Personal blogging, in short, is PERSONAL!
If I have to elaborate, these few elements define a personal blog.
- The writer[s] – Mostly, personal blogs are diaries – written by one person. However, they can sometimes be journals maintained by a family or small like-minded groups.
- The Content – In my opinion, this defines the most if a blog is personal or not. Most personal blog content is about the author’s experiences, feelings, or ideas. So topics usually tend to be random.
- The Style – Personal blogs are author-centric — not user-centric. Personal bloggers usually write for their own satisfaction but not to please readers. So, we often see no formatting or side headings on personal blogs.
Also, as per my observation, most personal blogs are written in the first person. But again, as mentioned in all top ranking pages for “what is personal blogging,” – personal blogging just doesn’t mean writing in the first person.
- No SEO TARGETING – Commercial blogging involves a lot of keyword research, topic research, volume analysis, user intent analysis, and much more. Personal blogs usually don’t do any of this. They usually share their experiences.
Note: I listed these elements based on my observation of a few personal blogs like https://andy-bell.co.uk/blog/, https://seths.blog/.
Personal Blogging Example
This is how a typical post from a personal blog would look.
Post Title: A few traits to explain personal blogging.
Though 95% of the content on this post is based on my thoughts, observations, and experiences with writing for the web, I had to do a typical blogger thing of searching in Google to see what other people are writing about this topic.
I see most of these top 10 articles on the SERP page for this topic of personal blogging are mainly concentrating on the Wikipedia definition of “a dairy on a digital platform written by one person, not a corporation or a business”. That is one of the few dynamics that define a personal blog. And I don’t see why almost all these articles have content related to starting a personal blog as personal blogs can range from WordPress to Instagram posts which in most cases are easy to make.
You can see all the elements of a personal blog in the above 150 words.
1. My experience with an incident
2. It is author-centric – Nothing in that 150 words is user-centric
3. Presentation is off – too many words in one paragraph or a sentence, no side headings, not consumable easily.
4. Non-Commercial Tone – Though a commercial topic, the article is written in a random non-commercial tone without any elements of search engine optimization.
5. No SEO – No keyword(which I believe is an outdated concept) or topic research, no formats, or no subtopics covered to make it comprehensive. There was no search intent research either.
6. Wrote in first person.
Since we are on the topic of writing in the first person, let me clarify:
As the popular belief, writing in the first person doesn’t make any blog a personal blog. Many (in fact, tons of) COMMERCIAL blogs or blog sections write in first-person as a part of their personal blogging style.
So what is a personal blogging style commercially?
I have a detailed post here. However, I would like to give some overview on it.
Commercial Personal blogging style, at the moment, is one of the most used commercial writing styles by companies and businesses for search marketing, influential marketing, or trust-building campaigns. Many bloggers also use it commercially to promote products and services for some commission.
Coming back to personal blogging, I see there are many resources on how to start a blog or personal blog. Also, there are quite a few posts on what is personal blogging that covers mostly how to start a blog.
So I made an effort to explain my views on personal blogging and the elements that make it personal.
Hope you like it. If you have sort of comments, opinions, or compliments, you can write me a comment or email.
Thanks for reading!