My Blog = My Life: Better Blog Posts

Last week we talked about the need to make your blog posts look good. Today, I want to talk specifically about resizing your Blogger images to fit perfectly within your content. This will apply to bloggers on other platforms if they use Picasa to host their images. Making your images look right is key to having blog posts that people will like and will want to share.

If you blog on blogger, you probably are aware that you have five size choices after installing your images. Small, Medium, Large, X-large and Original Size.

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I believe that every blogger shouldinclude an image with just about every blog post, especially if it's a personal blog you are building. Along with my goal to write a post on Single Dad Laughing every day for a year, I also made it a goal to post some sort of image (or video) with every blog post that I published.

When I open up another person's blog and all I see is a giant wall of text, I find it to be cumbersome and boring. I find myself disliking whatever's on the page before I even start reading. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I think it's worth a thousand Excedrin.

There is no doubt that it takes more work than simply writing and publishing a post. But remember, you're building a following, and your job is to entertain, and to keep people from heading for the hills the second they find your post.
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Today, I want to discuss something simple you can watch for in your writing, and that also has the power to make your writing so much more effective. Today, I want to talk about redundant words.

Let's start with the dictionary's definition of redundant:

re·dun·dant
being in excess; exceeding what is usual or natural.

Now, I want you to look at my simplified definition as I believe it has to do with writing effective blog posts.

re·dun·dant
writing certain words too many times; using certain phrases too many times; repeating an idea too many times.
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We've already discussed how to come up with fresh content every day for your blog. Hopefully you've gotten in the habit of writing down ideas the moment you have them so that you don't forget them. But what about those ideas that you probably should forget?

Ever since starting blogging, I have been in the habit of writing down all my ideas. When they enter my ever-busy brain they always sound like the funniest, most profound, or best ideas that any blogger has ever had any time, anywhere! I jot it down, I look at it, and I think... yeah... that's the ticket.

Then, for some reason, the next day or the next week or the next month, I come across it while I peruse over my list of potential blog posts and I think, would that really be funny? Would that really work? Could I really make that interesting?

And then, remembering my initial love for the idea, I leave it on the list. And, eventually I write about it.

Of course, sometimes I never have that in-between-think-this-might-be-lame thought, and I just go straight to writing about something I've jotted down in the past. Either way, these posts never turn out great.

I have a very hard time not finishing something once I've started writing it. Even if an idea flounders the moment I start typing, I usually finish writing it. Are you the same way?

What I have had to do with Single Dad Laughing is put the post away when I'm done, go work on something else, come back to it, and read it as if I was one of my blog followers. I always ask myself very honestly, is this entertaining? Is this only humorous to me or would it be humorous to others? Is this too preachy? Is my tone right? Is this idea worth putting out there at all?

Every once in a while, the answer I have to honestly give is "dude, this blog post ain't that great."
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