What a good blog looks like?

My task in this post is to explain what a good blog looks like. This seemed easy at first, but as I started reading all kinds of blogs I must admit it seemed a more challenging task.Even though it is hard to give an answer to this question, because every person who reads this blog has a different way of thinking an attitude, I hope I can give a satisfying answer. 

What’s good and what’s not?

First impressions are what it’s all about. The title of a blog is basically one of the first things you notice and pay attention to when you open a blog: it must be original and intriguing. Posts should be connected to the title with small digressions. The background shouldn't be too loud so that it literally hurts the reader’s eyes as he/she reads posts and there should be a connection between the content of the blog and its background. For example, who would like to read a blog dedicated to animals with pictures of cars and motors in the background and a very garish color used for text? No thanks.

Text it should be divided into paragraphs with pictures or videos in the middle (in my opinion this is highly recommended as it increases the readers’ interest) and not written as one big, never-ending brick. It is not attractive at all when you have to read long text which is not divided and therefore unorganized. Even if the topic is well know to the audience, make it interesting and don’t just repeat facts everybody knows. The font should be, above all, legible and shouldn’t look like it’s handwritten as this is hard to read. Something  I really don’t like is emoticons. I know people use them more on forums, but some of them use them on blogs as well. The thing I don’t like about them is that they look, (again, this is just my opinion) very informal. When a person puts about ten smileys one next to the other it just leaves me cold and I lose interest in continuing to read a post. I don’t see the purpose of the excessive usage of emoticons. When a person is a professional blog writer, for example a writer of a travel blog, he or she should avoid posting private pictures that are irrelevant in the post. Even if blog is informal, the register should be polite. Bloggers should post regularly in order not to their readers’ interest.

What about my blog?

This is my first blog so I am not too familiar with "blogging". I am trying to cover topics that are not only interesting to me, but to others as well. Therefore, topics may vary from sport to history or everyday discussions. This is also good practice to improve my knowledge of English. Even though, the correct grammar and appropriate choice of words is my goal, I still struggle to perform these two tasks correctly. After reading about a certain topic on various websites it is hard to sum them up in my own words and a literal translation from Croatian is a mistake I make all the time yet I cannot escape from this.

One day, I would like to travel the world and have my own travel blog where I could post pictures of places I have been and write enthralling stories about the journey. It is more joyful to post your own pictures you made along journey than to upload a picture from "Google". I would also like to write posts on more languages and make it suitable for a wide range of readers. Hopefully, I will run my own blog dedicated to travelling without any grammar mistakes in any of the languages used.

What makes these blogs good?

http://juliakoelbl957.blogspot.co.at/

This is my absolute number one blog from WS13. What attracted me the most is the "flip card" layout with intriguing pictures and useful titles. It has good tips about writing, strategies about learning a language and posts dedicated to travelling. It is well written and easy to understand.

http://aboutlizi.blogspot.co.at/

I chose this blog as second on my list of the "Top three blogs of WS13" because it is, without a doubt, entertaining and educational. Once again it covers my favorite type of blog and that is the "travel blog". The great choice of pictures that support every post attracted my attention for reading a certain type post.

http://www.evas-english-blog.blogspot.co.at/

Last, but not least, is this blog. The background is just amazing and you can immediately see what this person mostly blogs about and what her interests are. Her posts are updated regularly. Every topic is supported with pictures, videos and links.

To sum up, make sure everything is well connected in your blog and make it interesting, legible and polite no matter whom your targeted audience is. Even if you have wide range of interests, do not join all of them in one post. Pictures and videos are highly recommended.

My role models for a good blog are travel blogs I hope I will have the opportunity to run my own one day.

A list of blogs I find interesting:

http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_news/ (if you are an animal lover this one is perfect for you)

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/ (seriously, why don't we learn about this in schools?)

http://discoveramerica.tumblr.com/ (I am thinking about going here for a semester or two)

http://coloursoftheworld.tumblr.com/ (You won't find text here describing these pictures, but you can enjoy the breathtaking nature on them)

http://lauraandjeff.tumblr.com/

http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/ (heaven for a language learner)