
How To Write Compelling Content For Your Blog - edragonu
http://www.dragosroua.com/how-to-write-compelling-content-for-your-blog/
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pmichaud
This was interesting because it wasn't so much about how to craft compelling
content, but about the business of producing content consistently.

I have several blogs that are pseudonymous, a couple of which people here have
probably read. One thing I've noticed is that my popular articles fall into
two categories:

1) Crystal-clear how-to articles 2) Counter-intuitive or controversial
insights

Maybe I should write a step-by-step guide to forming opinions against the
status quo. I'll be e-famous!

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epi0Bauqu
Do you do anything in particular to promote your posts, once written?

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dan_the_welder
Yes, he submits them to HN, over and over again.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=edragonu>

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edragonu
Only discovered HN less than a month ago and I think it's one of the most
interesting news agregator at this moment.

Yes, I do promote what I write and I believe it's ok to do it, as long as I
believe in what I write. You can like it or not, of course, that's the beauty
of it. But as long as I don't spam - and I saw some contributors posting
several links per day, while I kept my posting under 1 link per day - I think
it's ok.

If I did something wrong, or outside HN policy, please let me know, I'm not
here to do more bad than good.

Thanks.

~~~
dan_the_welder
Well, I see it like this. If your content stood on it's own two feet it would
find it's way here on it's own. Call it the HN peer review process.

Instead you submit your own posts here, and refer to it as " one of the most
interesting news agregator at this moment."

Like you don't give a shit about the community but instead think of it only as
a tool for your own needs and will be gone as soon as the next most
interesting agregator appears.

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edragonu
Well, if you look carefully, I try to submit content which is both HN
compliant and personal development (which is what I do) compliant. Meaning I'm
not just hijacking the HN momentum (if this is what you suggest).

It's not just a tool for my own needs, as I do submit what I think it would
interest people and help maintain the same level of accuracy and usefulness. I
use HN for my own research and this is why I call it "one of the best news
agregators". I'm here talking to you, I'm not blindly shooting randomly...

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idlewords
If you want to write well in any medium, revise, revise, revise, revise, and
revise again. You may find this whittles your "content" down to nothing. This
is a feature, not a bug.

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edw519
Sometimes I think that if you removed all the blogs about blogging, there'd
only be 7 blogs left.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Kind of like if you removed the comments about commenting

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ananthrk
Have not read the article, but to answer the question:

By doing compelling things in your real-life and writing about them in your
blog!!

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edragonu
Did that too :-)

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onreact-com
Also make sure to use lists, citations and images in your posts. Last but not
least don't make your text all bold. Yours is. Underestimating the formal
aspects of readability can render a compelling blog post useless.

~~~
nollidge
Also, and this is probably highly subjective, but do not make your blog light
foreground on dark background. It burns my eyes everytime I switch focus from
that to any other application or website I'm using.

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edragonu
Yes, it's highly subjective, for me it works, it gives some contrast. People
tend to be really "polarized" around this design pattern, with a 50/50
split... I guess I'm on the "use it" 50 percent :-)

