1. better blogging 10 steps to… Andrea Ressell – Centre for Educational Technology, University of Cape Town, South Africa

2. one. provide a biography Your readers want to know:  Who you are  Where you’re from  What you look like  Why you’re blogging  What, if any, credentials / experience you have in your subject area

3. two. write descriptive headlines Titles should clearly indicate the subject  Avoid vague, overly abstract or funny titles They should makes sense out of context  Search engines  Newsfeeds  Other websites Try to keep headlines short and punchy  Remove unnecessary words  Put the subject up front – people won’t necessarily read to the end  Avoid ALL CAPS

4. three. name links meaningfully Jakob Nielsen: “Life is too short to click on the unknown” Don’t use anchors like ‘click here’ The link should be scannable Users should know where a link goes and what they’ll find there

5. four. provide context & structure Remember that everyone hasn’t been with you from the beginning Link to previous posts where appropriate:  Additional information  Contextual information  Related content Use categories

6. five. emphasise key postings Don’t bury important pages Provide quick links Create a Top 10 list of ‘classic hits’ / most read or commented postings

7. six. use permalinks Postings change, get renamed, move etc so links age and become unreliable A specific posting may only be visible for a short period Permalinks require a unique identifier Enable:  References to previous posts  RSS feeds  Trackbacks

8. seven. publish regularly Jakob Nielsen: “Establishing and meeting user expectations is one of the fundamental principles of Web usability” Irregular publishing means that users can’t anticipate when you’ll post Decide on a publication schedule (daily, weekly, monthly - whatever suits your topic best) and stick to it, otherwise you may lose readers

9. eight. think about audience Blogs are public – your audience includes your boss, colleagues, friends, family and strangers Bear the future in mind – what you write now can and probably will be read later Who you’re writing to should determine what and how you write  Consider style, tone, language choice etc  Be ethical, don’t flame and avoid defamation

10. nine. tighten your topics The broader your topic, the less likely you are to retain readers The more focussed your topic, the more focused and loyal your readers are likely to be If you want to blog about educational technology and gardening, then create two separate sites

11. ten. protect against spam Install a spam filter on your blog to avoid bots populating comment spaces and generating trackbacks Spam slows down access, obscures legitimate comments, looks unprofessional… thus turning off your readers

12. useful references Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs Nielson:www.useit.com/alertboxwww.useit.com/alertbox  Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.htm http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.htm  Usability 101: Introduction to Usability http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html Foraker Design: www.usabilityfirst.comwww.usabilityfirst.com Lynch & Horton:www.webstyleguide.comwww.webstyleguide.com