Some really good stuff here. As a blogging hobbyist who occasionally wishes he had more traffic (but who also fears the headaches that would come with it) I found his advice to be quite good. Probably one of the biggest things I need to work on is letting big posts simmer as drafts longer, so that I have time to go back and edit them. I don't know how many times I've looked at an old post and cringed at how stilted the prose was... something that could have been avoided by taking time to edit, instead of just banging it out and hitting "publish". I already do a lot of advanced publishing (writing a post and having it show up hours and/or days later), but I don't often look at posts once I hit "publish"... I need to work on this.
The suggestion of having more photos than just the finished product seems good as well... I used to do that more, but frankly it's fairly challenging to get solid, illustrative process shots in the middle of cooking. I recently got a new tripod that I might set up around the stove when cooking to make that a little easier.
The one thing I don't agree with is the idea of "niches"... maybe if you are trying to make money, I guess... but otherwise I don't see how you can stay motivated to do all the work involved if what you're doing is too contrived. However, it may be that he just means that you need to find what it is about food/cooking that you enjoy writing about... harder than it sounds... and simply accentuate what sets you apart from the crowd. Hard to argue with that, but if you try too hard to find "the next big thing" or a sparsely blogged topic I think you run a real risk of writing about things you aren't that passionate about... and how long can anybody keep that up unless there is a paycheck involved?
The suggestion of having more photos than just the finished product seems good as well... I used to do that more, but frankly it's fairly challenging to get solid, illustrative process shots in the middle of cooking. I recently got a new tripod that I might set up around the stove when cooking to make that a little easier.
The one thing I don't agree with is the idea of "niches"... maybe if you are trying to make money, I guess... but otherwise I don't see how you can stay motivated to do all the work involved if what you're doing is too contrived. However, it may be that he just means that you need to find what it is about food/cooking that you enjoy writing about... harder than it sounds... and simply accentuate what sets you apart from the crowd. Hard to argue with that, but if you try too hard to find "the next big thing" or a sparsely blogged topic I think you run a real risk of writing about things you aren't that passionate about... and how long can anybody keep that up unless there is a paycheck involved?
Agreed. It was a very good post. The only thing I disagree with is that the author doesn't seem to care for SEO. SEO is a great way to bring new readers to your blog and as long as they like the content they find there, they'll stick around.
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