You’ll see a new post every day on many blogs. On some you’ll even find multiple posts per day. On those blogs with a heavy posting schedule, there’s a chance that bloggers are using templates to speed up just how fast they can turn around new posts.
When it comes to content, there’s a wide range of just what kind of template a write might use. There is an extreme form of template, where most of the content is written and the ‘writer’ need only add a few details, like names and locations. That sort of template doesn’t do a whole lot for anyone wanting to add worthwhile content to their site, whether on a blog or otherwise. It’s unlikely to attract readers and there’s a chance that it could actually trigger a duplicate content issue.
However, when used correctly, templates can make a big difference in your abilities to produce quality content. A general template can provide a guide for a new writer to quickly fall into the appropriate style and format of a new website. With a very general template, we may be talking about something along the lines of an outline — maybe your blog routinely includes reviews of new software. In that case, the template may list an introductory paragraph, instructions on using the new software, benefits and drawbacks and a concluding paragraph. It can suggest types of images or even provide sample paragraphs that a writer can model her work on. These sorts of templates can speed up the development of a new post, but they can also be put together with ebooks, articles and other content in mind.
As long as a writer knows when to follow a template and where to move beyond it, the template can provide a good basis for new work. Having a template for types of posts that are routinely written over and over again can also speed up the process.
Be wary of relying too heavily on a template, no matter how useful they are. If you create significant amounts of static contents from templates, it’s much easier to turn out writing that looks similar — perhaps too similar. If you’re constantly using a template for a variety of different purposes and topics, template can evolve. With static content, however, there’s a chance that a template can turn into a fill-in-the-blanks exercise.
2 Responses
PaxNow
July 21st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
1IF you can write you really don’t need or want to use a template. Print journalists wrote the “inverted pyramid” style and always gave you the who, what, where, when, why and how. Bloggers give you the ‘here’s what this means’ style or the ‘here’s what I think’ style and many other types of writing that totally defy “Style.”
Templates will only give you a ‘paint by numbers’ kind of writing that isn’t very interesting to your readers.
Templates may be great for jamming out 100 articles for the article directories when your looking for quantity but they are really quite difficult to read.
Thanks.
Thursday
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:36 am
2@Paxnow, While I appreciate your concerns, I’d argue that a lot of people out there either don’t know how to write well or don’t have time to do so.
The fact that you’re familiar with inverted pyramid style already puts you way ahead of the game. Many small business owners putting together a blog to promote their company need at least a model to follow in order to figure out how to write useful posts.
I don’t think that fill-in-the-blank templates are a good idea, as I said, but the inverted pyramid is a very basic template, when you think about it.
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