Blogging is a great tool for writing, sharing news and photos or art
and just generally reaching out to the nameless ranks of people combing
the internet every day in search of news and entertainment
10. Consistency
Your readers and search engines love consistency. If you post three
times a week, every week, this is considered the bare minimum for
attracting and maintaining a readership. There is such a thing as too
much blogging, though. Posting once a day is considered normal, meaning
you’re not living in a dark cave staring at the glowing rectangle all
day every day. But every post you make is a new page to be indexed by
the search engines, so after one year you will have more than 300 pages
in the web with your name on it!
9. Originality
With the ever-growing legions of bloggers out there, internet
devotees are always on the lookout for the next great, original blog
concept. One blogger might be devoted to showcasing photos of the
rooftops of St. Petersburg. Many blogs are devoted to fashion and
celebrity gossip, but there aren’t that many documenting people dressed
in the gothic style during the hot days of summer.
8. Personality
Whether you create a web persona for the purpose of blogging or you
plan to put your real self out there, personality is essential to a good
blog read. This gift comes naturally to some bloggers and not at all to
others. Whichever you are, your writings will reveal this personality
to the world. A lot of bloggers give up fast when they receive negative
feedback that is taken personally, but keep in mind that all writing
media is subjected to waves of rejection. Don’t give up – there are
mean, anonymous people out there surfing the web leaving rude, baseless
comments, but there are also plenty more people with constructive
comments to offer.
7. Brevity
Be brief in your blog posts. Break up text with cuts, subheadings,
bullet lists, photos – people reading on the web tend to scan for
anything that slows down or catches their eye. If you want to keep your
readers reading, be succinct!
6. Diversity
Multi-media is almost a must these days. Text, video, photo, audio –
use all of it in your blog to create well-written posts that are
augmented with images or other media. As long as you’re on the way to
becoming a blog superstar, might as well go for those YouTube views as
well. Uploading your video to YouTube is a great example of how to drive
traffic back to your site, as well.
5. Social networking
Use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, whatever your social network of
choice is to drive traffic to your blog, alert your friends you have a
new post.
4. Collaboration
Use online relationships to collaborate on blog posts and expand your
readership – encourage comments, comment on other people’s blogs, link
freely and share traffic.
3. Promotion
Commenting on other blogs and getting your blog noticed joins up with
social networking here. If you are promoting a product on your blog pay
attention to other bloggers promoting a similar product. Use your best
judgment to decide what works and what doesn’t. But please, no spamming –
it is discourteous, not cool, other users will not take kindly and
search engines will penalize you (remove your pages from the index).
2. Other media
Why limit yourself to just a blog? Podcasts are a great example of
new media working with blogs to make them even more up-to-date and
interesting – your readers will enjoy hearing your actual voice and it
will heighten their reading of your content in the future. Check out
TypePad blog software for integrated podcasting capability.
1. Fun
The most important part of blogging is having fun and loving your
blog. If you choose to blog about something you have a passion for that
will come through across the vast and nebulous internet. Additionally,
the blog will be sustainable for you because you care about it.
