The KISS Principle: Using It To Improve Your Blogging
What is the KISS Principle And What Relevance Does It Have To Blogging and Social Media?
Keep It Simple, Stupid. I’m sure you’ve heard it around the place; it’s based on the philosophy that things should not be made more complicated or complex than they need to be. The KISS philosophy states that you should always aim to make things simple and present things in a simplistic manner; but then again, simple is a relative term to what is being created or developed. Regardless of this, the main aim of the KISS method is to hone in on the fact that you shouldn’t add something which is not required. As a generation of people who have shorter attention spans and absorb less information, the KISS principle serves as an integral part for creating a successful blog which attracts new readers all the time; despite the fact that people have narrowing attention spans.
Heading Over To Google.Com For A Simplicity Case Study, Why Does It Work?
Google is successful because they had a simple philosophy or goal to begin with. Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to gather lots of information from around the Internet and allow people to find the best quality information without having to sift through piles of articles, posts and content. The Google homepage is a testament to the KISS model because it’s very basic and fulfills what Page and Brin set out for. The guys at Google also wanted to rank this information using a universal system called Google PageRank (this is touted to be a complex algorithm for ranking Internet data). This was set into motion, and now pages with higher PageRank are more likely to show up in the Top 10 search engine results which Google outputs on default.
The actual KISS part of Google’s philosophy though is the simplicity of their service, on the homepage you have an input box and two buttons. That’s it; nothing else, except for a few navigation links at the top of the page if you’re changing between search type and account administration. This is where Google hit the nail on the head; it’s so simple, even a baby could use it. You type in what you’re looking for and it delivers; not only does it deliver, but thanks to PageRank it delivers the best and most targeted results than any other search engine. That’s what I call a classic example of KISS in motion. The marketing for this great service? Word of mouth soon took care of that.
How To Implement the KISS Principle To A Web Site or Blog, Get Rid of All The Junk!
The K.I.S.S. method is all about developing a simple formula which answers most of your audience’s questions or needs, quickly and efficiently. In blogging terms, this is simple, it involves removing all the non essentials from your blog and providing people with what they’re really looking for. If you use the KISS method, your site should have elements reflecting this. This means that any excessive, useless widgets should be removed, your site shouldn’t be too graphics heavy and your content should be visually and mentally fulfilling. It brings us back to the central point of what a blog is…it can be conversational, content based or corporate. Regardless of the genre, keep it simple, write the content, get the traffic and embrace the interaction. No candy coating or extra fluff required.
Should Blog Posts Be Shorter And Snappier or Can You Get Away With A Longer Article?
Just because the acronym says ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’ it does not automatically mean that blog posts need to be two or three phrases long. Simplicity is relative to what you are discussing; if you’re talking about driving traffic to a site or blog, most of the time you need to explain yourself well. You can get away with writing a longer article, it’s not a problem, just make sure that your sentences make sense, are cohesive and succinct. Basically your paragraphs should make a point, explain the point to a certain extent and close on the point. The ‘waffle’ I sometimes encounter whilst reading blogs is not required or wanted, highly focused sentences and reduced repetition are key.
People Are Seeing More and Remembering Less, How Do You Combat This? Branding?
I’ve read countless times that we’re seeing more and remembering less. Why? Well, some blame it on the media, the web, television etc…There’s no single reason for it; there are many factors which are influencing this. More importantly, how do you combat this common trend? If you follow my advice twinned with the KISS principle and make your blog as user friendly, unique and simple as possible; you shouldn’t have any problems here. The blogs that fail use a generic theme most of the time; and they don’t have any worthy written, video or audio material whatsoever (most have the generic re-hashed content, which I hate with a passion). Branding is probably the solution to this problem, have a recognizable logo, a good overall message, a custom site design and a firm stance on the issues and themes you talk about and the rest is left for the reader to make his or her decision.
Give Your Readers Reasons To Keep Reading An Article, Visual Cues, Text Formatting etc…
I’m always taking about this, and it’s an integral part of a successful and noteworthy blog post. Readers are not going to sit there sifting through your material; it’s your responsibility to make them look more closely. Using visual cues to entice your readers is an important thing to do. I found that when properly formatted, a post with a lot of images and bold, underline and italicized text outperforms a post which has little or no formatting. By formatting a post, you’ll get more comments, more community buzz, subscribers and lastly, but definitely not least, your readers will be happier, they’ll be able to find hidden nuggets of golden information. Think links, bolded text, underlined text, italicized text, indented groups of text, block quotes, bullets, numbering, images etc…
How To Seal The Deal And Get The Extra RSS Feed or Email (Newsletter) Subscribers
Okay, you’ve got your visitors, they’ve read the content, it’s been presented to them in a way that’s easy to read and take on board. What next? The logical step is to turn the visitor into a regular, and eventually a customer. I don’t use the ‘What Would Seth Godin Do?’ plug-in; but I do use a similar block of text below each post which amounts to the same thing. It sticks out to the readers because of it’s orange colour, but it blends in to the theme at the same time. This little stripe below each post used to be blue, now it’s bright orange (RSS colour); and this simplistic choice to change it from blue to orange, caused my amount of subscribers to increase almost two fold. Remember to really think about anything you put, post or add to your blog and ask yourself ‘Do I Really Need It?’ and ‘Am I Keeping To The KISS Principle?’
Tags: google, google pagerank, keep it simple stupid, larry page, page load time, rss subscribers, search engine, sergey brin, seth godin, simplicity, text formatting
Posted in Blogging
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10 Responses to “The KISS Principle: Using It To Improve Your Blogging”
That orange stripe is so effective I nearly subscribed for a second time! I agree that you are more likely to retain readers with a simple design and talking to them in simple words.
I also think your blog’s design and navy is comfortable. However there’s too many text attributes in one paragraph IMO
I have to agree with Louis that the underlined text does not go well. I often confuse them for hyperlinks, I think the Bold you use works much better. The RSS banner is awesome too, really effective.
I suppose how simple you need to write also depends on your audience. The KISS principle is well suited for a blog like yours since many of the readers will be beginners in the sphere of publishing/advertising.
Very informative as usual Fabien.
I believe that people often make the connection that simple equals easy; to a certain extent it does, but I still believe that simple can also be placed into different contexts where higher order of understanding is required. Nice to see you around, speak to you soon Matt!
thank you for sharing this article. i agree with you in most of the points, specially in what you say of keeping things simple!
One of my uncles shared with me a long time ago that the key to his personal success was when he realized to just keep all things in his life simple. He basically referred to me doing so many things at once instead of focusing on one main thing first before moving on.
It almost sounded as if he didn’t possess the ability to multi-task,but this was far from the truth because he has accomplished so much. I now understand that in order to multi-task you must first master <b<one task
This is a great post giving bloggers a bright mindset aspire to because as a man thinketh so is he….
WEEZEEMALL-KNOW-IT-ALL: I love it WeeZeeMall, probably one of the best comments thus far at SmallFishBigMoney.Com; I have always known that Simplicity is a quintessential part of succeeding in life. I called my blog’s theme Simplicity and I try and live my life in a simple way, with very little complication…It always works out for the best. Your comment is an inspiration to us all, thank you so much for sharing. See you soon!