Keys to Successful Blogging: Simplicity
Posted on 21. Jan, 2009 by Julius.
This is an article which is part of the Keys to Successful Blogging series. So if you haven’t read the first part of the series I suggest you take a look at it as it focuses on persistence.
Another key to blogging, other than persistence, is simplicity. Why is simplicity so important? What is meant by simplicity in blogging?
Why Care about Simplicity?
Well for starters, who would read your article if it were highly complex? The more complex an article, the lower the chance of someone understanding it.
It might be your choice to talk about very technical topics but then you can’t expect a high number of people to read your post. Complexity and the amount of people able to read your article are inversely proportional meaning if you want to reach a broader audience you have to keep the complexity low.
There is another reason why simplicity is so important. Think of your blog, web site, or company name. Is it easy or rather hard to pronounce?
People tend to have a greater affection for words that are easy to pronounce, this is one result of a research made by social scientists Adam Alter and Daniel Oppenheimer. It makes sense if you examine it. What would you rather like to visit, a company named Yiggle or one called Zaghemrand?
This is probably also one the reasons why Google and Yahoo became so popular.
How Complex Language Might Backfire
Daniel Oppenheimer extensive research on the field of simplicity has shown that using overly complex language can produce the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of impressing people, it will rather make you look dumb. The reason is that people will have trouble understanding your highly complex language. This will make them perceive your message as less convincing and thus they will not think too highly of you.
In the end simplicity is essential for blogging. It might affect your blog name choice or what language you use in your posts.
Why do you think simplicity is important?
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