from ww.netguide.co.nz
http://www.netguide.co.nz/magazine/pulp/79/blog47tips.php
Meg Hourihan (www.megnut.com)
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Frequency, good writing, and personality - a mix of all those is critical. If you don’t update regularly (it doesn’t have to be every day, but some consistent schedule) it’s hard to gain any following or build traffic.
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People will forgive misspellings and typos as long as they’re finding value in what’s being written. But if you’re not doing it consistently, traffic will trail off.
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Don’t worry about who’s reading, and just write about what’s interesting to you. Don’t try to please some external person, just focus on writing about stuff you think is interesting.
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Set boundaries. Think about how much of yourself you’re comfortable sharing. You don’t have to “tell all”. Just decide which parts of your life you’re willing to share, and try to find a balance that works for you.
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Remember that whatever you publish will be found and archived by Google and other search engines and Web sites. So really think carefully about what you’re putting out there before you do it. People have been fired for the things they’ve written on their Web sites. Never assume that what you’ve written about someone (a family member, friend, or co-worker) won’t be seen by them “because they don’t use the Web”.
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My grandparents have been reading my Web site since its inception, so I’ve always been aware of them as my key audience. That’s really kept my writing focused on things I’d share with them, decreased the amount of swearing or silly whining, and I think in general kept the site accessible to a broader variety of people.
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A rule I have is “don’t delete a post”. So I think before I write anything, making sure that I don’t put something out there that I’ll later regret. For that reason I don’t recommend drunk blogging. You don’t want to wake up the next morning and read something you don’t remember writing!
Fraser (blogjam.com)
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You should judge a blog like you’d judge a book. I want to be entertained when I read a Weblog, so I’m looking for content that is well written and makes me laugh. Sounds obvious, I know, but it’s sometimes hard to find.
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Don’t try to please an audience, and don’t post simply because you feel like you ought to – only post when you have something to say.
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The beauty of a personal site is that there are no editorial guidelines. If you wake up on Monday you may feel completely different from the way you will on Tuesday, and your posts should reflect this. Eventually you’ll find your own voice and a style you’re happy with, and if what you write is interesting and/or entertaining, then you’ll find an audience organically. You won’t have to try to impress.
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Don’t write about work, and avoid writing about people you know in general. You’ll end up offending someone.
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Avoid “today I did this” posts, unless what you did was extraordinary, or unless you can turn it into something extraordinary.
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A blog is like a series of online post-it notes to oneself, a way to document funny things found or stupid stuff done.
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If someone were to start a blog tomorrow documenting the young life of an extremely photogenic kitten, I can almost guarantee a huge amount of traffic.
Glenn Reynolds (instapundit.com)
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Post regularly, find topics that interest you and track them steadily, and write carefully (I hate blogs that are full of typos and ungrammatical sentences).
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It pays to be polite. Calling people names can sound fun, but most readers are turned off by it.
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Starting off, pick some topics that you know more about than most other people - your profession, your locality, or whatever - and make those a major part of your blog.
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When you have something especially important, email some other bloggers and let them know. They’re likely to link to you and you’ll pick up readers.
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Get a digital camera if you don’t have one. Photographs liven up a blog and, if they’re good, can really be worth 1000 words.
Robyn Pollman (tampatantrum.com)
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Retain your sense of self and style – don’t constantly emulate and copy those around you. Your personality needs to shine through first and foremost. It’s what will make your blog unique and “you”.
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Remember that even though you think you’re writing to just friends and family, your words will have a global audience. You never know just who is reading your blog, and where they may be located when reading it.
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When my husband and I started blogging we would frequently mention movies and restaurants we planned to attend. Imagine our shock when individuals reading our blog would just show up at these locations hoping to meet us - and would blog about doing so in their own journals! We quickly learned to write about things we planned to do after the event, and not beforehand.
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You need to develop a thick skin. Blogs experience “trolls” just as forums do. It’s par for the course. Just as any sporting event will have several thousand spectators behaving themselves and having a great time, it only takes one person to jump the railing and cause a public disturbance - so it also is with blogs. It’s just not something bloggers can take personally -- although at times it can be hard to follow that advice, depending on what is said.
Quin Parker (quinparker.com)
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A lot of people start writing without thinking about what they’re going to say.
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People don’t like reading huge, diaries full of angst because they’ve seen it all before.
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As with all Web pages, update it frequently and put interesting stuff on it.
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Know your audience.
Hash (www.iMakeContent.net)
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A “good” blog has a style which is appropriate to its content. What’s good in a personal blog - highly subjective takes on the world, say - might be wrong in a blog designed to show off a portfolio, an extended CV, or a company blog delivering product info to customers.
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Navigation should be easy. As in designing any Web site, it might be an idea to go easy on blinking icons, music, or colour schemes difficult to scan on screen.
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The blog should do what you say it’s going to do. You want people to come back, to become regular readers, so you need to live up to whatever you promise. If you’ve set up a tech blog, your readers might be surprised if you start writing long accounts of why your marriage/team/country is going down the drain. Of course, in the process you might pick up some new readers and decide to relaunch the blog.
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In a personal blog, there needs to be something that sets it apart from others in its class. It might be that it’s particularly useful - shares inside-track knowledge, provides up-to-the-second analysis, hard-to-find links. Or it might have a point of view that’s unusual, funny, insightful.
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Blogs need a sense of personality. The blog should grow and change, react to whatever world it describes.
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Plan carefully. If your blog takes off, then it might well become a central part of your life.
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Think carefully about what you’re going to call the blog. Assume you’re going to stick with it for a couple of years at least. What sounds cool and groovy today might sound dated tomorrow. What fits in with your lifestyle today might be embarrassing tomorrow.
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Figure out what software you might need. I started with Blogger, moved to Radio Userland and now use, very happily, Moveable Type. Each one has its good points as well as limitations. Do you want to be able to access the blog from other computers? Do you want to be able to create new blogs? What kind of hosting have you got? Think about what software you’re going to use to create images and, if your blog carries news, what kind of news gatherer to get. In general, brush up on your tech skills, your HTML , and get your computer organised.
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Back everything up. Don’t rely on your hosting company. If it goes down, you want to be up and running as soon as possible. And you really don’t want to lose several years’ worth of blog posts!
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Get a broadband connection. It changed the way I blog.
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Think carefully about what you’re writing. You may be happy about sharing intimate details about your love life right now. In a couple of years, you might find it embarrassing.
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When you’re not enjoying blogging - stop, take a break.
Adrian Hon (www.mssv.net)
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The “secret” is to understand that you’re the person who decides whether your Weblog is a success, not anyone else. If you think that a good Weblog is one that updates every day, has all the very latest links and is visited by thousands of people a day, you’re almost certainly going to be disappointed. But if you think that a good Weblog is something that you enjoy writing regularly, and that at least some people out there enjoy reading, then you’re going to do perfectly fine.
Jason (www.kottke.org)
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Use correct grammar, no misspellings, and make sure all punctuation is in the right place.
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Never say anything you’re not willing to back up, because people will tackle you about it.
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Don’t panic if no one reads your site; folks will eventually show up. Likewise, don’t panic if people are actually reading your site; you could stop writing and they will go away!
Rannie (www.photojunkie.org)
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Before you begin blogging, figure out your boundaries. Decide how much or how little you are comfortable with disclosing. It’s easier to change your boundaries once you have started blogging, but harder to put up those boundaries after you have crossed the line and posted something that you didn’t think anyone else would see.
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If you want to bring more traffic to your blog, participate in other projects hosted by other bloggers as it’s one way of getting noticed.
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