A quick review of the most read and linked software blogs in both English and Spanish shows that most of them use similar writing structures, which vary depending on what they are talking about. We can take these more or less stable structures into account when writing our blog posts. Let’s divide these structures into two main types, reviews and analysis, and see how we should build them to write each of them.
Review
This is a short entry in which the objective is to make the program known. For this, it does not need many words nor many images (unless the software is really spectacular). It usually includes a screenshot, sometimes the same as the one provided on the application’s website. The structure is as follows:
- Name and brief description. Include operating system and license (paid, freeware, shareware, free software, etc.)
- Expansion of the description, emphasizing the most interesting aspects of the application.
- Other requirements (additional environments, RAM, disk space, etc.). Link to the program’s web site.
Analysis
This is a longer entry than the previous one, but varies in length depending on the depth of the analysis. It includes several screenshots, mostly of the most powerful or interesting features. Its structure:
- Attractive introduction, including the need that motivates the use of the program we are going to analyze or the innovative function it presents. Include here the name of the program, the operating system under which it runs and its license.
- Name of the program and a general description of its functions, including requirements such as RAM, disk space, etc.
- Description of its most important functions and its strengths in more detail.
- Description of its notable negative points.
- Conclusion with an evaluation of the program, summarizing with adjectives its strengths and weaknesses, and personal experience with the application, detailing in which operating system and with what resources it was tested.
- Link to the program’s web site.
Various tips:
- The alternation between reviews and analysis is one of the most used formulas and undoubtedly more attractive to readers. However, you may prefer to devote more time to one “genre” than the other. Make that decision based on the periodicity you want to have in your blog.
- But remember that no formula is exclusive.
- Get to the point. Don’t beat around the bush to show that you know how to write. However, dosing in some humorous comments can give a personal and attractive touch to the entry.
- Include whenever possible your personal experience with the program, which makes the post closer to the reader.
- If the analysis has not been done by you but you have taken it from what is said in another blog, point it out and try to contribute something to what has been said.
- Reviews always give the impression that they talk about programs or services that have not been tested (or at least, that’s how it seems to me). If you have tried it, please say so.
- Don’t try to “hook” the reader by putting off information they know is of interest. It may work a few times, but that way it is very likely that the reader will not become a regular on your blog. As they say: bread for today and hunger for tomorrow.
- Always offer links in the same place: if you put them at the beginning, then always there; if you put them within the text and/or at the end, then the same thing. Make sure the reader always knows where to go.
- If you are doing a review and the creator of the program offers an embeddable video about how it works, embed it (or embed it). It’s a quick thing to do and can add a lot to your review.
- If you have not discovered the program by yourself but by a review or analysis in another blog, link it. That’s what the web is all about, sharing information.
Remember that these are only recommendations and not dogmas. Try it and see if it works for you and your readers. If it doesn’t, change the style or try variations.
Photos: Andy Piper and Håkan Dahlström (in this order).
