Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

Here’s a tip for all you bloggers out there: Work more on the content of your blog and less on the appearance of it.

I’ll bet I’m not the only blogger out there who gets so caught up in looking at new blogging “themes” or templates, that I spend a lot of time on the appearance of the site and should instead be working on solid content.

For example, I once had a blog I was trying to start on health products and health information — everything from diet pills to guidelines for managing diabetes. This was one of my early blogging adventures and I spent a lot of time looking for free (or very cheap) WordPress templates that related to health and medicine. I was interested in something with a huge graphic header that would look “medical” or “natural health” in keeping with the theme of the blog.

After many hours of looking around, I found one that interested me at the time. I set up WordPress and installed the template. Then, with all things ready to go, I sat down one morning to get the blog going — and quickly realized that I knew almost NOTHING to write about a health-related blog which would be original and/or useful to people reading the blog. So I abandoned the whole project.

Since then, I’ve always tried to blog about things I knew, or that I knew how to research. I also learned that blog themes with huge header graphics can be a real distraction. They may look snazzy, but they violate one of the basic principles of copywriting: Grab your readers with something interesting and worthwhile “above the fold.” A large picture in your blog header may really be visually attractive — but it also takes up prime visual real estate on your readers’ computer screen.

Find an attractive theme for your blog, but most of all, work hard on putting good content on your blog.

The various developments in publishing technology has changed just about everything for freelance writers.

In a world where consumers would rather enjoy everything from home theatre seating to very wide screen television to home theatre lighting instead of going to traditional theatres to watch movies, we can expect consumers who want their news, fiction, how-to articles/books, etc., NOW — not a day late in traditional newspapers.

You get the idea. “Journalism” as traditionally known only 10-15 years ago has almost died with the near-demise of daily newspapers. Many major newspapers are bankrupt, nearly bankrupt, or gone completely. (I see the venerable old “Rocky Mountain News” and some others have ceased daily print publication but are maintaining an Internet presence.)

I’ve said all that to say this: If you aspire to “be a writer,” you’d better become very comfortable with writing blogs, “tweeting,” and doing other website content. That seems to be where the future career paths are leading for writers.