Seven Habits of Highly Effective Homeschool Bloggers
[Rescued from my old blog.]
Maureen over at Trinity Prep School launched a series of posts around the blogosphere with her Seven Habits of Highly Effective Homeschool Bloggers.
While I’m a blogging newbie myself and couldn’t qualify as “highly effective”, nobody’s ever accused me of humility. If there is something to have an opinion on, I’m not about to be left out! As with all advice, the following may be worth exactly what you paid for it…
My Seven Habits
(1) Write with a text editor (such as TextPad)on your computer. Don’t try to compose a post in a tiny little online box on your blog interface. How can you think about what you’re going to write next, if you can’t look back to consult that brilliant point you made in the last paragraph? [Edited to add: WordPress has a wonderful interface, and as long as one saves often, this may not be so important as I thought when I used the AHFH forum.]
(2) When you transfer the post to your blog, use the “Preview” button. Several times. Revise, polish, and check for broken links.
(3) Watch out for your favorite words: well, just, after all, really, actually, perhaps, nice, cool, neat… (Those are a few of mine.) Used sparingly, they give an informal, chatty tone to your post. Too often, and you will sound wishy-washy or over-the-top syrupy sweet.
(4) Generalize, don’t specialize. Even if your blog is primarily a journal of your very special family’s homeschooling adventure, look for the general principle you’ve rediscovered in that day’s events. Give us insight. We will love you for it.
(5) Text is fast. Graphics are glacial, especially on a dial-up modem. If you want people to hang around and read your hard-wrought prose, be careful how many graphics you put on your page. If you post photos, resize them for the web so they load quickly.
(6) Make sure you have good contrast between your background and your text color. Check it with different font sizes–especially with font sizes smaller than you normally read. Do the letters disappear into the background? I get irritated when I’ve waited several minutes for a blog to load, and then I can’t read it unless I triple my default font size.
(7) Get some sleep! The kids will be up bright and early tomorrow. Don’t let blogging be an excuse for neglecting your responsibilities. (Um…did Maureen say we really, actually have to practice these nifty habits, or do we get to just preach them?)
How about you, fellow bloggers? Go read Maureen’s original post. Then add your own seven habits to the discussion.
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