Okay, I think it is good to talk about this — blogging. With recent accusations that the move to user-generated content on the Web is resulting in a less fulfilling experience, I think it only appropriate to give some pointers to the blogosphere and those looking to get into it. Blogging can fill a real citizen journalism role, and it can also be a personal diary or journal of sorts. My Two Cents are that you should choose one or the other as the predominant theme and then spice it up with a little personality in between.

With anything we write one of the goals is to get people’s attention, headlines are intended to do this in a newspaper. By avoiding what we call editorializing, that’s sharing one’s opinion beyond being objective and credible, writers and editors find catchy ways to get readers’ attention to read stories, even if it’s only the first few sentences of the story, or the lead. Scan the newspaper and see what, by headline alone, catches your attention. By the same token, when writing headlines for your blog posts try to make them catch, you have to think that with the millions of pieces of information available on the Web, if you get your content in front of a potential reader the title or headline is where conversion takes place. Granted, this takes some practice but will ultimately be one major way to get a good strong following from more distant readers (people who may not know you and simply come across or stumble onto your blog).

I was looking at Engadget the other day and this headline just jumped off the page at me,

What a headline, he got the gist of the story across, threw his twist on the story to get my attention and it worked. Compare this with “My thoughts for today” and unless I know you I probably won’t click on your blog to read about your thoughts.

My Two Cents: Although I think that user-generated content is what makes the Web great, I also think we can do a better job overall. Not only will writing more thought-provoking, catchier headlines cast a better light on us the writers, but it could also potentially drive traffic to our site.