“Good typography makes the canvas fit the meaning of the text, not the other way around. It paints pictures with form that enrich the meaning of the words with colour, texture and movement. It is illusive, subtle, and ambient. It’s the shirt that engages from a distance. The closer you get to it the better it seems, but it takes a moment of reflection to even realize why.”

Brilliant!

When I started my first blog I found that the more serious I took it and the more involved my posts got that I needed more functionality. I wanted my blog to look and act less like a blog and more like an online print journal. It was this desire that started my look for WordPress plugins that could address the desires I had, and these are the best.

WP-Footnotes

The first thing I needed was a way to cite sources and make additional commentary in my writings, and footnotes are the perfect way to do that (even though they technically are endnotes, but the plugin does paginate). WP-Footnotes is an incredible plugin to accomplish this effectively. It has a lot of options, and it’s incredibly easy to use. You simply choose what the marking for the footnoted is (by default it’s double parenthesis), and when your post is rendered to the client it creates all the links for you.

A recent version has a smooth scrolling option that I do not like however. I instead plugged in another smooth scrolling script, and it turned out much better.

JavaScript Pull-Quotes

One of the things I like most about print publications are attractive pull-quotes, and with the JavaScript Pull-Quotes plugin you can achieve nice pull-quotes. It also has many options including different styles to choose for quote. You can even have it automatically cycle between quoting to the left and right! This is the best way to improve an article aesthetically.

Table of Contents Generator

One of the things I enjoy about Wikipedia is how it can give you a quick glance at the article’s content through a table of contents. Generating this functionality in your WordPress posts happen through the Table of Contents Generator WordPress Plugin.

It has no need to use special markup like the ones above, because it automatically scans the headings in the posts and creates a table of contents. The plugin will also recognize top-level and sub-headings. It is a great reminder to use headings in your posts which drastically improves the semantic value of your content.

In Series WordPress Plugin

Often times when writing about a topic in-depth it’s advisable to break it up for the reader. The way to do this before would be to create a page announcing the series and provide links to all the articles in the series. Well no more! The In Series WordPress Plugin makes this task seamless. The plugin adds an option to add it to a series, and the plugin generates the necessary connections between the content. It’s great, because it requires no hacking of your template–it works right out of the box!

Even though I personally haven’t got to give this plugin a go, I’m excited to really make use of this one. Writing series is a great way to present lengthy content on the web, and this plugin takes all of the work out of doing so (besides the writing of course).

WP-Typogrify

The last deals specifically with improving all the little things in typography that we traditionally miss but make a difference. This is a port from the original Python script for WordPress, and it carries the name WP-Typogrify. This does things such as inserting inline styles to adjust the CSS around all-caps, ampersands, and does important little things such as turning double hyphens into em-dashes and much more.

The Journey

I decided I was tired of e-mailing documents to different computers to work on them. I wanted a single sign-on place to work on my office documents (particularly word processing but also spreadsheets and presentations). I need a place to work on these documents in a “live” fashion. I wanted to hit save and push it to a server that could be accessed anywhere with a browser and internet connection.

I started with Zoho. Actually, I was comparing, at that time, Writely (now bought by Google), with Zoho; but I ultimately went with Zoho. It was a decent application. The Ajax made it quite fast, but it always lacked interoperability, a familiar UI, and I didn’t like the presentation application (Zoho Show). I used it for a while, and it did the job; but it didn’t appease me. One of the biggest things was the export feature was horrendous, and I couldn’t put in my needed footnotes (a necessity).

I then went to Think Free. Even though it was slower due to the Java, the UI was more like MS Word, the export feature was really good, and I could add my treasured footnotes. The interoperability problem was still there. I couldn’t cut ‘n paste from one of the documents to another retaining formatting, values, etc. They did drastically improve the back end by allowing the user an actual “office” with access to all your documents (word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations) in one spot (to be fair, Zoho now has Zoho Notebook). I could also create folders and other cool stuff. Overall, I was very happy with Think Free.

Then Why Would I Switch?

At work we use MS’ Team Foundation Server for developers. It is an amazing application, and it uses SharePoint natively for all the document collaboration. I loved using SharePoint, because instead of having to emulate MS Office I was actually using it! The integration into the OS was also a nice surprise; all the Office products allow dynamic collaboration inside the application.

I got more addicted to SharePoint when I found out that they just made version 3 of Windows SharePoint Services free for anyone with the Server 2003 OS. I downloaded, installed, and loved it. Version 3 is amazing! The web parts made it a great dynamic tool, and I am a big fan of the UI. But I had problems accessing it externally which defeated the whole purpose (I had problems with the URL in the load balancing).

I knew I would never find SharePoint hosting free or reasonably price—until recently. Enter FreeSharePoint.com. It really is a no-strings attached SharePoint workspace (version 2)! The limitations are 25MB and 5 users, but for simple document management it is plenty. Plus you can create workspaces, add tasks, contacts, and much more; and it integrates seamlessly with the Windows OS and Office!

Conclusion

If you want a virtual office like MS Office then just use it! That’s what makes SharePoint such a powerful tool. In the world of collaboration tools–SharePoint rules.

(Editor’s Note: Mad props to my co-worker Justin Kohnen for showing me WSS 3 and working out the kinks.)

What will follow are tips that will help to ensure that your sphere of influence in the blogging realm will continue to grow. Remember that this year’s Time magazine’s person of the year is: “You,” and that pronoun refers to the people who are generating influential, thought-provoking content through the Internet medium.

The suggestions will cover a range of issues from syndication to structure and back again. I hope it encourages the reader to be mindful and to create meaningful blog content.

Remember Your Syndication

Why does RSS exist? It exists to all my content to be portable across applications. I no longer have to worry about visiting my favorite sites to get updates, because now I am notified. In my RSS reader, I don’t care what your website looks like, because all I see is your content. If the content lacks in quality then it will eventually be removed from my list.

Further, sites such as 9 Rules do a good job of ensuring that the best writers get the recognition over those with the flashiest sites. It’s true that many of them look fantastic and have fantastic content, but they make their judgments on who has the best content.

Writing with Well-Structured Content

Being readable is also a fundamental principle in ensuring that your now well-written content gets read. It seems all-to-often that good web writing structure gets lost in the mix of making sure that our blog reflects the latest design trends. Remember the 7th grade when you learned about topic sentences, grammar, and other methods to make your writing look intelligent? Go ahead, use them, don’t be afraid.

Structuring your content into a readable format is also helpful. Give bold headlines to each section of your article, and always use a overview and concluding statement (that should reflect one another). Be poignant in your article, and stick to your thesis. It will go a long way to ensuring that your message is clearly conveyed. Remember that your readers (and you as well) scan and not read most content on the Internet. Give them a reason to stay around and hear all your thoughts. Be sure to exercise brevity whenever possible, and avoid using needless words to convey your ideas.

Jakob Nielson gives us some good tips pertaining to writing for the web.

• 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word
• Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper
• Web content should have 50% of the word count of its paper equivalent

The Need For Consistently New Content

There is nothing worse than a deceased blog. Imagine the hundreds of Blogger and Xanga accounts that haven’t been updated in two years. Most people tend to give up, because they don’t see a drastic surge in comments, hits, and publicity. They need to remember that those things don’t come instantly. It’s kind of like losing weight. How many people do you know that get excited to work out and eat healthy only to get discouraged when they don’t see immediate results? Sadly, they often end up reverting to their old manner of living.

The popular bloggers out there didn’t start writing one day and have 1,000 subscribers to their feed. They spend time and energy writing fresh content continually for a sustained amount of time. If your users come back again and again only to find old content, they won’t be doing that much longer.

Write with Passion Not Passivity

I can’t tell you how many blogs I go to that write in a lackadaisical manner. Who would want to continue to read content that doesn’t display and promote passion concerning the issue at hand? I always want to ensure that I don’t just write to write, although it’s an easy thing to do. You’ve got readers that want new content (see point above), and it’s easy to write content that is sub-par at best simply for the sake of writing. But I’ve found that I have to make sure that the content I write concerns something that I’m concerned about. Your passion for the topic at hand will be conveyed, and it will encourage the reader to action (especially if it’s a persuasive writing).

Just remember that consistently updating your blog doesn’t mean throwing anything out there. Be mindful that your readers come and keep coming back, because they feel your writing has something that can benefit them. Don’t write half-heartedly, but instead write with a sense of purpose.

Engage Your Readers

The last thing worth mentioning is that you write a blog, and there are certain expectations associated with that. I can’t understand why anyone (who isn’t insanely popular and prone to bad comments) would have a blog without the ability to interact with the writer. I tend to get discouraged if I can’t ask a question or throw in my $.02 on the article.

It’s also not enough to just allow comments, you have to be willing to engage your readers and satisfy their inquiries and/or comments. Make interacting with you a joyful, interactive process and not a laborious one. It will keep them coming back, and it will get people to actually visit your site instead of just reading it in their RSS reader. Be sure also that if someone comes to your blog then for heaven’s sake, it won’t hurt you to visit their site and participate.

In Summary

Think about what you would expect and how you behave on someone else’s blog site. If you expect a certain degree of readability, interactivity, etc. then be sure to extend that to your readers. It will go along way to ensuring that your online experience, and your readers, will be satisfying and worthwhile.

(This essay was written and published for the Weblog Tools Essay Competition.)

Then I take a step back and realize how I myself read blogs. I don’t read as much as I scan. This is important for the blogger to remember when writing his own post. Remember that to effectively convey information in a digital medium that one needs to write with brevity.

Writing with brevity (that is, concise and to the point) is a skill that is not easy to accomplish. It takes a great deal of skill to express an idea in less words than more. Before you write your entry this to yourself: “How can I summarize my main points to the reader?” Use clear sections in your post to convey the flow of thought, and attempt to stay on the thesis and not go into the nether world of blog tangents.

(Originally posted here.)