“Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who decided to stand their ground”
With that anonymous quote I would like to welcome you to my place, where some nutty, random ravings about all matter of subjects will hopefully grow into something resembling an oak tree.
Not actually resembling an oak tree. That would be strange. But you get the point.
Heath’s my name. Nice to meet you. Thanks for visiting.
As I sat down to write this first post, I thought:-
“Should the post be just an intro, saying hello and telling people what the blog will be about OR should the writer skip an intro post, and just start normal postings?”
To find out, I chose 25 blogs, most of which I have in my RSS feed, and looked at what they did for their first post.
One method definitely came out on top. Care to guess? Here are the 25 blogs I chose, after which the answer is revealed.
Ad Contrarian
Adspace Pioneers
The Art of Nonconformity
Ben & James
Bill Riddell
Brand DNA – one of my favourite blogs
Chris Brogan
Crack Unit
Creative Maverick – my namesake
Dan Germain
F*^! You, Penguin – great if you hate cute animals
Good URL, Bad URL
Hundred Pennies – these guys do a great podcast
I don’t know, do I? – funny, quite random musings
Logic + Emotion
LOVE Creative – one of the few company blogs I read
The Oyster Project
Pigs Don’t Fly
Project 183 – my other blog
Scamp – ceased recently, but well worth a visit through the archives
Sean Ogle
Seth’s Blog – a must read. Full stop.
Small Bears and Bogeymen
stuff and junk
that canadian girl
The result; 15 jumped straight into their first post with no intro, nine had an intro post, and one spent the first post inviting people to be guest bloggers.
A surprise? It was for me.
Interestingly, none of the first posts covered everything.
Those that introduced their blog did not use that same blog post to start blogging about their topic of interest.
Those that jumped straight in also jumped straight past introducing themselves, or the point of the blog (although for some of the blogs, there is a chance that they simply deleted their intro post for whatever reason).
Also of interest is that a large number of blogs started in 2007, indicating that 2007 is the year when blogging became ‘mainstream’. So anyone who blogged prior to 2007, you are a trendsetter – well done.
In my quest for the ultimate first post, I also came across some tips other people have given for writing a first post, including tips for corporate blogs, and blogs about horses (yes, horses).
According to these sources, a good first post must include an intro of some sort, providing some detail of who you are, what you plan to write about, and all of those boring things.
Well, after looking at other blogs, looking at all the tips, and scratching my head a little bit, here is what I think makes a great first post:
Keep it to one sentence.
There is not much point writing a big long first post, as no-one will probably read it anyway. By the time visitors start coming to the blog, there will be several more posts out there, pushing the first post further and further down.
So a quick hello and a couple of words about what you plan for the blog should be all you need.
But don’t take my word as gospel – just look how long this first post ended up being!
