Over the course of five years of writing on the web, I have developed a sort of "method" that helps me keep up the quantity and quality of posts found on this website. I’d like to share what I am doing, why and who I am writing for, and what helps me achieve a nearly daily post count. This is the oldest blog on the Korean blog list, so I must be doing something right. I studied web design to a minor degree in college, mostly for business applications, but I’ve found that the planning and background has helped me create a website that has fulfilled my goals as a writer online.
My goal is to make this website full of daily content for people to read. Specifically, I want to provide interesting information on a set of sub-topics relevant to me. These include teaching, my life in Korea, and gaming. I approach all of these topics in a different way, but with the overall goal of trying to express myself in a concise, humorous, apolitical manner. Pictures have always been secondary to writing, and daily content is more important than length. Barring technical difficulties or physical impossibilities, I want to write something on this website every single day.
The first thing I learned when planning a website is, "Know who you want to read it, and make them want to read it. If you can’t think of ten people you know that want to read your website, it’s probably best you don’t waste your time writing it."
I’ve always tried to keep my website, when explaining Korean culture, simple enough that I could explain it to my mother without her having to know anything about Korea beforehand. This is my "market" so to speak. New teachers in Korea, people considering coming to Korea, people interested in Korea, my friends, or anyone that stumbles upon this website. When writing about Korea, it has been my choice to intentionally not use Korean characters. While using Hangul would allow for greater accuracy when discussing topics relevant to Korea, I believe it greatly limits the number of people willing to read material. I’m comfortable with bilingual blogs only when the language is not a barrier to anyone reading this website.
When I first started writing, the main reason I didn’t use Korean on this site was that I didn’t know any. I also wouldn’t be able to accurately recreate the sounds I was hearing into English characters. This is still a difficult problem when I try to use English characters to represent Korean sounds. It’s never going to be a perfect reflection of the language, but that’s not my goal.
I want someone that stumbles upon my website to be able to learn something about Korean culture without being able to read Korean characters at all. I think that websites that try to impress people with, "Look how much Korean I know!" are missing the point. Only extremely capable bilingual are going to take the time to read a post with lots of Korean in it, and that’s hardly the majority of web users. This doesn’t mean that extreme niche blogs can’t be successful, but that the time people are spending trying to reach a smaller number of readers is hard to justify sometimes. While I might struggle to read something posted on a bilingual blog for the satisfaction of learning or for the cultural understanding provided, most people probably won’t bother, and they shouldn’t expect to wade through posts that are, for the most part, incomprehensible.
I’ve also never worried about my web traffic when I do anything. I check logs once a month, at most, and that’s only to find out of there are any interesting blogs linking to me I’ve never read before. I don’t ever plan on advertising on this website, so my focus can remain on providing daily content that I want to write, not what will get me more hits. Plenty of blogs go for the site-whoring method and the instant people figure out that you are more interested in selling something than providing something interesting, they depart.
When talking about teaching, I try to keep names and specifics off the page. This allows me to talk about schools in general when possible, and not specific people. There are only a handful of teachers in my city, and when you badmouth someone in any way, digital or in real life, it gets back to them. Also, students and parents read these websites from time to time, and the last thing you want is an angry parent using your own words to nail you on a post. I enjoy talking about fun activities, humorous things students say or do, and the generalities of teaching in another country, but I don’t like letting work politics spill over into this site. I occasionally use this site as a way to vent off a bad day, but I try to keep that at a minimum.
When I mention games, or gaming related items, I try to keep in mind my friends. They are casual gamers at best and probably don’t spend the time I do keeping up on daily gaming news. I don’t want this to be a gaming heavy blog, so I intentionally try to limit the things I talk about to more easily approachable topics related to gaming. If I don’t think I could explain an achievement to someone that’s casually interested in gaming, I probably won’t bother.
I also demand a certain level of professionalism in myself. Posts will be spell-checked and proof read. I try to correct factual mistakes when possible. Pictures and content will be, at worst, PG-13 rated. I try to keep everything "Safe for Work", because that might just be where someone is reading my site. There is no reason to have a website that you aren’t allowed to read at all times.
While all these parts are integral in deciding what you see when you come to this website, the most important part is daily content. Without a reason to return to this website every day, you wouldn’t. That’s why it’s my goal to provide something new whenever possible. This eats into my personal time significantly, but I find it immensely rewarding. Whenever I have the time, I’m writing, and I wouldn’t like it any other way.
