Top Five Blog Tips

Yes, you can be happy with a blog which doesn’t have all of these but we are all just a bit greedy for a lit­tle fame. Here is what you can do.

1. Con­tent. Con­tent is still king. It is what you have to offer. Have some­thing to say. Say it in a way that is read­able. Have a look at how news sto­ries are writ­ten with the point of the story first and clearly stated right away. After­wards come the facts, the spin off points. By the end of the story the infor­ma­tion has trick­led down to minor details which could be cut off should the news edi­tor not want to give the space for them.

2. Lay­out. There is a lot included in lay­out: nav­i­ga­tion, colour, white space, avoid­ing clut­ter, etc. A blog needs to be easy to read, easy on the eyes. Hav­ing a dra­matic or exotic (tech­no­log­i­cally) layout/ tem­plate does not always work out well. Your lay­out should show­case your con­tent, present it all to be read, found and enjoyed. My favourite lay­outs are sim­ple, clear and don’t include much colour or scripts. Not that I do that on my per­sonal blog. I love colour and try­ing things my own way and that is my place to experiment.

3. Links. Some blogs have no or very few links. Links are how we share and dis­cuss new things, they mat­ter! Isn’t it great to wan­der into a blog and find some great new thing, a blog­ging group, an inter­est­ing new kind of art/ craft, even another clever blog widget/ gad­get. The best part of blog­ging is the adven­ture of the dis­cov­ery of new things and ideas.

4. About. It’s not just who you are or what your blog is about. Write it as a guide for your­self, to keep you focused on what you plan to do. Include a whole FAQ if you get ambitious.

5. Pro­mo­tion. Pro­mot­ing your blog is not just a mar­ket­ing scheme using SEO tac­tics, join­ing pyra­mid linkback schemes and pil­ing on key­words. Com­ment­ing on other blogs (and giv­ing feed­back to the com­ments on your blogs) is bet­ter and gives you the chance to shine, show off your writ­ing, and who you are to the blog­ger of your choice. Don’t pick a blog to com­ment on based on phoni­ness and traf­fic. If you want real, sin­cere read­ers show your­self to be the same.

With each com­ment you leave your link on another blog. Write some­thing rel­e­vant, inter­est­ing or an opin­ion or expe­ri­ence you have had. If you lure some­one to your blog from your com­ment on another blog, you’ve just suc­cess­fully pro­moted your blog. Com­ments take time but so does any kind of blog pro­mo­tion. How­ever, you can choose which kind of pro­mo­tion speaks for you.