Resources for Blog Help

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

2008-10-21T13:55:00.002-07:00

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

Posted by randfish on Thu (8/31/06) at 01:53 AM Blogging

A considerable portion of my consulting time has recently revolved around the optmization of corporate blogs (or the addition of blogs to revamped sites). As usual, I find a pattern emerging in the strategies that need attention and the pitfalls that must be avoided. So, rather than charging $400 an hour to give advice on the subject, I thought it would be valuable to share many of the most common pieces of advice here on the blog (business part of Rand fights with open source Rand, but loses, as usual).

1. Choose the Right Blog Software (or Custom Build)
The right blog CMS makes a big difference. If you want to set yourself apart, I recommend creating a custom blog solution - one that can be completely customized to your users. In most cases, WordPress, Blogger, MovableType or Typepad will suffice, but building from scratch allows you to be very creative with functionality and formatting. The best CMS is something that's easy for the writer(s) to use and brings together the features that allow the blog to flourish. Think about how you want comments, archiving, sub-pages, categorization, multiple feeds and user accounts to operate in order to narrow down your choices. OpenSourceCMS is a very good tool to help you select a software if you go that route.
-
2. Host Your Blog Directly on Your Domain
Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary site is one of the worst mistakes you can make. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and search rankings - by keeping the blog on a separate domain, you shoot yourself in the foot. From worst to best, your options are - Hosted (on a solution like Blogspot or Wordpress), on a unique domain (at least you can 301 it in the future), on a subdomain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a subfolder or page - this is the best solution).
-
3. Write Title Tags with Two Audiences in Mind
First and foremost, you're writing a title tag for the people who will visit your site or have a subscription to your feed. Title tags that are short, snappy, on-topic and catchy are imperative. You also want to think about search engines when you title your posts, since the engines can help to drive traffic to your blog. A great way to do this is to write the post and the title first, then run a few searches at Overture, WordTracker & KeywordDiscovery to see if there is a phrasing or ordering that can better help you to target "searched for" terms.
-
4. Participate at Related Forums & Blogs
Whatever industry or niche you're in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that's already active. Depending on the specificity of your focus, you may need to think one or two levels broader than your own content to find a large community, but with the size of the participatory web today, even the highly specialized content areas receive attention. A great way to find out who these people are is to use Technorati to conduct searches, then sort by number of links (authority). Del.icio.us tags are also very useful in this process, as are straight searches at the engines (Ask.com's blog search in particular is of very good quality).
-
5. Tag Your Content
Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts. I actually recommend having the tags right on your page, pointing to the Technorati searches that you're targeting. There are other good places to ping - del.icio.us and Flickr being the two most obvious (the only other one is Blogmarks, which is much smaller). Tagging content can also be valuable to help give you a "bump" towards getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon (which requires that you download the toolbar, but trust me - it's worth it). You DO NOT want to submit every post to these sites, but that one out of twenty (see tactic #18) is worth your while.
-
6. Launch Without Comments (and Add Them Later)
There's something sad about a blog with 0 comments on every post. It feels dead, empty and unpopular. Luckily, there's an easy solution - don't offer the ability to post comments on the blog and no one will know that you only get 20 uniques a day. Once you're upwards of 100 RSS subscribers and/or 750 unique visitors per day, you can open up the comments and see light activity. Comments are often how tech-savvy new visitors judge the popularity of a site (and thus, its worth), so play to your strengths and keep your obscurity private.
-
7. Don't Jump on the Bandwagon
Some memes are worthy of being talked about by every blogger in the space, but most aren't. Just because there's huge news in your industry or niche DOES NOT mean you need to be covering it, or even mentioning it (though it can be valuable to link to it as an aside, just to integrate a shared experience into your unique content). Many of the best blogs online DO talk about the big trends - this is because they're already popular, established and are counted on to be a source of news for the community. If you're launching a new blog, you need to show people in your space that you can offer something unique, different and valuable - not just the same story from your point of view. This is less important in spaces where there are very few bloggers and little online coverage and much more in spaces that are overwhelmed with blogs (like search, or anything else tech-related).
-
8. Link Intelligently
When you link out in your blog posts, use convention where applicable and creativity when warranted, but be aware of how the links you serve are part of the content you provide. Not every issue you discuss or site you mention needs a link, but there's a fine line between overlinking and underlinking. The best advice I can give is to think of the post from the standpoint of a relatively uninformed reader. If you mention Wikipedia, everyone is familar and no link is required. If you mention a specific page at Wikipedia, a link is necessary and important. Also, be aware that quoting other bloggers or online sources (or even discussing their ideas) without linking to them is considered bad etitquette and can earn you scorn that could cost you links from those sources in the future. It's almost always better to be over-generous with links than under-generous. And link condoms? Only use them when you're linking to something you find truly distasteful or have serious apprehension about.
-
9. Invite Guest Bloggers
Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog. You not only flatter the person by acknowedging their celebrity, you nearly guarantee yourself a link or at least an association with a brand that can earn you readers. Just be sure that you really are getting a quality post from someone that's as close to universally popular and admired as possible (unless you want to start playing the drama linkbait game, which I personally abhor). If you're already somewhat popular, it can often be valuable to look outside your space and bring in guest authors who have a very unique angle or subject matter to help spice up your focus. One note about guest bloggers - make sure they agree to have their work edited by you before it's posted. A disagreement on this subject after the fact can have negative ramifications.
-
10. Eschew Advertising (Until You're Popular)
I hate AdSense on blogs. Usually, I ignore it, but I also cast a sharp eye towards the quality of the posts and professionalism of the content when I see AdSense. That's not to say that contextual advertising can't work well in some blogs, but it needs to be well integrated into the design and layout to help defer criticism. Don't get me wrong - it's unfair to judge a blog by its cover (or, in this case, its ads), but spend a lot of time surfing blogs and you'll have the same impression - low quality blogs run AdSense and many high quality ones don't. I always recommend that whether personal or professional, you wait until your blog has achieved a level of success before you start advertising. Ads, whether they're sponsorships, banners, contextual or other, tend to have a direct, negative impact on the number of readers who subscribe, add to favorites and link - you definitely don't want that limitation while you're still trying to get established.
-
11. Go Beyond Text in Your Posts
Blogs that contain nothing but line after line of text are more difficult to read and less consistently interesting than those that offer images, interactive elements, the occassional multimedia content and some clever charts & graphs. Even if you're having a tough time with non-text content, think about how you can format the text using blockquotes, indentation, bulllet points, etc. to create a more visually appealing and digestable block of content.
-
12. Cover Topics that Need Attention
In every niche, there are certain topics and questions that are frequently asked or pondered, but rarely have definitive answers. While this recommendation applies to nearly every content-based site, it's particularly easy to leverage with a blog. If everyone in the online Nascar forums is wondering about the components and cost of an average Nascar vehicle - give it to them. If the online stock trading industry is rife with questions about the best performing stocks after a terrorist threat, your path is clear. Spend the time and effort to research, document and deliver and you're virtually guaranteed link-worthy content that will attract new visitors and subscribers.
-
13. Pay Attention to Your Analytics
Visitor tracking software can tell you which posts your audience likes best, which ones don't get viewed and how the search engines are delivering traffic. Use these clues to react and improve your strategies. Feedburner is great for RSS and I'm a personal fan of Indextools. Consider adding action tracking to your blog, so you can see what sources of traffic are bringing the best quality visitors (in terms of time spent on the site, # of page views, etc). I particularly like having the "register" link tagged for analytics so I can see what percentage of visitors from each source is interested enough to want to leave a comment or create an account.
-
14. Use a Human Voice
Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it's most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty. Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you'll be in a good position to succeed. It's also critical that you maintain a level of humility in your blogging and stick to your roots. When users start to feel that a blog is taking itself too seriously or losing the characteristics that made it unique, they start to seek new places for content. We've certainly made mistakes (even recently) that have cost us some fans - be cautious to control not only what you say, but how you say it. Lastly - if there's a hot button issue that has you posting emotionally, temper it by letting the post sit in draft mode for an hour or two, re-reading it and considering any revisions. With the advent of feeds, once you publish, there's no going back.
-
15. Archive Effectively
The best archives are carefully organized into subjects and date ranges. For search traffic (particularly long tail terms), it can be best to offer the full content of every post in a category on the archive pages, but from a usability standpoint, just linking to each post is far better (possibly with a very short snippet). Balance these two issues and make the decision based on your goals. A last note on archiving - pagination in blogging can be harmful to search traffic, rather than beneficial (as you provide constantly changing, duplicate content pages). Pagination is great for users who scroll to the bottom and want to see more, though, so consider putting a "noindex" in the meta tag or in the robots.txt file to keep spiders where they belong - in the well-organized archive system.
-
16. Implement Smart URLs
The best URL structure for blogs is, in my opinion, as short as possible while still containing enough information to make an educated guess about the content you'll find on the page. I don't like the 10 hyphen, lengthy blog titles that are the byproduct of many CMS plugins, but they are certainly better than any dynamic parameters in the URL. Yes - I know I'm not walking the talk here, and hopefully it's something we can fix in the near future. To those who say that one dynamic parameter in the URL doesn't hurt, I'd take issue - just re-writing a ?ID=450 to /450 has improved search traffic considerably on several blogs we've worked with.
-
17. Reveal as Much as Possible
The blogosphere is in love with the idea of an open source world on the web. Sharing vast stores of what might ordinarily be considered private information is the rule, rather than the exception. If you can offer content that's usually private - trade secrets, pricing, contract issues, and even the occassional harmless rumor, your blog can benefit. Make a decision about what's off-limits and how far you can go and then push right up to that limit in order to see the best possible effects. Your community will reward you with links and traffic.
-
18. Only One Post in Twenty Can Be Linkbait
Not every post is worthy of making it to the top of Digg, Del.icio.us/popular or even a mention at some other blogs in your space. Trying to over-market every post you write will result in pushback and ultimately lead to negative opinions about your efforts. The less popular your blog is, the harder it will be to build excitement around a post, but the process of linkbait has always been trial and error - build, test, refine and re-build. Keep creating great ideas and bolstering them with lots of solid, everyday content and you'll eventually be big enough to where one out of every 20-40 posts really does become linkbait.
-
19. Make Effective Use of High Traffic Days
If you do have linkbait, whether by design or by accident, make sure to capitalize. When you hit the front page of Digg, Reddit, Boing Boing, or, on a smaller scale, attract a couple hundred visitors from a bigger blog or site in your space, you need to put your best foot forward. Make sure to follow up on a high traffic time period with 2-3 high quality posts that show off your skills as a writer, your depth of understanding and let visitors know that this is content they should be sticking around to see more of. Nothing kills the potential linkbait "bump" faster than a blog whose content doesn't update for 48 hours after they've received a huge influx of visitors.
-
20. Create Expectations and Fulfill Them
When you're writing for your audience, your content focus, post timing and areas of interest will all become associated with your personal style. If you vary widely from that style, you risk alienating folks who've come to know you and rely on you for specific data. Thus, if you build a blog around the idea of being an analytical expert in your field, don't ignore the latest release of industry figures only to chat about an emotional issue - deliver what your readers expect of you and crunch the numbers. This applies equally well to post frequency - if your blog regularly churns out 2 posts a day, having two weeks with only 4 posts is going to have an adverse impact on traffic. That's not to say you can't take a vacation, but you need to schedule it wisely and be prepared to lose RSS subscribers and regulars. It's not fair, but it's the truth. We lose visitors every time I attend an SES conference and drop to one post every two days (note - guest bloggers and time-release posts can help here, too).
-
21. Build a Brand
Possibly one of the most important aspects of all in blogging is brand-building. As Zefrank noted, to be a great brand, you need to be a brand that people want to associate themselves with and a brand that people feel they derive value from being a member. Exclusivity, insider jokes, emails with regulars, the occassional cat post and references to your previous experiences can be offputting for new readers, but they're solid gold for keeping your loyal base feeling good about their brand experience with you. Be careful to stick to your brand - once you have a definition that people like and are comfortable with, it's very hard to break that mold without severe repercussions. If you're building a new blog, or building a low-traffic one, I highly recommend writing down the goals of your brand and the attributes of its identity to help remind you as you write.

Best of luck to all you bloggers out there. It's an increasingly crowded field to play in, but these strategies should help to give you an edge over the competition. As always, if you've got additions or disagreements, I'd love to hear them.

5 ways to building a better blog

2008-10-21T13:55:00.001-07:00

5 ways to building a better blog

Although the blogosphere is a new space on the web, it is starting to become a crowded. Millions of bloggers are writing on a daily basis and many of them are writing on similar topics. Because of the sheer number of blogs fighting for the same eyeballs, it is becoming harder to become popular, so the question is how do you make your blog stand out from the rest?
Content

Most blogs have 1 major thing in common, they are content centric. Content is going to get new visitors to your blog and keep your old readers reading. Here are some things to keep in mind when writing blog posts.

1. Write quality content that readers can benefit from. If people cannot get something out of your content, what's the point of them reading your blog?
2. Write on a consistent basis. There is nothing wrong with blogging on a daily, weekly or even on a monthly basis, but whatever your blogging schedule is, try to keep it consistent.
3. Participate in conversations, it allows you to give your input on the latest happenings. This is also a great way to gain readers from other blogs.
4. Keep your content short and to the point. Om Malik once said that it is better to write something in 500 words than 1000 words. Readers are also less likely to read a 1000 word post compared to a 500 word post.

Usability

Steve Krug wrote a book called Don't Make Me Think and that's exactly what you should be aiming for when visitors comes to your blog. If they are looking to read your content they should be able to find it and read it with ease. If they want to subscribe to your blog, they should be able to find your RSS feed with ease. Whatever it might be, you want to make it as easy for your readers as possible.

Here are a couple things to keep in mind.

* Your website's content should be easy to read as well as easy to navigate.
* Make it easy for people to find your content by using categories and by having a search feature on your blog.
* Make your RSS subscription button easy to access for anyone looking to read your content from a RSS reader.
* Limit the options and features on your blog. Why have tons of features when 90 percent of your visitors only use a handful of them.
* Try to avoid technical jargon when possible and when you cannot try to explain the jargon in as few words as possible.

Visibility

You can have the best blog in the world, but it does not matter if people cannot find it. Use search engines, blog search engines and the social mediums to bring visitors into your blog.

Search engines - Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN...), that way you have a good chance of getting traffic from them. There are many online documents that give step by step instructions on how you can optimize your blog.

Blog search engines - ping the blog search engines through services like Ping-o-matic and Pingoat. That way when you post a new entry people can find it through blog search engines such as Technorati and IceRocket.

Social mediums - Get your content out on sites like digg or del.icio.us. If can manage to get on the digg homepage or on del.icio.us popular you will get thousands of new visitors coming to your website within minutes.
Uniqueness

Try to differentiate yourself from your competition. Standing out is not always a bad thing, if your blog stands out from the crowd it will draw more attention and potentially make it more popular. You might be able to do this through tools, videos or even through your content; whatever it may be just try to stand out from everyone else in a good and unique way.
Readers

The most important thing that a blogger can do is listen to his/her readers. It is not all about you, it is all about the reader. You can have a great blog, but if you ignore your readers sooner or later they will ignore you and even stop reading your blog. So don't leave your readers stranded, make sure you listen and respond to them. You don't always have to do what they want, but you have to listen.

How to Announce a Blog

2008-10-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

How To “Announce” A Blog

I just received an email from a subscriber of my Blog Traffic Tips newsletter all the way from New York in the USA (it’s all the way because I live in Australia).

She asked me how she can announce her blog to the world since it is brand new and no one knows about it. This is a common question many first time bloggers ask - how can you get the word out about a new blog and convince people to come visit?

In her email she mentioned that she had seen “announcing” services advertised online and wondered whether they would be worth paying for.
Day One Blogging

On the day your blog is born you will have no readers. As I’ve written previously, if you are famous or pull off a publicity stunt you can quickly gain a readership. A few well timed joint ventures with established bloggers or website owners, or a massive email newsletter blast promoting your new blog can do the trick. These are the powerful answers for establishing a big audience quickly but are only available to those with money or connections or fame. If you don’t have any of those, well, you need to have one thing - patience.
The Pre-Launch Checklist

At the start of class two in Blog Traffic School I have something I call a Pre-Launch Checklist. The checklist is important because it ensures you are ready to get out there and promote your blog. It includes things like -

* Pre-Launch Checklist Write at least five pillar articles, the more you have the better.
* Make sure your new visitors can easily find your pillar content by creating an articles page or linking to your top content on your blog front page.
* If you aim to use your name for personal branding make sure the title of your blog includes your name.
* Make sure your contact information is available.

Little tips like this mean that when you do finally announce your blog you aren’t wasting energy. Your new traffic will A) Stay around and come back, and B) Spread the word for you. Without completing a good pre-launch most new visitors to your site will click away within 30 seconds, never to be seen again.
Baby Steps

The simple fact is there isn’t a magic formula for getting traffic quickly to a blog. You need to start promoting your blog by leaving comments on other blogs, forming relationships with other bloggers, producing viral-word-of-mouth-spreading content pillars and community cohesion. When all these initiatives combine over time, only then do you gain solid and sustainable traffic.
Advice For All New Bloggers

One of the problems new bloggers of today face is the hype generated by established successful blogs. You read stories about bloggers earning thousands of dollars per day, with hundreds of thousands of visitors, huge exposure and big profits. Bloggers enter the blogosphere chasing big goals. Once their blog is set up and they have made their first few posts they stop and wonder why nothing is happening. The impatient bloggers head out looking for quick fixes - methods that promise huge amounts of traffic in a few days or weeks.

The reality is you have to pay your dues for success online just as much as you do in the real world. Nearly all big time bloggers have a history of hard and consistent work, only as a snapshot in time *after* something great has been built does it look easy.

If you just launched a blog and you want traffic I have the following advice for you -

1. Tips For Brand New Bloggers Focus on your content, don’t worry about the traffic.
2. Start commenting on similar blogs.
3. Start building relationships with other bloggers.
4. Link to other blogs with trackbacks.
5. Be prepared to work long and hard before big traffic comes.

Should You Pay For Blog Announcing Services?

A final word before I end this post - don’t bother with blog/website announcement services. Most of these promise to submit your blog and/or RSS feed to thousands of directories online, increasing your backlinks and traffic. Many of these services use automated software that submits your blog URL and RSS feed to directories. Most of these directories are useless and carry very little weight in the search engines. You will get very little, if any direct traffic from these directories and it won’t do much for your search engine rankings either.

Remember, if it was that easy wouldn’t everyone do it and wouldn’t everyone have hugely popular sites as a result? Don’t trust the hype - only quality and value are rewarded in the blogosphere.

Put on Your Game Face

2008-10-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

Put on Your Game Face

You are probably a great writer with many insightful things to say and have lots of people reading your content, but for some reason not many of these people ever get in touch with you. You don't have people leaving comments, filling out contact forms, or wanting to get in touch with you outside your blog. Why is this?

A simple mistake that many bloggers make is that of (depending on how you want to look at it) either not revealing enough, or hiding too much. Blogging is ultimately a very personal and social medium, and the more you reveal, the more of yourself you put in the material, the more unique your content will be. If people read/hear a voice that they associate with, and see someone that they feel they can connect with, they are more likely to want not only to read your content with more regularity, but to actually take that extra step and want to create a relationship with you.

Too many times I visit blogs that don't even have an 'about page'. And often times when the do have about pages, either they just elaborate on what the blog is about or the space the blog covers, and more often than not the page is unfortunately lacking in information about the author. Yes, it's true that people visit your site to read your content but at the same time they also want to know that there is a human being writing the content.

For example, when you visit this site, you see links to both an about page as well as a contact page.

The First 7 Days of Blogging

2008-10-21T13:50:00.002-07:00

The first 7 days of blogging

Thousands of blogs are being created every week and many of them are making critical mistakes within the first week of starting. If you are thinking about starting a blog here are some things that you should think about and do within the first 7 days of starting your blog.

Day 1: Don't launch until the blog is properly setup
Many people launch a blog that is not fully setup; the design may not be complete or the RSS feed may not work. Before you launch your blog make sure that your design is complete, RSS feed is working, you are setup to ping the blog search engines and your blog is optimized for the search engines. Day 1 is the most crucial day because without launching with all these things in line it can hurt the future success of your blog.

Day 2: Pick a topic and stick with it
It is your blog so you can write on what topic(s) you want to write on, but whatever topic(s) you choose, you want to stick with them. If you blog about gadgets don't switch the concentration of your blog later on. Your readers are most likely interested in gadgets and if you start wondering off and start blogging about random things such as furniture they will lose interest and stop reading your blog.

Day 3: Be consistent
The frequency you blog at is up to you. If you want to blog monthly that is fine. If you want to blog weekly or even daily, that is also fine. But whatever frequency you blog at make sure you stick to it. Don't blog daily and then skip a whole month; by blogging on a consistent basis your readers will know when to expect new blog posts and they will be there, ready to read them.

Day 4: Don't leave your readers stranded
Within the first few days of blogging it is really important to interact with all of your readers. If someone emails you asking a question or suggesting something make sure you respond to them. If someone posts a comment on your blog make sure you respond back with a comment, an email or even both.

Day 5: Get to the point
You can post a whole book and it might be the greatest thing you ever wrote, but that does not mean people will read it. If you write concise and detailed posts the chances are more people will read them versus really long drawn out posts.

Day 6: Spice it up
Add some flare to your blog. Keep your readers on their toes by doing something unique, funny or even something out of the ordinary. Whatever unique thing you do, it can really help keep your readers coming back for more.

Day 7: Don't expect the world
It is very unlikely for your blog to become popular within the first week. It can take months if not years to create a popular blog. Just because things might not have gone the way you wanted in the first week, don't give up. Keep on writing and your blog will grow in popularity.

Whatever type of blog you have started, whether it is a personal blog, company blog or even a blog you started to make extra income, don't forget to communicate with your readers and other bloggers and also have fun while you are doing it!

5 Beginner blogging tips

2008-10-21T13:50:00.001-07:00

When I was asked to appear on The Lab with Leo Laporte, the producer wanted me to just give three to five beginner’s blogging tips because my session was only six minutes long and there would be not be enough time to go any deeper. I made up the five points I wanted to talk about before the show. However, during the actual taping, Leo was only interested one of them. Since I didn’t get to talk about all five beginner’s blogging tips on The Lab, I figure I would talk about them here.

Beginner Tip #1 - Blog About Something Your Passionate About

If you are not passionate about your topic, you are not going to stick to it. The best way to decide what to blog about is to ask yourself, “Would I do this for free?” If the answer is yes, then you have found your topic. People who blog only for money seldom succeed.

Beginner Tip #2 - Get Your Own Domain Name

While it certainly is possible to start a blog for nothing by using a free service like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, I recommend every blogger starting out to get their own domain name. The cost is next to nothing and you can still host it for free if you want (Blogger allows that).

If you do not wish to use the Blogger platform, you’ll have to pony up for web hosting but that’s pretty damn cheap as well. BlueFur (they host this blog) has hosting solutions starting at $5 per month and they’ll give you 15% off if you enter JohnChowRocks in the coupon code.

Having your own domain makes you look more professional. While it may not make you a pro-blogger, the ad networks will take you a lot more seriously. Some ad networks will not accept a site unless it has its own domain name. If you do it right, having your own domain and web hosting won’t cost you anything because the income the blog generates will more than offset the cost.

It’s better to get the domain name at the start than down the road. The last thing you want to do is build up a blog with Blogspot, get a ton of backlinks, PageRank, Alexa and Technorati rankings, and then have to move it to its own domain and start over. I’m sure Kumiko can relate. :)

Beginner Tip #3 - Update The Blog Often

A non-updated blog is a dead blog. If you cannot commit to a consistent blogging schedule, then it’s best not to blog until you can. This is where blogging about your passion comes in. If you’re passionate about the topic, then chances are you’ll keep blogging about it. Ideally, you should update the blog everyday.

Beginner Tip #4 - Get To Know Your Readers

Blogging is a two-way street. You cannot exist without readers (well you can, but what’s the point?), and readers don’t exist unless they have something to read. Blogging is about forming relationships. There’s the relationship between you and the readers and relationship between you and other blogs in your niche. It is up to you to get to know them and form this relationship. Many readers have stated that when they’re reading my blog, it’s like a one-on-one conversion. That was not done by accident. It’s all part of relationship blogging.

Beginner Tip #5 - Monetize The Blog With Multiple Sources

When the time comes to monetize your blog, don’t stick with just Google AdSense. There are now tons of ways to make money from blogging. Check out my recommended moneymaker list. If I were to use only Google AdSense, there is no way I would have been able to pull down nearly $12,000 last month. Google accounted for less than 10% of April blog income. Do not put all your eggs there.

I use eight different methods to make money online. Only two of them are banner ads. During the Lab interview, Leo pointed that my blog doesn’t looks it has that much advertising at all. When he found out how many different advertising models I used, he was shocked. The key to monetizing a blog is to run as many advertising products as you can get away with while still providing a good user experience.

These were the five begginner’s tip I wanted to get across on The Lab with Leo. However, the only point I was able to talk about was the last one, which isn’t that surprising since everyone wants to know how to make money online. I hope that the next time I’m on the show, I’ll be able to talk more about the other tips.

Can you make a living blogging?

2008-10-21T13:49:00.001-07:00

oday’s question comes from Joe Tao who asks:

“Is it a truth, based on your experience, that anyone can make a living blogging if they understand how SEO works”

OK it’s a bit of a big question, but the short answer is yes. However you will need to have a game plan, and here’s how I’d approach the problem.

The first thing you really need to consider is your subject matter. Rand did a much better job covering that than I could so check out “Blogging in an Oversaturated Market is Usually a Poor Decision“. When deciding what to write about there are two schools of thought “write about what you like” or “write about what’s profitable”. It’s something of a catch-22, it’s much easier to write about something you like, but there’s not always money in it, and let’s be honest how many of us are really interested in the intricacies of reverse mortgages. My advice try to find something that interests you and step up to a slightly wider focus where the money is. For example maybe you really enjoy raising African cichlids in your aquarium, I’d step up and cover freshwater aquariums as whole and focus (maybe 10-25% of total posts) ever so slightly on your specific topic of interest.

Once you’ve got your topic down, work on your writing. You don’t need to be a Pulitzer prize winning author, but you do have to be interesting. Don’t think you can use your mad SEO SKILLZ to compensate for lack of quality content. You used to be able work around it, but those days are drawing to a close, and at this stage it’s not a long term solution, or something I’d advise starting today. What if you can’t write, take a community college writing course, read and learn from people who can write online. Hiring someone is an option, but that can get expensive, and not really viable if you’re boot strapping, if all else fails try to take advantage of family members whenever possible.

Next up I’d say come up with a realistic posting schedule. IMHO the bare minimum you need to update your blog is at least once a week. I’d recommend 3-5 times a week if possible, and if the subject is right daily is ideal. It doesn’t matter to some people, but I’m a big advocate of publishing on a schedule as much as possible. For some readers knowing you publish something new every Wednesday is important. If the leading bloggers in your space are updating daily and you can only get the time to blog once a week you’re going to have a hard time competing. Try to take advantage of pre-blogging or remote posting whenever possible. I’m not going to recommend you post from your job … but I can tell you I did it and lots of businesses got their start on some one elses time … not that I’m recommending that … nope … not me

One of the hardest things many bloggers face is keeping on target, people get lured into thinking they can be the next dooce and blog about their lives. Remember the link to Rand’s post a few paragraphs ago, the first question he asks is are you a top writer, unless you really are that good a writer, advertisers won’t be interested in buying space on your lifestyle blog. Your friends may read it, but you’ll never attract hundreds or thousands of readers writing Aunt Millie’s Christmas letter and you won’t make a living blogging. Until you have at least 1000 subscriber stay 100% on target, after that you can deviate ever so slightly, anything more than 10% scares me professionally.

I’m a big fan of using wordpress because it’s well supposed has lots of plugin’s you can use, and it’s written in PHP and cheap and easy to do yourself or find someone to do it for you. That said out of the box it’s not search engine friendly, here are some tips to help you fix that. Next realize many of the templates are wonka-doodle. Find a good clean one and work from there, take out the crap, add in only what you need, and for heaven sakes use CSS dammit. Don’t add any more widgets or other nonsense if you can avoid it, those things usually don’t help. I like liquid layout but check out Fluid, Fixed, and 1024 Resolutions and Maximizing Profits With Website Design and Layout: Part I for more discussion. Once things are rolling if you have the skills or budget to create a distinctive web design that builds your brand.

Next come the discussion of how many blogs can/should you run. If you’ve never run a blog/website before stick with one until you are really really confident. If you have I’d say three is my recommendation and if you go beyond five you’re crazy unless you really know what you are doing or are paying high quality writers. IMHO it’s better to have one or two exceptional blogs instead of five to ten mediocre blogs. Mix things up a bit with the subject matter, you don’t want to have the ‘South American Knitting Blog’ and the ‘South American Crochet Blog’, it just looks funny.

Next you’re going to want to start promoting your blog. Do the usual stuff, like adding your blog address to your email signature, link begging from your friends, and so on. Most blog directories require you have at least 6 months posting history to get listed, so put that on hold for now. Cover whatever is hot in your industry and try to get the attention of A-Listers in your space with comments or trackbacks. Use things like Google trends and Yahoo Buzz Log to spot tie in’s and blog like there’s no tomorrow. Try to take advantage of events in real life, especially TV, don’t be afraid to shell out a $100 on some PPC for a few days, to gain some readers, lots and lots of people totally miss that as an opportunity, and don’t forget predictive SEO. Go to an industry event do some live blogging, meet up with people and build some connections, try to get interviewed on the radio or podcasts. The press release is not dead and try to put out a few year and make it as enticing and exciting as possible.

Develop a flexible social media strategy. For a new blog social is by far the quickest way to jump start the process of getting readers. Make it easy for people to bookmark/submit your website using these services. Write stories that are directly targeted to each of these services regularly/monthly. Prime the pump by submitting yourself or asking friends but don’t be a spammer/beger. Only submit the good stuff. Clueless where to start here is a guide to using Digg and Delicious. Plan social bookmark targeted stories and follow them up with good content to keep the readers/subscribers coming back. Monitor trends, adapt, react and grow.

There you have it my quick, down and dirty 10 mile up plan for making a living blogging. If you want me to go into more detail on something drop a comment or question in the comments section, and I’ll see if I can answer it or elaborate it into a full post.

Putting Blogs into action!

2008-10-21T13:46:00.001-07:00

Putting B-Blogs Into Action

Continuing the discussion of business blogs (b-blogs), today I'll provide concrete information on how to get your own b-blog going.

First, some thoughts as to where your b-blog fits into your overall e-newsletter strategy:

* Complimentary. A b-blog is not intended to replace your newsletter. Its purpose is to extend and complement an e-newsletter strategy, serving customers and prospects in a way that extends your expertise and leadership in the marketplace.

* Timely. Because today's business world doesn't operate in the highly controlled, scheduled way a newsletter does, there are times (perhaps daily) when you would like to communicate a development to the same audience that receives your newsletter, whether customers and prospects, partners, or even employees. It could be a new client win, news from salespeople, or an enhancement to employee benefits. You want to get the information out now, not three weeks from now when your next newsletter is published. B-blogs offer this capability. They can bridge the time gap of your regular newsletters.

* Informative. A b-blog is not a place for carefully crafted corporate speak nor a place to rant and rave. It's a place to inform. A b-blog communication is four or five sentences of direct, informative content about a specific issue or bit of news. Think of b-blog content as marketing to inform and educate.

* Flowing. Unlike a newsletter, which is often highly structured, a blog is ongoing. The flow of communication builds a knowledge-sharing platform among a community of like-minded people. Soon, an extensive base of information will develop that becomes important not only to your company but also to the faithful readers who contribute to it.

* Archivable. B-blogs extend the concept of FAQs. They can serve the same purpose, but better. B-blogs can be automatically archived by age in days, weeks, or months. And they're searchable, allowing readers to easily retrieve the information they need, when they need it.

The "How-To" Part

With a good sense of where you want to end up, how do you get there? A few initial steps you can take:

1. Create a plan. Like all good communication vehicles, you want to establish goals and objectives. Define your audience, what its needs are, and how best to meet those needs.

2. Identify the editor. Find someone who can step into the role of pundit, who's willing to be the host. Keep in mind that over time, your b-blog will develop a personality. Look for a thought leader who's just waiting to be unleashed and empowered.

3. Find the right tools. Regardless of topic, I'm always asked about the tools needed to accomplish the task at hand. I recommend a thorough search of what's available and what's right for you. Search wisely -- there are great new tools announced every day. To get started, read this funny (yet somewhat old) tutorial on blog tools.

4. Develop standards. Because of b-blogs' free-flowing nature, establishing ground rules for your publishers is important. Include confidentiality policies, product disclosure guidelines, and basic suggestions as to what's politically correct (and what's not).

5. Facilitate discussion. Before you officially launch your b-blog, plan topics that will start the initial discussion. Your readers may be shy about being first to share, so ensure the publisher is prepared to post information as needed to get an exchange going. You'll want to include an easy way for readers to respond to the content on your b-blog.

6. Drive traffic. Use your newsletter to announce and promote the b-blog. Offer to email it to subscribers or provide the option, through an icon or link, to visit the b-blog directly.

7. Analyze. Blog functionality should have the same analytical capabilities as a newsletter. So as with your newsletter, make sure you know who reads what, when, and where.

8. Monitor appropriately. You'll want to periodically check in on discussions and see if they flow the way you anticipated and if they meet your goals. If not, as with a newsletter strategy, you may need to refine your approach, depending on the feedback and analysis you receive.

These steps should get you started. Don't hesitate to fire off any question you might have on the topic.

What is a Blog?

2008-10-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

blog
Definition

A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.
Information

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blogs are alternatively called web logs or weblogs. However, "blog" seems less likely to cause confusion, as "web log" can also mean a server's log files.

Top "7" blog mistakes to avoid

2008-10-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Top 7 blog mistakes to avoid

I’ve been publishing blog articles for 9 months now, and I’ve made quite a few mistakes along the way. By giving a little insight into my errors hopefully you can avoid doing the same things yourself. Here I give you the top 7 blog mistakes that I’ve made since October 2006.
Mistake #1 – not using a self-hosted blog

The first mistake I made was to begin blogging using WordPress.com, as opposed to WordPress.org. The former involves hosting your blog on the WordPress website, rather than self-hosting your blog for full control. My first ever blog post was on October 8th 2006, and I’ve kept my WordPress.com blog alive at this address: Web and Graphic Design (please excuse the cringeworthy photo, forced articles and zero interaction).

The problem with hosting a blog through WordPress.com is that you don’t have full control over customisation. WordPress owned and stored my content. I was also showing my blog’s web address as being www.wordpress.davidairey.com rather than www.davidairey.com.

On top of all that, I was using a blog template that thousands of others were using. That’s no way to stand out from the millions of blogs that are online. Since then I’ve launched a new blog design which I’m much happier with.

In Jakob Neilsen’s 2005 article on the top 10 blog mistakes, he had this as number 10:

Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
Having a weblog address ending in blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc. will soon be the equivalent of having an @aol.com email address or a Geocities website: the mark of a naïve beginner who shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Whilst I agree with how it can be a mistake, I disagree that the author shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Some of my favourite blogs are on weblog service sites such as these three on TypePad:

* Noisy Decent Graphics
* David the designer
* Ace Jet 170

There’s also Lorelle on WordPress.com, who’s a guru on everything WordPress-related.

Douglas Karr of The Marketing Technology Blog has this to add:

I personally like to host my own blog because of the flexibility it provides me in design changes, adding other features, modifying the code myself, etc.

I wouldn’t discourage anyone—even a corporation—from using a hosted solution like Vox, Typepad, Blogger or WordPress just to start out and experiment.

Mistake #2 – expecting people to visit

The blog world is amazing because of the reader interaction. It’s why I continue to publish on a fairly consistent basis. When I first started out I had no idea how to attract new readers, commenters, interaction etc. I had the impression that if I published new content I’d automatically find readers in my niche.

How wrong I was.

Successful blogging involves time, effort, and reaching out to fellow bloggers / publishers / authors (whatever you prefer). In fact, there’s a whole psychology behind blog publishing and I had no idea how it would change my way of thinking. Now if I see or hear something of interest I wonder how it can be incorporated into a blog article.
Mistake #3 – not writing as if I’m talking

My first blog on WordPress.com includes articles that are more like lectures. I don’t want to read, nor write a one-way lecture, and I know that’s not why you visit. I want to become involved in a discussion with you. I want to teach you something you don’t know and to learn those many things you can teach me. At the beginning I was killing the blog conversation, instead of making use of my comment section.

One of the best things about blogs is that they enable conversation between people with shared interests. It’s vital to be involved with relevant blogs in your niche (and don’t neglect those outwith your niche). I regularly visit a host of other blogs and leave comments that add to the conversation. This takes time, obvioulsy, but keeps the interaction flowing. Matthew’s asking if blog comments matter. People appreciate comments on their own blogs… a lot. I certainly do.

You have to find your personal brand and deliver it through your blog. The way you write, the words you use, your tone of voice, how you respond to comments, the design of your blog, the topics you cover… it all shows who you are.
Mistake #4 – changing the location of my blog

When I moved my blog’s location, from davidairey.com/blog to davidairey.com, I knocked my Google Page Rank from 5 to 4. The mistake wasn’t moving, which I’m glad I did. The mistake was not doing it sooner, or not starting out with my blog in the root directory.

Daniel at Daily Blog Tips has this to say on the subject:

Unless your blog is a secondary part of an existing website you should always install Wordpress on the root directory. When I created my first blog I used an automatic Wordpress instalation that my web hosting company offered, but the standard installation was done on “www.domain.com/blog”.

I was not sure how this would affect the blog therefore I decided to leave things as they were. A couple of months later when I started studying SEO I realized that this was a bad move.

When I launched my first website about two years ago, I wanted my portfolio to be its primary purpose, and the blog a secondary aspect. Then last year I found out about blogging. It didn’t take long for me to realise the number of clients I could attract through my blog content first and foremost, and then directing them to my portfolio. It’s the content I publish that attracts visitors before the work in my graphic design portfolio.
Mistake #5 – neglecting my article headlines

Most people new to blog publishing will spend all their time writing the article, and not thinking too much about the headline. Here’s the thing, if your headline doesn’t catch my attention, the chances are I won’t read the article.

This is something Brian Clark, CopyBlogger gives advice on, and Ben’s article on writing eye-popping headines when exhausted is a good read too.

It’s not easy coming up with headline after headline, and the more you practice the easier it becomes. If you’re pushed for time, Lyndon at Cornwall SEO offers a killer headline writing service that’s worth considering.
Mistake #6 – not linking to others as I’d like them to link to me

I still see it every day, people linking to others using the anchor text ‘here’ or ‘click here’. You wouldn’t be linking to people unless you thought they had something worth saying, so give them a link they’ll truly appreciate. I touch upon the subject of using anchor text that your readers will appreciate in this article: graphic design Edinburgh and keyword search ranking.

Andy Beard says it better than I can with his article, linking mistakes frequently encountered on blogs.
Mistake #7 – underestimating the time commitment

When I first started out, I had no idea how much time blog publishing would take. I don’t spend all my time around here. Far from it. A work-life balance is essential and I find myself posting articles less and less at the weekend (and when I do they’re often time-stamped from a week-day).

There are many hats to blogging - something I think many of us don’t appreciate when we take that first step. I wonder how many of us jumped right into the world of blogs without doing much research. I did, and you can see the results through my relatively dead WordPress.com blog mentioned above.

Involvement with blogs is a learning experience and I wouldn’t change the way I set out. Learning from others is the short-cut, but learning from experience engrains those mistakes deeper in the mind.

Other people writing about their blog mistakes

Rob at Yack Yack recently published an article describing five things to avoid when blogging. Marc Andreesson tells us 11 lessons learned about blogging, so far. Engtech reflected on a year of blogging, as did Wendy Piersall.
What blog mistakes have you made?

Can you relate to any of the errors I’ve made along the way? I’ll leave you with a quote that reflects my outlook on blogs:

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

Some useful blog tools that I recommend:

2008-10-21T09:51:00.001-07:00

Blog Tools

Blogging Tools and Services

Do you Want to Improve Your Blog? Subscribe to ProBlogger Today for Free.

A couple of months ago I asked readers to share which blog tools they use the most in some of the following areas. The suggestions were a nice start but I’d like to see the list expand as I’m certain there are more blog tools and services out there.

Please note that I’ve decided not to add ‘hosting packages’ to this list and am attempting to keep it to products that directly help bloggers blogs improve rather than more general organizational/business products. Lastly I’m not including actual blogging platforms - if you’re interested in these and how to choose between them you might like my Choosing a Blog Platform post.

Here’s the list of suggestions so far - what would you add to it?

Statistics Packages and Metrics Tools

• Sitemeter
• Google Analytics
• My Blog Log
• WebAnalyse
• Performancing Metrics
• AWStats
• Mint
• Extreme
• Webalizer
• Stat Counter
• Measure Map
• Slim Stat

Blog Editor Tools

• Ecto for Mac and Windows
• Qumana
• BlogJet
• Zoundry
• w.bloggar
• Blog Desk
• Post2Blog
• Performancing for Firefox
• Mars Edit

News Aggregators and News Sourcing Tools

• Bloglines
• FeedDemon
• Technorati
• Google Reader
• Website Watcher
• BlogPulse
• Blogarithm
• Topix
• Blog Bridge
• Grazr
• Rojo
• Memeorandum
• NewsGator Online
• Net News Wire

Email Subscription Tools and Newsletter Services

• FeedBlitz
• Zookoda
• Aweber
• Yutter
• RssFwd
• Feedburner’s Email Subscription Service
Blog Poll Tools

• Blog Polls.com
• Vizu
• Free Blog Poll
• Blog Poll
• Blog Flux Polls
• WP Polls
Other Blog Tools

• Pingoat – pinging service
• Pingomatic – another pinging service
• AudioBlogger – audio post to your blog via phone
• BlogRolling – a service to manage your blog roll
• Creative Commons – copyright protections service
• Feedburner – RSS tool that adds a variety of features to your blog’s RSS feed
• Picasa – find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC
• Flickr – Store and share your images - good way of hosting images if you don’t have a stand alone blog on your own domain.
• Flock – A browser that enables sharing and blogging from within it
• Copyscape – allows you to track down other sites that are stealing your content
• TalkDigger – ‘find, follow and join conversations evolving on the Internet.’
• Blog Flux – Stats, Pinging and Directory

• Backpack It – A place to organise your to do lists, notes, files, reminders and more - all online
• Basecamp – Like Backpack it (same people behind it) but great for collaboration on projects.
• Ice Rocket – Blog Search
• coComment – Keep track of the comments you leave on different blogs in a central place
• co.mments – Similar name to coComment but not to be confused with it - a way of bookmarking and following comment threads via RSS
• Gabbly – Add live chat to our blog posts (like real time comments combined with IRC)
• Del.icio.us – Social Bookmarking site - good for sourcing stories but also great if you get linked to on it to get traffic
• Digg – Another major Social Bookmarking site
• Only Wire – a bookmarklet that submits posts to multiple social bookmarking sites at once
• Odeo – a tool for recording and sharing audio/podcasting
• TagCloud – produces Tag Clouds for your blog from RSS feeds
• Indie Karma – a micropayment system for bloggers
• Tiny URL – Turns long URLs into tiny manageable ones
• Swicki – a new type of search engine that harnesses the power of a web community - sort of like a search engine and wiki combined
Filmloop – photo sharing
• Stock.xchng – Free Stock Photos
• Favicon Maker – allows you to make a favicon from a photo
• YouTube – a tool for putting video on your blog
• blip.tv – another video uploading tool

Top 10 blog sites...

2008-10-21T00:06:00.001-07:00

These sites represent some of the finest blogging traditions

1. 1.
Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
* By Arianna Huffington · 4 days ago
* http://huffingtonpost.com
* Authority: 28,760
2. 2.
Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide
* 19 minutes ago
* http://gizmodo.com
* Authority: 19,672
3. 3.
TechCrunch
* By Michael Arrington · 1 hour ago
* http://techcrunch.com
* Authority: 19,516
4. 4.
Engadget
* By WeblogsInc · 54 minutes ago
* http://www.engadget.com
* Authority: 16,977
5. 5.
Boing Boing

Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It's the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony.
* By Mark Frauenfelder · 33 minutes ago
* http://www.boingboing.net
* Authority: 14,246
6. 6.
Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
* 24 minutes ago
* http://lifehacker.com
* Authority: 13,748
7. 7.
Ars Technica

Ars Technica the Art of Technology. News, analysis, and in depth coverage of technology.
* By Ars Technica, LLC · 6 days ago
* http://arstechnica.com
* Authority: 13,377
8. 8.
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
* 4 days ago
* http://dailykos.com
* Authority: 11,081
9. 9.
The Official Google Blog
* By Manuel · 4 hours ago
* http://googleblog.blogspot.com
* Authority: 10,456
10. 10.
Free Travel Blog to Share your Trips TravelPod

The best travel blog you'll find in the internet!
* By ristinw · 34 minutes ago
* http://travelpod.com
* Authority: 9,714

Blogging for beginners:

2008-10-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

Blog is a place where you express your opinions on various subjects. You don’t need to be a professional writer for blogging. But there are few things to note while writing articles for blogs. Here are 7 simple blogging steps for beginners.

* Blog About subjects you are good at or topics which you are interested in. Do not blog about a subject just because of the fact that all popular blogger are writing about that topic.
* Discuss your article and give a brief idea on the topic to the readers. Do not convey vague ideas and confuse the readers. Also, make your points clear. Include images wherever necessary to add visual effects (Make sure that the images do not violate copyright rules).
* Make your article easy to read and do not abbreviate words. Check for any spelling mistakes in the post before you publish it to the web. Abbreviations and spelling mistakes break the flow of the paragraph.

* Make it easy to comment on your blog. Readers like to express their opinion on the topic. Commenting form should be made simple without going through the process of registering or having a Captcha to prevent spam. Also, encourage your readers to comment to have a discussion going on about the topic.
* Do not copy articles from other blogs or websites. If you need to get content from another blog, give proper credits and links.
* Make your site load faster. Optimize your site CSS and scripts to make it run faster. Daniel has written a good article on how to make your site load faster by optimizing.
* Make your feeds available to readers. Install a RSS feed button as well as Email subscription form and increase your readership base.

Hope you enjoyed reading this article. Would you like to add any more points? Please share it in comments.

The Do's and Don'ts of blogging...

2008-10-20T20:49:00.001-07:00

I’ve blogged a lot about what you should, and should not do, when you blog and participate in social media and networking, but her point of view is refreshing.

She summarizes it in four dos and don’ts:

* Number one DO: Do fellowship with other bloggers.
* Number two DO: Do join a blog community, and check out other bloggers and follow discussion threads.
* Number three DO: Do try to comment on blogs you have visited.
* Number four DO: Bloggers love to have other bloggers link to their sites.
* Number One DON’T: When commenting on other blogs or leaving messages on their tag boxes, please don’t type in many URLs after your comment, such as - “Hi, I like your article.
* Number Two DON’T: When I read something I don’t agree with, I generally tell it to my computer screen or shake my fist at it sometimes, but I keep my fingers off the keyboard. Don’t shoot off thoughtless comments like - “Your Wordless Wednesday entry is simply crap.
* Number Three DON’T: Don’t ignore comments visitors make on your blog posts.
* Number Four DON’T: Don’t plagiarize other blogs’ content.

I would also add the following:

* Use Common Sense: The blogosphere isn’t a new world where the laws and rules change. Gravity is still gravity and stupidity is still stupidity. Use common, practical sense before sharing personal details. Don’t shoot your mouth off in a situation where your words become gasoline on the fire, unless you want to get burned. Blog smart.
* Don’t Chase: There is a lot of grasping on the web. People chasing traffic, search engines, “friends”, then straggling them in their pursuit. Haven’t you learned by now that the best friends you have are the ones who choose you, and you in turn, choose them. No chasing, grasping, strangling, or struggling, just natural. A blog is no different. You will attact to you that which you deserve, so deserve the best.
* Give Without Expectation of Return: Like chasing, when we give our words, links, credit, and appreciation to others, do so without expectation of return. I do not expect to be asked to be included on a blogroll or get permission to link to one of my blog posts. Do it because you want to, not because you want me to do the same for you.

Don’t expect me to go bonkers publicizing the fact that I’m on your blogroll or in your blog post, or thanking you profusely for noticing me and my blog. I may do that, but don’t expect that. When I include a link to you or your blog post, I don’t expect a thank you. It’s nice. It’s a courtesy, not a rule.

And don’t go asking for links for links sake. I hate “I’ll link to you if you link to me.” Why should I bother. Make links have value, not expectations. If you give without expectation of return, the odds are you will get more, not less.
* Let Me Know You: It’s important that your readers feel like they know you, the blogger. They don’t have to know you, the person, but they need to know a little about who you are and why you blog what you blog, and why they should trust what you blog. Put information about you and your blog purpose in your blog’s About page and let some personality and character flow into your blog posts naturally. It’s not about full disclosure of all your zits and psychological problems, we all have those. It’s about getting personal and personable with your readers, not sitting on their laps telling them your life story.

Readers want to know whom they are reading, so help them know you so they know where you are coming from.

My last recommendation is not a tip, but one of those serious guidelines that should be a rule, in fact, a law, if I could make it one:

Blog with integrity.

If you blog with integrity, you attract integrity in your readers, the kind of integrity that turns visitors into readers and readers into fans, and fans into friends. The best kind.

How to start a blog:

2008-10-20T20:43:00.001-07:00

How to Start a Blog

A "blog", abbreviated word for weblog, is a web-based journal in which people can publish their thoughts and opinions on the Internet. Anyone can start a blog. It's straight-forward and, in a lot of cases, free.
[edit] Steps

1. Find a decent blogging provider that appeals to you. Some may include MuseCrafters.com, Livejournal.com, JournalHome.com, Blogger,ChoseIt, WordPress.com , TheDiary.org, Mindsay.com, Blog.com, Blogagotchi.com, Diaryland.com, Blogdrive.com, weebly.com or Xanga.com. Most of these sites are pre-made with templates and push-button publishing that don't require much technical know-how.
2. Once you sign up, you'll have a gallery of ready-made templates to choose from. With these, you can pick a color scheme and layout for your blog.
* Most sites come with a set of predefined layouts and schemes that you can choose from. Select one and personalize it. Then add your name, interests, images, etc.
* If you want to, get a more unique template, there are some sites up that have many of these that might make it look better. For example, PimpMyProfile.com or Pyzam.com.
3. Add blogging freebies like buttons, images, blog chalks, imoods, tagboards (for example, myshoutbox.com), guest maps, guestbooks, comment boxes for readers' input, etc.
4. Explore other blog sites that offer more features for a small fee, such as Typepad.com and ChoseIt.
5. Decide on whether or not you want your blog to be private or public: do you want any Internet visitor to be able to read your blog, or do you just want your friends and family to be able to read it? Most blog sites offer the ability to password-protect your published posts so only those who you approve of can view what you've written.
6. After you've set up your blog, write a few posts to test it out, and make any adjustments to the layout or style that you see fit. Like if you just got a new template, you'd check your blog to see if you like it, right? At first, it will seem tough to figure out what to write, but once you get into a routine of daily blogging, you will find it addictive. Write about your day, your thoughts, events, ideas, fears, pleasures, the news, current affairs, art, or anything you are interested in!
7. Visit other blogs to build a blogging circle. When you leave comments, add your blogging address so they can visit you too. (Note: This will not work if your blog is private)
8. Publish your blog by sending the URL to your friends or publish the URL on your website. Add the URL to posts you make on other blogs. Done