31DBBB Day 18: How to use a Magazine to Improve your Blog
This is Day 18 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project we are doing together in an attempt to improve our blogs and help each other become better bloggers. You can read more about it and still sign-up to participate here. Please subscribe to our RSS Feed to stay updated on the project.
- Day 16 (Monday): Breathe Life into an Old Post
- Day 17 (Tuesday): Call your Readers to Action
- Day 18 (Wednesday): How to use a Magazine to Improve your Blog
- Day 19 (Thursday): Ask a Question
- Day 20 (Friday): Develop a Plan to Boost your Blog’s Profile and Readership
- Day 21 (Monday): 17 Statistics to Monitor on your Blog
- Day 22 (Tuesday): Plan the next step for your blog
Have you ever picked up a magazine and wondered how much work goes into making it as easy and pleasant to read as possible? Have you noticed that when you come near a magazine display, there is a strong attention-pulling effect? Wouldn’t it be neat if your blog was the same way?
Today, we are going to spend some time analyzing some magazines to extract some valuable lessons that can be used on our blogs.
Any magazine will do but if you have something that covers your niche (movies or even entertainment) then go ahead and pick one (or preferably several) of those. Now with an eye toward improving your blog, look out for those potential source of ideas:
- Marketing – How does the magazine markets itself to readers and potential readers? How does it convinces us of buying it simply using its cover? There is a lot to be learned simply by analyzing how a magazine market itself.
- Design – The best magazine usually have the best design. By best, I do not necessarily mean flashy. You can learn a lot about design from reading a good magazine. Look out for color schemes, fonts, layouts and how each components attracts your attention to certain content.
- Post – Reading a magazine is almost always a source for new content for your own blog. Sometimes, all it takes is being exposed to some creativity or discussion fodder even when it’s unrelated to your niche.
- Learning about your Niche – if you choose a magazine that covers your niche. it’ll keep you updated on the latest news and developments in it.
- Writing – a well-written article on almost any topic can teach you a lot about effective communication.
- Reader Engagement – while a very different medium magazines are increasingly trying to get more interactive with readers by running competitions, setting up online areas, using reader contributions etc…
Darren highlighted some of the questions you should ask yourself while reading your magazine:
- Who is the target audience of this publication?
- What techniques are used on the front page to draw people into the magazine?
- What makes you pause to read an article? Why do you skip over other articles?
- What type of headlines are they using? How effective are they?
- How are pictures used?
- What colors are in at the moment?
- How are articles formatted (use of sub headings, bold, lists etc)?
- How does the magazine sell itself (looking forward to future issues, subscription pages etc)
- What can you learn from ad placement and design in the magazine?
- What level is this magazine pitched at? (beginners, advanced etc)
- What is the magazine doing well at – what are they not doing well at? How would you improve it?
- What are the limitations of the medium of magazines that you don’t have with a blog and how could you sell your blog on these things?
Assignment
I think this is one of the most fun assignment in 31DBBB. Simply grab a magazine and start getting some ideas for your own blog. Do not forget to visit their website to see if you can’t gather more ideas. As always, come back and tell us everything you learned today!
Discussion
- What general lessons have you already learned from observing how magazines do things?
- What magazines do you think would provide the most value for you as a blogger trying to learn from them?
- What magazine websites do you think are particularly impressive, and what techniques are you able to identify that might be valuable to you?
37 Comments
I worship magazines enough that I’m using a magazine theme for my site. But it works. What magazines do brilliantly is make information easily accessible, in plain site, with headings easy to catch a readers eye. As far as being pretty and design effort goes, I could probably improve in that area, but I’m in full agreement that after you’ve had your blog for a long time having all this information at a readers finger tips and looking pretty while it’s there has a huge impact on who stops at your site and who doesn’t.
I agree Heather. The main reason I switched from my old template was because I needed a magazine template myself. It is so much easier to navigate when there is a variety of different posts. For example, I can’t fathom how I could have a 31DBBB, Hollywood Fantasy Draft and Comedy Tournament all at the same time on a regular blog template like my previous one.
I’m with both of you here, but I can’t deny the appeal of Atahualpa’s adjustability. I added the slideshow to be able to offer more at face value, which is a tactic used by Empire’s website, Empire being one of the best movie magazines out there.
I’m thinking that the use of colours and tones to guide the eyes of readers could be a tactic used by a blog to emulate a magazine. For example, using darker sidebars to keep readers attention to the middle and down… Or vice versa.
Castor: What kind of setup are you running on here? I am thinking of Switching to wordpress.org and using Thesis as template. I wanna run a 3 column blog with more options both design and publicity wise.
What do you mean by setup?
What kind of hosting and template service? Blogger, WordPress etc. What I really find unique about anomalous material is the design layout. You really have a magazine look that almost make it look more like a forum. So your worktool must be really flexible?
I don’t use anything fancy. Simple self-hosted WordPress.org blog with a premium template made by WPZoom http://www.wpzoom.com/ . My host is with InMotion.
As I said to Heather above, the magazine feel was the main reason I chose this template. It’s much easier to have a variety of content which would be completely impossible to achieve on a regular blog layout.
Nothing fancy? I think your site is phenomenal Castor! I will check out wpzoom and see if there is a template I like. Is it relatively easy for non-technical person to do the switch from WP.com to WP.org template? I finally bought a domain name recently FlixChatter.net (.com is already bought), so I’m hoping to do the switch later this year.
Ahaha thanks Ruth. You are too kind
It is quite easy to make the WP.com to WP.org move. I have seen several fellow bloggers make the move recently
I do enjoy Empire, but that Terminator Salvation cover is a terribly convoluted and messy as the film itself
‘as’ terribly convoluted
if youre gonna slag something off, at least learn to spell
i suck.
but not as much as Terminator Salvation
Magazine are always nice to read..whereas for our blog too, its better to make our blog as a Magazine template. I think in a magazine, we have lot of stuffs in a single place..all are mostly catchy..same for our blog..So I just think on switch over to Magazine theme..still waiting to get a good template. I think Castor had a nice theme..I love it
The main motto of a Magazine concept was ‘At any place, any content – that should be give more joy n info to readers’.
Ok I will go through this:
I rummaged through my old stack of Entertainment Weekly magazines. First thing you notice is that the pictures take 90% of the cover and this is true for 100% of magazine. I don’t think I have ever seen a magazine cover with a bunch of text blocks
Very big bold headlines and only one or two of them, they don’t usually try to clutter the cover with everything that is actually in the magazine.
The way the magazine is built, what is likely to be the most interesting content is near the front of the magazine. It’s heavy with large pictures that can take up to half of the entire page. They also often have those one page or two-page photo-shoot spread with some bold headline or quote. As you get through the halfway mark of the magazine, there is definitely a big change in “vibe” in the second half. More reading intensive with smaller pictures and smaller fonts.
Color-scheme wise, the magazine favors vibrant colors but doesn’t try to mix them all up all at once. Instead, there is a great variety throughout the magazine and they are usually used to highlight certain type of things like quotes, tables or headlines. The main content is always black on white or white on black. Most of the page are heavy in content but never seem too cluttered thanks to great use of colors and pictures.
In terms of content formatting, you can see that they rarely have more than 2 or 3 paragraphs without some type of separation using a picture, a sub-headline, a statement in bold or anything that can break the monotony.
————————————–
What did I learn from this?
- Pictures, pictures, pictures: Even relatively uninteresting content can be spruced up a ton with wise insertion of good pictures
- Vibrant colors: Humans love vibrant colors. They attract attention to your content but only use it for side-content.
- Blocks of text are only for the most dedicated readers, avoid blocks of text like the plague especially near the top of your homepage.
All great advice! I’ll share that as a reader, I actually flee from blocks of text. I’m like “I don’t have time for that!” However, you must be careful not to make things to busy, not too cluttered that it’s hard to focus.
Ooooh, and I love that statement in bold idea. Macleans, Time, The New Yorker, Empire, Blender… they all use that and it’s a nice break and can bring focus back to where your piece is going.
You know these are great ideas to take back into the concept of heading into your archives and sprucing up some old posts…
Great tips as always Castor, thanks for sharing man. Yes, people are visual, so pictures definitely help, I know it does to me. I realize that people don’t have long attention spans, especially on the web, which is why I’m learning to write more concisely for blogging purposes.
Btw, I LOVE Empire and Total Film (much more than EW which can be gossip-y). If only I could subscribe to those UK mags, but they’re so darn expensive!
Question: Should we assume that our readers are interested in what we’re writing about but aren’t well versed in the subject?
I ask in regards to whether we over-inform and pander to readers, or leave a certain amount of detail out under the assumption that readers will just follow along.
That’s a good question Steve. One of the things I try to do in my reviews is not really go into plot too much. If it’s not old or an indy, I figure people have seen the trailer a gazillion times like me. I want to get to if it was good or not. I don’t want to lose my reader before I get to the good stuff. I’d be curious how some of you feel about this.
Well yeah, I don’t feel that plot details have any place in a review. Was it good? Was it not good? Why? Are the main questions I try to answer – but I’m talking more about geeky little details, and the process of filmmaking and all that kind of stuff.
Well, I think if you know it or notice it then you should mention it. I don’t know a thing about filmmaking, but as a lover of the medium, I would feel like I was learning something if that was pointed out or explained to me. Of course, not so much that it takes over the review, but if something was better emphasized or screwed up because of how it was shot, I would appreciate your take on it.
Makes sense. I like it. Thanks Colleen!
Well Steve, it depends who you think your audience is
In any case, there is usually 4 components to a movie review:
- Background information
- a condensed plot sypnosis
- a set of arguments about the movie
- an evaluation of the movie
The geeky little details would usually be background information. Now, I don’t think there is such thing as over-informing your reader and since you want to reach the maximum amount of people, you do need to make sure everyone is following you. Ultimately, it really depends who you are targeting: The average Joe or people who are highly knowledgeable of the business?
I’ve just found that I’ve been writing to fellow bloggers ’cause they’ve been the only ones leaving commments – and therefore might be my only readers (and they might be). As such, I’ve been writing at a bit of a “higher level”, to those who are already familiar with the movies I’m talking about. Just wondering if I need to self-correct.
To clarify, I mean that I feel that I want to educate, but I’ve found that my readers are just about as educated as I am. Which sort of leaves me having to rethink my mandate, or perhaps get a feel for who my readers who aren’t commenting are.
Thanks Castor.
Well, percentage-wise, the rule of thumb is only about 1% of your visitors will leave a comment. If you don’t have some analytics on your site, I would recommend you getting one asap so you can see where your visits come from.
Yeah, I use three or four different analytics. So I know where they go, where they’re from, how long they stayed and all that. I just don’t know “who” they are. Education levels and all that stuff. I might be overthinking things a bit – but I suppose this is exactly the forum for this kind of analysis. If I don’t question the direction of this blog in this forum, then when/where else would it happen? The 1% rule is a very good one to keep in mind, thanks. That’s the perspective I’m looking for.
Well I can tell that your blog is really focused toward other movie buffs. Personally, I visit your daily, even multiple times a day. However, some of the content is really focused toward very specific groups of people (intentionally or not) so if you are not knowledgeable (not seen the movie, tv show etc…) then there is no way I can participate.
Just visited your blog actually, it’s really improving by leaps and bounds as of late. Congrats!
Much of the credit falls at your feet, Castor. I’ve been taking this workshop very seriously. Most, if not all, of the changes of late have resulted from the past 18 daily exercizes.
Thanks for the perspective on my audience too. Yeah, we’re for fanboys I suppose. I’ve tried to make the more niche discussions into initiations: like for Venture Bros. or Kick-Ass. But for the most part, we love to geek out over whatever we’ve been watching under the understanding those who are in on the joke will have a great time and those who aren’t might hopefully be pushed into joining in when they get a chance.
But my perspective on reviews has always been: people who are reading the review who haven’t seen a movie don’t want it spoiled for them, and those who have already seen it and want a little perspective don’t need a recap… Not that that’s on point, it’s just my reviewing philosophy.
Well Steve, I’ve just found your site from doing the challenge here, but I’m totally digging it. You seem to be on my same wavelength. I haven’t listened to any of your audio clips yet, but I hope to over the weekend. I’m a mother of two in my 40′s and I share some the geeking out stuff on your site. Now, grant it, I’m cooler than most (just kidding), but you may have a wider appeal than you think.
Thanks Colleen! Thanks double for the insight and thanks triple for the positive feedback! I hope you enjoy the podcast when you get around to listening to it. Everything we do now with our blog revolves around it these days. I think we are geared towards those a little older and in the know, but I guess that’s just who we are. I suppose I’ll try opening things up a bit to everyone.
Well, my bible is Entertainment Weekly. Every week when it comes in the mail I plunk my butt down with it and I’m engaged for about an hour. I do enjoy the pictures and the cover. I guess I could use more pics on my site, but I’m always paranoid that I’m in violating some kind of copywrite law, so I try to stick with general movie poster pics. I try to keep it short and sweet like ET. You can get a lot of info without even reading one of longer articles. I love how they mention old stuff all the time (I try to do that) and I they cover everything like I’m trying to do! I do need to update to a page/subject format to separate my reviews of movies, books, TV and so on. I just haven’t had the time. I also want to do longer pieces like they do. I was thinking about a monthly spotlight on an actor and write about what I think of them and best/worse movies and such. These would be longer more essay style pieces. For the most part though, I know people don’t have alot of time. They may be sneaking a peak at work, or just put the kids down for a nap, so I try not to waste time. My original tagline was “Pointing you to the good stuff so you don’t waste your time.” It didn’t flow well.
Actually I kind of like that tagline Coleeng.
I am a huge fan of Total Film (mag and website) I also like BFI’s Sight and Sound – I just look at the site and not the magazine.
I off and on subscribe to Film Comment (Film Society of Lincoln Center).
I like these publications because they offer a very nice blend of mainstream and art house/independent/international film. I also like that on occasion there are mentions of classic cinema. I feel that the combination of all these complement what I try to do on my blog.
From a website perspective the Total Film site is awesome!
And while not technically affiliated with a magazine – the film section of the New York Times (web version) has great features.
Great article, Castor.
I was wondering which plugin you’re using for the default avatars on your comments section. For instance, if I post and I don’t have a specific avatar, your blog seems to show a randomised default one. Could you tell me which plugin achieves this affect, as it seems really useful?
Thanks,
You don’t need a plugin for that. Simply go in Settings > Discussion. At the bottom, you will see the options for avatars.
Ah, cool!
Thanks, Castor!
Castor,
I also really like some of the buttons you have on your site, especially the large orange Subscribe to RSS button on the right, and the small Twitter, Facebook, RSS, etc icons that you have elsewhere. Are these from a plugin, or did they come with your theme?
Cheers,
Matt
Yes, most of those came with the theme. The big RSS button I added to the sidebar myself.
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