You got judged by 3 people that agree on a format, more or less. This format fits more or less chess.com idea of the perfect blog, I must have posted a blog or article by Sam Copeland in another thread.
In the end you do you. If you use this blog to have material to condense and rearrange into a book, it is already clear your first objective is not having a popular blog. It would be a good side objective, but not the main one.
I started my blog to follow my progress and put all tofether some of the things I noted down. So also for myself more than for the others. I will see how I modify it back and forth to make it more useful for me and more enjoyable for others at the same time.
You decide your objectives.
In general, my opinion is that some of your old posts did not fit an article format either, you were often talking in second person to the reader or almost, while a normal article would have long blocks of text but would also cut all redundant words.
Storytellers often indulge in many words. Bloggers often must be a mix of all of them, journalists and graphicians and storytellers and and. Everybody decides their direction.
If you do a great job you can have success. Maybe more out of Chess.com, that would rate you a top blogger if yours somehow fit in their idea of blog.
As usual, you have to ad yourself and find a kind way to do it to get known if you don't get into the normal circuit of bloggers, and to retain readers. It won't happen alone.
Success seldom happens alone.
Fellow Blog Lovers,
I am wondering if any of you out there in the chess.com blog world can identify with this.
I have been participating in Blog Champs Season 1 and the post below was my (unsuccessful) entry in the first knock out round. That is absolutely fine - I have enjoyed participating and, if nothing else, it has forced me to make three posts. A good thing!
https://www.chess.com/blog/DreamLearnBe/the-ultimate-sacrifice
The chief negative points were it's length and the formatting of it - but there are mitigating reasons for both these flaws.
I had a productive exchange with one of the judges when I asked for feedback and this brings me to my point. I guess what I am writing is not really what many others actually consider to be a blog per se. They are for want of a better word "articles".
This fits in with my long term dream. Eventually I would like to write a chess book. I see my blog as an excellent way to practice my writing.
This also explains my approach to the multitude of diagrams that I use, rather than condensing them into one analysis board. I want the reader to experience my blog as if they were scrolling down an e-book.
It seemed to me that thumb nails and other pictorial elements are heavily emphasised by many when evaluating blog quality. Fair enough, but this is not a self evident truth of blogs. I am quite a fan of medium and other long form blog platforms. Here writing and the depth of ideas is what is most important.
I appreciate that a visually stunning blog is a wondrous thing. But surely the ideas and writing technique need to feature on an equal footing.
What do you all think?
Are the ribbons and the bows actually necessary for a blog to be successful?