The Whitehawk

I, and most of the people I talk to, love Chinese restaurants, and their food also, of course.

Is there some special formula for this success?

Is it the decoration, the food, the service? During this article I intend on analyzing all of these things and determine if any of the factors that make people choose Chinese restaurants, over others, can help improve your blog, and the way you write.

It’s different

As soon as you walk in a Chinese restaurant, as cheap as it might be, you know you’re entering a different place. The way people dress, the paintings, the lights, the whole decoration basically, is different. Though it may not be something crucial when you’re choosing which restaurant to go to, I think that it is a bit influential, at least for me.

It’s not only a place I like to go to eat well, it’s also a place I enjoy being at, because it’s different from everywhere else. What can you learn from this for your blog? Well, your blog’s design is important. Of course “content is king” when you’re talking about blogs, but if you can make your blog a bit different from all others, with it’s own look, yet accessible and readable enough, you’ll be making your visitors much more satisfied, and it will also help you attract new visitors which were drawn in by your blog’s design.

Don’t speak Chinese? No problem!

In the ScrivsTyme podcast a few days ago, Scrivs mentioned how he disliked not understanding what the Chinese employees speak when he goes there. Some people find that rude, and I can understand why, but what can we learn from this for blogging?

Well, first of all, we can learn that it’s important that you know how to communicate with your readers. It doesn’t matter if it’s your mother language or not (English isn’t my main language), what matters is that you are understandable. So I guess that the only thing we can learn from here is that you should always proofread what you’re about to say, but there’s still something important we can learn from this.

Don’t talk about things people won’t understand. Sorry for referring ScrivsTyme again, but they always pay attention to this issue. It’s very rare for you to hear their podcast and not understand what they’re talking about. They always take the time to explain the things that preceded their current subject. They don’t separate the users who are contributors, or avid participants in the forums, from those that aren’t. They always take the time to explain what’s behind their answers or stories. Another good example of this is the article I wrote not too long ago regarding mine and my girlfriend’s “hot chocolate” date (but don’t think that it’s anything like GTA’s “Hot Chocolate”).

Consistently Good

If you don’t usually go out for lunch or dinner, you’ll probably wonder sometimes about whether it’s worth the risk, or not, to go to a restaurant you’ve had mixed impressions about. Whether you’re out for meat or fish, and regardless of the restaurant you choose to go, the quality of the dish will never be the same.

For example, here, in Portugal, one of our traditional dishes is “roasted piglet”. Yes, we eat Babe-sized pigs, and it’s damn good… but expensive. However, there is a problem about choosing such a dish in a restaurant. You never know if it will be as good as it was last time. Sometimes you’ll get tasty and tender meat, sometimes you’ll get more bones than anything else. But the price for the dish is always the same.

In a Chinese restaurant, you know that no matter what you order, it will be almost exactly the same as what you ordered last time. Just today, me and my father were wondering about where we would go out for lunch. We stopped by a restaurant he’s acquainted with, but then ended up coming back, because the day’s special was a soup, and we wanted something a bit more “solid” than that. After idling in my Peugeot for a few minutes we ended up going to the Chinese again. My father said, and I quote:

“At least there we know that we’ll eat well.”

When we get to the Chinese restaurant, the employees there are always nice and polite. They let us feel comfortable. And since we’re regulars there, they even come talk to us a bit every time we stop by. We eat well, for a reasonable price, without sacrificing service or quality.

So if you’re writing on a blog, and expect it to be successful, even if you write about “growing pineapple trees in Malaysia”, as long as you keep your article’s quality consistently good, and released within consistent intervals, then you should be able to reach some success. Of course, these tips are not all you need to follow in order to reach a successful blog. But if you follow them, they will, at least, set you on the right track.

Griffith Blogging