rules for blogging

Top five rules for blogging: #5 comment elsewhere

By / Communication / 2 minutes of reading / 7 Comments

Blog readers don’t just fall from the sky… well that’s only partly true. A lot of readers come via Google. And they may as well fall from the sky.

To significantly boost your traffic you can do one of two things – you can write google friendly copy, or you can try to steal other people’s readers by getting involved in their blog community.

I don’t know how many readers I’ve pilfered from Ben and Simone – but I’d suggest the link love I score from them was a significant factor in my moving to more than 500 unique readers a week.

500 readers a week isn’t a significant number. I’m certainly not about to quit my job and become a full time blogger. But I’m comfortable with that. I think if I wanted to increase that figure dramatically I’d take one strategy – I’d comment on popular blogs. Particularly popular blogs that cover similar topics to mine.

Readership is only part of the picture. Blogging regularly can be tough. I think that’s why so many blogs falter. One of the things that makes it easier is the support of people who leave encouraging comments, and post links to stuff they like that you’ve written. You don’t get this sort of support unless you know the person in real life and as such want to see their blog continue, or you comment and share the link love elsewhere.

That’s my theory anyway.

Top Five Rules for blogging: #1 Keep it regular

By / Communication, Consciousness / 2 minutes of reading / 2 Comments

Yesterday I posted a list of my top five rules for blogging.

Mikey posted a response on Christian Reflections – and a comment – reminding me of the cardinal rule of blogging (that I missed). Link to other people. Regularly.  I like that rule. There will now be six posts in this series. Starting with this one…

Rule One – Blog Regularly

If you want your blog to last past the first week you need to have a plan to go past the first week.

Figure out a scope of topics you want to talk about. Come up with a regular feature. Do whatever it takes to have a steady stream of content – but in my experience most would be bloggers start up with big dreams and fall over after the second post.

The best way not to do this is to just post for the sake of posting until you develop a rhythm. Blogging is all about momentum. Momentum doesn’t build itself. The physical definition of the concept is that momentum is mass multiplied by velocity. You can’t generate blogging momentum without content posted regularly.

Readers won’t stick around if you don’t post often. Your friends might. But unless they subscribe straight away they’ll probably forget about you.

You need to be prepared to publish half polished thoughts and let your commenters do some work – if you can get commenters (but that’s rule two). That’s the beauty of the medium. Don’t see blogging as a place to share essays. It can be. But the pressure will kill you and keep you from posting.

My top five rules for blogging

By / Communication, Consciousness / 1 minute of reading / 11 Comments

I have been meaning to post this since reading Ben’s reflections on blogging. I’ve noticed that a lot of people I know start blogs (and I get really excited). And then the blog dies. After about a week. Mine didn’t. So here are my tips.

  1. Blog regularly
  2. Don’t blog for comments
  3. If you want hits, write lists
  4. If you need to write about stupid stuff in order to keep writing, then write about stupid stuff.
  5. If you want regular readers comment regularly elsewhere.

I’m going to turn this into a little series and expand on each idea during the week. In the meantime, share your tips in the comments.

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