Today when I was browsing through the trending, hot, and new sections, It made me wonder why I read certain posts and not others. When I sign on each day, it's one of the first things I do to see what's going on in Hiveworld. There's a genuine interest in learning and becoming a better person, and Hive has so much to share.
Born the inquisitive type, I'd bombard my mother with questions about why things were the way they were. Never willing to settle for the surface appearance, but willing to do a deep dive to get at the root of the problem. Over time I accumulated what my siblings call a vast trove of "useless" information that has actually ended up being surprisingly helpful throughout my life.
And that brings me back to your posts. There are a number of Hive content creators that have proven themselves over time and who I naturally gravitate towards. The information they share and their writing style make for compelling reading. In short; they've earned my click. I don't need to name them here, but if you check trending, their posts show up again and again for good reason. They're that damn good! :)
One person specializes in long-form content written in such a way, that its like sharing a bite-sized taste of life. Another has a natural wit and charm (being from "Blighty" of course), that always brings a smile to my face. But that brings up the question of how I found out about them in the first place. So I'll highlight 3 Things That Make Your Blog Stand Out From The Rest.
Images
Since we read from left to right, the first connection point has to be the thumbnail image. More bloggers need to pay attention to that, because I scroll quickly, so that image needs to POP! in order to get my attention, as its competing with so many others.
This is one of the reasons I started using Canva to create images with more impact, as well as to highlight my blog link in the image itself. This is because I'm thinking of those people who may find my blog on a search engine as well as those who perform image searches.
Pixabay was a Godsend to me when I started on what is now Hive, but creating custom thumbnails for each post is a natural progression in my blogging journey. I also realized that other bloggers were also searching for images to use in their posts, so it made sense to optimize mine using keywords in the title while imprinting my blog link as well.
Every little bit of attention helps your blog to stand out amongst a sea of others in search.
Titles
From left to right, up to down, the title is next. You'd think this would be first, right? but on Hive the title follows the thumbnail in getting first dibs at the hungry eyeballs of those consuming content. I usually choose the "Hot" and "New" sections over "Trending" to get a nice sample of the freshest blog posts.
One experiment you can perform is to scroll with the authors names and images covered up. This way you won't be influenced by choosing bloggers you know well. Would the post title stand out enough to make you click if you didn't know who the author was? That's the sign of a well-written title.
Below are a few examples from the "Hot" section on Hive that stood out during a cursory scan:
I had no idea who wrote these posts when I chose them (I used a piece of paper on my laptop to hide the authors and the thumbnails). When I removed it, it was surprising to see the variety of bloggers whose titles caught my interest.
Enough so that it made me to want to delve deeper into their posts. The only title I would change is the first one by adding the word "the" making it: 'Food Hunting at the Night Market' it just flows better. :)
Opening Lines
And last on our list are the opening lines. Think about the words you put together to introduce yourself to your partner, that's what the start of your blog post does to the reader. This little snippet of text if written correctly, has an important job in turning scanners into readers.
If we performed a similar experiment as we did above with titles, we'd find the same principle applies to the very beginnings of what you write in your post. Consider them digital breadcrumbs inviting the visitor to stop on by and stay awhile.
In my last post, I knew I wanted to work the phrase "shuffle off this mortal coil" into the first line, and that's exactly what I did. The subject matter being written about is a big consideration, as well as relevant keywords used in a natural manner.
All of these tools used together can help your blog stand out and achieve the impact it deserves. And for those of you not seeing an immediate reaction to your posts, remember, you're not just writing for our brothers on Hive, but also for that huge audience outside these hallowed walls.
Keywords, (and phrases) titles, images (using relevant filenames), headings, and SEO, all combine as a potentially potent force to help your posts be found on the search engines. From Google, Yahoo, and Bing, to your blog. That's the pathway we want our visitors to take as we connect them to great content on Hive!
Please check out my recent posts:
Image Credit: [1] @EverNoticeThat Created using Canva
Like you Pixabay was my go to place for soothing pictures until I had to start creating my own Thumbnails then I used Picsart until they wouldn’t let you use free version anymore and Canva has been my saving grace which even works better.
I can relate with your post, cool thumbnail certainly make me feel better about my posts and will attract me to other posts too
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Isn't it awesome combining elements together to make something that pops? Josediccus inspired me to try Canva and I'm having a ball lerning how to improve my images. I have to figure out how to get that bold white outline around the man in your Max pain = Max pleasure post. I see that effect used a lot on YouTube, and like how striking it looks.
As for Hive, I honestly feel that now is the time to build, as the future for those with a long-term vision will truly be bright.
I like the topic and your analysis.
At some point I felt called out! 😉
I took a look at your blog and you seem to be doing well in the photo department. I had no Idea Serbia was so sunny! Thinking it was more like the UK, then I realized it was actually closer to Greece, which must be "The land where the Sun begins." Someday I will have to get a DSLR to up my game and begin taking professional photos. Thanks for your support! :)
We have all four seasons, the most ideal variant. 😁
when it's summer, we shine like Greece! 😆🌞🇬🇷
And speaking of England, there is an anecdote:
Journalist Ringo Starr asks:
Ringo: - Oh yes, we have, but it's OFF.
😆
Tnx @evernoticethat for visit my blog. 🥰
greeting! 😊
Great tips for creating a powerful blog. These are some of the resources that were quite helpful to me as a newbie years ago. It is a highly educational and informative piece that would benefit many newbies and all Hivers. @evernoticethat, thank you for this great content. Little suggestion: if you could add newbie as one of your tags I'm sure it will help others to find this useful information.
Thank you. If only I could add more tags, but they limit us to seven and a warning pops up blocking you from adding more. Looks like you joined the same month and year that I did. We've seen a lot over the last five years, but the best is yet to come!
Hi @evernoticethat and thanks for sharing this with the community. I'm sure many of us find it interesting.
However, I think this post would fit better in the Education community as this is educational content.
Here's a guide I put together to help you learn about how communities work -> Communities Explained - Newbie Guide.
Once you posted your post in the right community, you can then cross post it to OCD community. Here's a guide about cross posting.
Please don't delete any post with the purpose of reposting it in another community as that can be considered abuse! Leave this post here, you'll get it right next time.
Happy blogging.
I didn't know the OCD community had changed, thanks for sharing this. I've been posting since the Steemit days back in 2017 and have published in OCD off and on without an issue until today. I like it as it is (or was?) a general content community specializing in original content, which is what I do, so something must have changed recently?
I just saw the Communities Explained post from last week, so this is new. You use PeakD, but I don't as they want your active key, so I've never used them. I'm a good Hiver, and whenever I post I use the Explore communities… link and was originally going to post it in HiveLearners, until I saw that they want you to register with Discord in order to do so.
Scrolling down that long list, I saw the "Loving Hive" community, but that was about marketing Hive, so not a good fit for this post which is about optimizing your posts. The "Writing Club" is more about short stories and general literature, not sprucing up your blog posts, so that didn't fit. What I was looking for was a "Blog" community, and was surprised that on the list of communities on Hive, there was none.
Scrolling all the way to the bottom of the communities list from "LeoFinance" at the top to "Discovery-it" at the bottom, there is no "Education" community listed. Maybe that's a PeakD thing? So when I published, I remembered that OCD specializes in original content, and since I like to share my posts in different communities and don't use OCD that often, published it there. I did try typing "education" in the search box just now, and it finally popped up, I don't know why it isn't on the list of communities. As you know search on Hive is incomplete, which is likely why I stopped trying to use it years ago.
UPDATE: I went to look for another community an hour os so later, and saw "education" listed a few rows below the last one shown earlier. It looks like the list can take a bit to fully load and didn't show up the first time.
However, "Education" looks to be geared for teachers with posts about "student injuries" "training students for learning" "vocabulary for kids" and so on. I have a feeling that if I posted this post there about improving your blog, they'd tell me it doesn't fit! :)
Your note is all the more surprising as I've used OCD (off and on) for five years and have never seen anything like this. last year I posted these two back-to-back in OCD with no problem: Thoughts on Life and Living and Variety is the Spice of Write
So I decided to take a look at your replies and saw that you're sharing this throughout many user blogs as part of a new inititive. I try to avoid friction on Hive wherever possible, and like I said had no idea that OCD had changed from a general purpose community to what its become now. Rather than try to anticipate whatever communities different mods might want us to post in (as that's subjective and might change from person to person, example: you say "education" but another might say "blog"), I'll just post in other general communites to completely avoid any and all friction now that I know OCD isn't one. Thank you so much! :)
Isn’t it interesting that I found this post following Erika’s comments too?
Anyways, I’m glad I did. Good tips you’ve written there. I’m sure they’ll help me improve engagements on my blogs.
Thank you so much for your kind comments. I'm known here for being very polite and respectful to others. We all have to stand in front of God one day, right? I've learned a lot over the years and have written on places outside of Hive and Steemit, and will continue to expand as my grandmother taught me "Don't put all your eggs in one basket!" I'm a much better writer now, but if you saw some of my very early posts on Blogger, you'd think otherwise. :)
I do have to ask about the name. I've read some of your posts and understand you're going through some rough patches, but have you ever considered creating an account with a username based on your positive attributes?
Take the username "Starstrings" for instance (I know he has a number after it, but play along), that name has a positive vibe to it and is very memorable in a positive way. Setting aside your current troubles for the moment, what represents the best side of you?
I chose "EverNoticeThat" years ago because people told me I had a knack for "noticing" things that other people might not, hence the name. Some places on the net might censor out the vulgar part of your name. I have a decent following on Twitter, and there you can block certain words so they won't show up in your timeline. So I'd be hesitatnt to share one of your posts there in order to avoid that. However, if you're happy with your username no need to create a new account with a different one, but I'm sure as with all of us, you have good, strong, and powerful aspects about you to share with the world. :)