10 Great Guitar Blogs: I Heart Guitar

By: Dr. Matt Warnock

Peter Hodgson of I Heart Guitar

Guitar blogs, like the guitar itself, are an international phenomenon. They’re run by writers of all different backgrounds, tastes, geographic locations and nationalities. With the internet seemingly reaching every corner of the globe, bloggers from even the farthest reaches can put their thoughts up for everyone to read, and many of them have gained quite the following in the process. One of the most recognized and successful guitar bloggers on the scene today is Australian guitarist and journalist Peter Hodgson, who runs the popular website I Heart Guitar.

In my discussions with guitar bloggers I’ve noticed that many of them enter the field as either full-time web designers who played guitar, or full-time guitarists who did web design. While this is true in many cases, Hodgson has taken a different route on his journey to becoming a guitar blogger. For one, he didn’t really have a technological background, but what he did have was an extensive track record as a performer and music journalist for Australian music magazines such as Mixdown, Australian Guitar and Australian Musician Magazine.

With such a solid foundation in writing about guitar, and understanding the limits of print publications, Hodgson “wanted to find a way for my articles to live on after the magazines had finished their run on the shelves.” He also wanted to expand his articles beyond the limitations of print media. Noting, “An article that was only 500 words long in Mixdown can be 3000 words on I Heart Guitar.” This has allowed him to dig deeper into subjects and expand on articles that he felt garnered further exploration.

Though he’s aware of the multi-media possibilities that the web offers, as compared to traditional print magazines, Hodgson is cautious when it comes to experimenting with new forms of communication on his blog. Having thought a lot about his readers and how they access his site, he has found that he has “to assume that since a lot of people might be reading on their computer at work their lazy boss hasn’t approved a PC upgrade in 12 years, and they’re probably stuck with an old version of Flash, or they’re running Netscape or something.” It’s considerations such as this that have led to the site’s straight forward, but easily recognizable design.

Though I Heart Guitar is not going to blow readers away with the fancy bells and whistles that other sites offer, Hodgson has experimented with several technological advancements in order to bring his site to a larger public. As he has discovered, “it seems that the way people consume content is becoming more streamlined and readers are just as likely to read my site on their smartphone as they are on a computer…that’s why I tend to run with nice big pictures separate from the text, instead of wrapping text around images.”

Though this design approach grew out of a need to provide smartphone ready content to his readers, one of the unintentional side effects is that the side has one of the most distinct designs of any guitar blog on the web today. Any reader of the site immediately knows when an article from I Heart Guitar pops up in their Google Reader or email inbox, even if the article never states that it came from the site. This is something that every website owner aims for, but few achieve, and something that Hodgson should be definitely feel good about.

As the owner and operator of I Heart Guitar, alongside his work as a music journalist and professional guitarist, Hodgson enjoys some of the perks that come with being a successful blogger. The fact that he was becoming more of a household name with guitarists really hit him when he went to “Winter NAMM…and realis(ed) how many people in another country were aware of the site.” This level of recognition has since grown as the site and Hodgson have expanded in influence around the guitar blogging community.

While many bloggers out there hem and haw over many of the “gimmicky” tricks that we’ve all seen to try and get readers to their site, Hodgson believes in the old fashioned mantra that content is King. “I’ve seen bloggers in other genres go crazy chasing Google rankings and trying to nail the SEO aspects of their site. But, while it’s important to be aware of those factors, if you have good content that people want to read, link to and share around, those things will take care of themselves.”

An old fashioned, but time-tested and true approach to writing is something that hasn’t been lost on Hodgson as he has moves between the print and online mediums. And it is a big reason that the site is one of the most popular and easily recognized guitar blogs on the web today.

If you’re looking for product reviews, interviews (including heavyweights Slash, Satch and Ace Frehley just to name a few), guitar lessons or just about anything else guitar related you can think of, head on over to I Heart Guitar, you won’t be disappointed.