Discovering Blogging Revelations Through Note Taking

Blogging is really all about sharing your knowledge with others. The knowledge you share usually comes right out of your head, and the fact that you even know anything is the result of reading other people’s “notes,” also known as articles.

I see a blog as one giant notepad. Every post that is written on any blog really is just the blogger taking their notes on any topic and sharing it publicly. That’s really what the whole internet is about, and that stays very true for blogging.

But besides these “notes” that we share publicly, there are some even more important notes that every blogger should be taking behind the scenes. While those more personal notes can eventually become published to your blog as an article, I still find that the way you document the process of your blog as it grows is one of the keys to bringing your blog to success.

I’m going to share with you why I think that it is important for you to monitor anything that happens on your blog, so you can make the best of the outcome – whether it be good or bad. Take notes, this might be a long post.

Taking Note of the Good & the Bad

Blogging is very two-sided. While things can seem to be going great, things can turn for the worse in a heartbeat and vice-versa. The number one way I feel that most bloggers kill their blog is by trying out new things to make their blog better, which in many cases will result in the opposite way they intended it to end.

Our blogs are constantly changing. I know mine are, I like to try something new on them a lot. But I know it’s important to keep note of what works, and what doesn’t. Why is it important though?

The Importance of Finding What Works

Okay, so we all know that it is important to find what works on our blog so we can make our blog better. But in the sense of observation and studying it, it is important to find what works and monitor it.

When ever I add something to my blog, I like to wait it out and see what kind of reaction it gets from my community. I always am sure to keep either a physical note, or a mental note of its progress and whether or not it should stay.

If I find that whatever was working out on my blog the first time around, I want to dig deeper and analyze why it is doing so well. The key things I want to gather about it are:

• People’s Opinions – What do people really think about this particular thing?
• How It Works – What functionality does it add to my blog?
• How does it benefit my readers? – Does it help people, or does it just look cool (preferably, it should be both)?
• How has it helped my blog grow? – Is this thing you have on your blog improving anything statistically?

But the Key Question Is: How Can I Improve What Works?

Whenever you have something great, always look for ways to make it better. Never fix what isn’t broken, but try to improve it by little pieces so it turns becomes even better.

I really believe that by taking notice of the things on your blog that work well for you will really help you improve your blog. But if you take note of things that don’t work on your blog, I find you may be in even better shape. Which leads me to my next point.

Discover your flaws, and What Doesn’t Work So You Hopefully Never Do It Again

Is it true that what you don’t know won’t hurt you? In blogging, it won’t hurt you, but I do think it can kill you. Curiosity may have killed that stupid cat, but hopefully you are smart enough not to let that curiosity kill you. And I’m going to stop dropping proverbs on you now.

While I do think every blogger should always try new things, they need to proceed with caution. Things like throwing AdSense up on your blog or making a few design tweaks are nothing. But I am talking about the “larger scale” things that you can try out that can go either horribly right or wrong for you.

How not to let Blogging Experiments Harm you (too much, if at all)

Conducting an experiment on your blog to learn new things is a must for any blogger. But, like I said above – you need to be careful about how you approach it. This is where note taking comes back in to play, but it doesn’t revolve just around your notes anymore. You have to rely on what others have done.

Quick Fire Tips For Trying Out New Things

• Read what other bloggers have done if you can. If what you’re trying is a monetization method, then there is no doubt in my mind that there will be an article about it somewhere on the web.
• Pretty much the same as above, case studies are a very well mapped out research on a specific topic with the intention of backing up a proposed theory. Not many bloggers do many case studies I believe, so finding one may be a little tricky, but really beneficial if you can pull one up.
• Try to find other blogs who already have set your idea into action. Obviously if you have a unique idea, you probably won’t find any blogs using it. But if it’s something common, go to multiple blogs and see how they are carrying out their interpretation of something “new.”
• Plan it out like crazy. Innovation could never be created without some form of planning. Even if it’s the most saturated idea in the world, I find that if you really take the time to think it through and ask yourself basic questions like Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?, you can turn anything into a really great thing.

Bad things will happen on your blog regardless of how much planning or note taking you do. But you know what? It’s probably for your best. So long as you document the process, reactions and after effects of your idea then you will have learned something. And all along, it would turn out that what could have been bad was always meant to happen for the reason of teaching you.

And So Begins the Cycle

This is the cool part of it all. If you actually take my advice and jot down some notes here and there, you will discover two things.

1. You will have figured out what works and what doesn’t on your blog. With that knowledge in hand, you can take whatever it is you have been documenting and make the necessary revisions to it.
2. You will be on your way to writing truly unique content.

To expand a little on number two, the fact that we are figuring things out for ourselves and documenting it is because it will help us become better bloggers in many different aspects (like writing for example). It’s like a cycle kind of thing, we start with an initial idea, learn more about it, unveil it to our readers, get a reader response and start it all over with a new idea. That’s all blogging is, a giant cycle about publishing new thoughts and ideas.

Do you kind of understand how by taking a note, you are really discovering new things for yourself? It’s the things you find out for yourself that make you a unique blogger.

Hopefully this post has opened your eyes a bit on something you may have known a little about before. What do you think about documenting your blogging paths? Let me know in the comments!

Photo by Austin Kleon