing, taking photographs, creating graphics, posting on social media and sorting the technical aspects of web hosting including search engine optimisation. Then you’ll have to do the admin – negotiating with clients and sorting payments.

If you’re not doing these yourself, you’ll probably end up paying someone else to do them somehow.

You’ll end up squeezing all your blog jobs into that busy life, and probably squeezing something out of it. If you don’t want to stay up late/get up early/put your life on hold to pursue a full-time career that you were promised you could do in your sleep, well, think carefully about it.

You know, you probably shouldn’t start a blog if you’re not prepared to view it as a real job.

Reason 2 – You’ll end up mining your life for material

Instead of just enjoying that meal, you’ll have to take a picture of it.
Instead of just reading that book, you’ll have to type up a quick review of it.
Instead of just having a chat with your partner, you’ll end up conducting an interview.

You’ll end up so caught up in picking out things to write about that you’ll end up living in the third person – thinking about yourself doing things and picking the right words to describe them.

This gets old, and very oppressive, very quickly.

You should definitely think twice about how much of your own life you put into your blog, and how personal you want it to be.

Reason 3 – You’re not guaranteed to make money

Did someone tell you that you could rake in the money just by writing a blog?

Well, you could also win the long jump at the Olympics. It’s a possibility.

Lots of bloggers make money, but it’s not easy money. There are also lots of bloggers who have been slogging away at it and not made a penny.

It can take years to earn a living from a blog – just because someone says they made so many squillion in their first month doesn’t mean that you will, even if you did the same things they did.

There are things you can do to help boost your earning potential or remove roadblocks to earning, but as with any form of self-employment, it’s not guaranteed. There’s always the element of risk.

So ask yourself, “why are there so many bloggers writing about blogging?”

It’s because you’re prime customer material – you probably want to believe.

You will click on their affiliate links for web hosting, domains and “how to blog” books and courses. Blogging about blogging is big business!

Am I saying this because I’m a jaded, unsuccessful blogger? Well, I actually do make money from blogging, and yes, I do have affiliate links for web hosting and domains. I do think that blogging is an exciting, challenging and rewarding industry to be involved in, and I wish I’d known what I was doing back in 2007 when I set up my first website!

I do believe that making a living as a blogger is similar to making a living as an artist – it’s not easy and what works for one person won’t work for another.

You still want to write a blog, don’t you?

You’ve read all of that but you still don’t care – you’re here because you want to write a blog, and you’re gonna jolly well do it no matter what anyone says.

Fine, be that way! But seriously, if you’re determined then that says quite a lot about your chances of going the distance – just don’t be taken for a ride by the promises of easy riches, thousands of visitors overnight and followers beating down your door.

Here are some positive signs that mean blogging might just be ideal for you:

You’re prepared for the work and to learn as you go on
You know it might take years to get where you want to be
You’re enthusiastic about your subject and love talking about it
You want to help your readers

What if it’s not for you?

If you’re debating whether or not to start a blog, but you know your heart isn’t really in it, it might be because you’ve been told that you have to blog in order to promote your business. It’s true; blogging is a great way to drum up noise around your business and products, but when it’s just a necessary evil, it can be hard to gather the enthusiasm to blog in a way that’s meaningful enough to make a dent.

I’ll be looking at options for blogging when you don’t really know what you’re doing, and as I’m an artist, I’ll be approaching it from the aspect of promoting an art business.

How Artists & Designers Can Get A Free Domain Name

How to get a domain name and website free for a year.

If you need a website to showcase your artwork or your design portfolio, this deal might just be perfect for you.

Now you can get a .co.uk or .uk TLD free for one year.

And if you want to drive home the nature of your creative business, you can get a .design TLD or a .ink TLD for just $5 per year.

Both of these offers are from trusted registrars that I’ve used myself – Porkbun and Names.co.uk.

What’s a .design or .ink domain all about?

A domain that ends in .design or .ink functions the same way as a domain that ends in .com or .art.

Even though they may be ideal for designers, they’re not exclusive; there are lots of applicable uses for .ink and .design.

Ideas for .design and .ink websites

Having a .design or .ink TLD is great for:

graphic designers
illustrators
artists
fashion designers
interior decorators
tattoo artists
students promoting their portfolios or end of year shows
art schools showing off their courses
lifestyle bloggers

Extra perks

It’s not just having the domain for a year, though; the offer includes a free SSL certificate (so you’ll have a secure site with https) automatically with the website builder, which allows you to easily create a site and blog powered by Weebly in minutes.

This means that even if you feel daunted by WordPress or coding, you can still create a professional web presence, and fast!

I currently run this site on WordPress and definitely recommend it, but after trying to talk others through the process I concede that it’s not something that everyone is willing to tackle, as there is a learning curve to be navigated. If that extra investment of learning time isn’t something you can afford, then using the Weebly-powered website builder is a perfect option for you.

Click here to register your .design domain name.

Free .co.uk websites

You can also register a .co.uk or .uk website for free for one year through names.co.uk. This is great for those who don’t feel as though .design is right for them. This offer provides a single static page for free with their Weebly website builder.

Again, compare to see which registrar is right for you, and take advantage of a fantastic deal for the first year of your blog!