Whether you’re a seasoned blog veteran or you’re just learning how to write a blog post, there are certain accepted best practices in blogging which, if followed, will help you out.  Most people learn to blog by throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks.  I suggest that you read this post, think about how you can run your blog better, and develop a plan of action regarding how you’re going to improve your blog.

6. Pace Yourself

The biggest problem many bloggers face is that they burn themselves out very quickly.  They get this great idea for a blog, spend a ton of time making it, and then the muse leaves them and they’re left with little more than an idea.

It’s perfectly natural to have your creativity visit you in short bursts, but if after careful review of your blog posting history it’s obvious that you make three posts in one day and then go a week or two without posting anything at all, you’re in trouble.

Solution

Scheduled posts.  I always have my eyes open for blog topics and ideas, but I don’t necessarily always feel like writing the posts.  That’s why I have a dedicated file where I store all my post ideas and accompanying URLs for linkbacks.  When the muse does hit me, I’ll sit down and write three or four posts and schedule them to publish no more than once per day.  Consistency is key.  Set a posting schedule and try to stick to it.  Hint: no less than one post per week barring vacations, emergencies, etc. or people won’t think you’re serious about your blog.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of people thinking you’re serious about your blog, run, don’t walk to BlueHost (my provider) and get yourself a server and your own domain.  Nothing says you don’t care like a wordpress.com or a blogspot.com account when private hosting and domain name registration is so cheap.

5. Scope Out Your Competition

Don’t worry, we’re not talking about corporate espionage here.  Hopefully you’ve figured out where your potential readers are already going to get their content.  If not, try searching Technorati for blogs similar to yours.  Once you’ve identified the successful blogs in your general area of interest, you need to do three things:

1. Figure out what they’re doing right.  Chances are they’re already following all the advice contained within this post.  See if they’re doing anything special though.  Are they offering deals or contests?  Do they liveblog relevant events?  If you can’t figure out what they’re doing right, consider sending them an email complementing their blog and asking why they think it’s so successful.  Most bloggers enjoy talking to aspiring bloggers in my experience.  Don’t hope for a response from someone the likes of Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, for instance, but if you aim for some middle-of-the-road blogs, you’ll probably get a bite if your email is sincere.
2. Start contributing to their blog via comments.  Don’t leave stupid comments or try to post quickly in the hopes of being “first.”  Add good, substantive content and you will be rewarded.  When people see your comments and recognize you as intelligent or an authority, they’ll probably click on your url.  Additionally, if you consistently add useful comments, you may begin to develop a relationship with the blog’s author, which will only help you.
3. Consider writing a guest blog post.  The idea here is that you get to have your name and hopefully a link to your blog on an established blog in your area of interest.  The hope is that it will drive some relevant traffic your way.  Check out this recent post on ProBlogger about how not to write a guest post.

4. Variations on a Theme

After reading Tip 5 above, you’re probably wondering why bloggers are so willing to help you out.  Well, it’s because your blog isn’t going to be a replacement for theirs.  If anything, it will be a complement.  How do I know?  Because if your blog is exactly like another, more famous blog, it’s essentially doomed to fail.  They’ve got more readers, more experience, and probably a better reputation in the relevant community, so how do you compete with that?  Well, you essentially compete by not competing.  You make your blog into a variation on a theme.

What do I mean by that?  Well, take ProBlogger for instance.  I don’t see myself as competing with Darren because while his blog is geared towards generating great blog advice, mine is geared towards learning to build a blog from scratch.  While the difference may seem subtle and there is certainly some overlapping interests, that’s the kind of edge that you need to play around with in order to set yourself apart from similar blogs.  Your personality can compensate a lot for a similar blog premise, but you really are going to sit down and ponder exactly what you want to do in your future blog space.

If your blog is new, don’t worry about reinventing yourself, either!  I promise that if you find a good niche to fit into, you’ll be able to replace those 20 loyal readers in no time.

3. Promote, Promote, Promote

Many people suffer from the Wayne’s World 2 “If You Build It, They Will Come” Syndrome.  Unfortunately, even if you have the best content in the world, if they can’t find you, they can’t come.  So you have to get your content out there somehow.

As suggested by Tip 5, guest posting and commenting on established blogs is a good way to put yourself out there in general.  You can also try advertising, which is quick traffic but only good traffic if you target the right keywords.  In my opinion though, the best way to drive up relevant traffic to your blog is to write a really killer blog post and then bring it to the attention of the heavy hitters in your field.

For instance, I recently wrote a post about turning a firefox plugin into a personalized ad targeting program.  I knew when I wrote it that it was a good post, and I legitimately suspected that it would be of interest to readers of the top blogs.  I began sending off emails through the contact forms of those blogs with a message along the lines of, “Hi, I just wrote a post about X that I believe will be of interest to your users because Y.  I hope that you will pass it along if you find it relevant and interesting.  Thanks.”  Simple as that, and before long, I had hundreds of hits from multiple sources and my URL was tweeted by @problogger and some other big hitters in the blogging and seo industry.  Remember, these guys need content too, and when they’re handed good content on a silver platter, why not pass it along?

Never underestimate the power of asking nicely in conjunction with good content.

2. Respond to Comments or Suffer the Consequences

When you’re at the point where I am with this blog, you really need to address the vast majority of your comments.  There’s not really a good excuse not to do it.

The fact is that the vast majority of people who read your content will never post, so ignoring the people who take the time to interact with you essentially makes them out to be the creepy guy on the train who talks to himself until he falls asleep in your lap.  You don’t want to make a loyal reader feel that way, do you?  I didn’t think so.

By showing readers that you actually take the time to read their thoughts as well, you’re encouraging more comments and therefore strengthening your bond with your readers while sparking interaction.  Win/win/win as Michael Scott would say.

1. Choose Your Words Carefully

Even if you think SEO is lightyears beyond you and you never want to think about it, consider the following personal example: my second post to this blog was a light-hearted post about one of my suits and how someone had told me that the buttons looked like a certain infamous symbol used by a certain oppressive German regime had been carved into them.  Why am I dancing around those words?  Because Google decided that they were the most important part of my blog for a while, and I was receiving some traffic from people who I imagine were not excited to be here.

If you won’t follow my advice and plan your keywords, at least think about what NOT to say on your blog: especially in your subject, title tag, or url slug.  Worst case scenario, you get a ton of traffic from people who have no interest in your blog at all, and none from the people who are actually looking for your content.

Exercise

When you’re at the point that you know what you’re going to blog about next but haven’t written your blog post yet, ask yourself this question: “how would people look for this information on Google?”  If someone were to search for an article like this one, I might expect the following queries:

• blog advice
• useful blog tips
• how do I get my blog popular?
• start blogging

Now that I know how I would find my own post were I looking for it, I can try to work those types of keywords into my post to help Google return relevant results to my future readers.

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I hope that you’ve found these tips useful.  Obviously more than six tips belong on this list, but I had to make it somewhat digestible.

Did you recognize any problems with your blog while reading this post?  Do you have a plan of action for how to fix those problems now?  I’d love to hear about it.  I’ll even do my best to help if I can.

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