We know you’re an expert already, no need to refresh our memories every time. No need to awe us all with your extensive vocabulary which only experts like yourself could understand. No, really, there’s no need.

Have you ever come across a blog that reads like alien language to you? Say you’re interested in this new niche and decide to look for blogs related to it in the hopes of reading all about it. But then this one blog keeps spewing words that you swear sound like Martian language. Wouldn’t that be immensely confusing as well as annoying? How about you? Have you ever thought of how your blog reads like to newbies?

As someone who’s written extensively in your niche, you probably forget sometimes that not all people understand what you’re talking about. Of course not! Says you. Well, if you’re writing on a very specific niche, say, science, I challenge you to read back a couple of entries and see if you haven’t used any kind of scientific gobbledygook which you haven’t explained extensively before. If you had, you fail the test.

Thing is, as we grow accustomed to our niches and to blogging, we tend to filter out the newbies which are potential readers. Granted, the more determined newbie would find ways to understand what in the world you’re talking about. But you see, unless this is a perfect world with perfectly patient people, there will always be those who’re mildly interested — the dabblers — who have the potential to turn into avid readers if you can only engage them in an article they could understand.

There are blogs that are written specifically for a group of people. There are some scientific blogs that cater to the scientific crowd, tech blogs to cater directly to the tech crowd, and so on and so forth. But there are blogs that aim to reach out not only to the crowd that is already knowledgeable in the niche, but also to the lay audience. If your blog aims to be the latter, then you better keep your language in check.

The best thing to do in not alienating anybody is to never use a word that is specific to the niche without defining it first. You could expound on the term in the article itself, or you could link to either one of your past entries discussing it or a web page defining it.

It will be hard to those who’re used to their niches so much, they blur the boundaries of niche-talk and normal words. But if you’re really determined not to alienate anyone in your blog, make a conscious effort to do so. A bit of practice goes a long way. Proofreading after writing the post is also a good way to ensure this. After writing your post, remind yourself of KISS (Keep it simple, stupid!) and read from the top. Hopefully with time, you’ll be able to make posts understood by both experts and laymen perfectly.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under blogging, writing. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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