Top 10 blogging tips from around the web
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
"Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It's not a blog: it's a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it's not really a blog."
— What Makes for a Good Blog?
"Stats are a good barometer for some things. Especially if you have a clear-thinking mind. Or if you're approaching your blog experimentally and viewing your stats with a marketer's mindset. But if you're mindlessly checking stats all the time, looking at your affiliate earnings every hour, then it's time to step AWAY from the computer. Go play with your dog."
— 18 Stupid Mistakes Bloggers Make in their First Year
"Instead of writing entire posts, write down titles. If time permits put down your initial thoughts and build on it later, from wherever you are. Face it you will check your email at least once a day, if you have your title and initial write up ready your blog post can be done in a few minutes."
— No Hurries, No Worries - Your Blog Will Survive
"There are only a handful of default Blogger templates available to use. Since Blogger has millions of active users around the world, you can be sure that hundreds (at least) will be using these same templates as the visual basis of their blogs. To make sure your blog stands out from the crowd, you need to ensure your design is in some way unique."
— 7 Reader Friendly Methods of Improving your Blogger Blog
"While the functionality of tag clouds is arguable helpful, unfortunately most tag clouds appear as nothing more than a jumbled mess. So messy in some cases that they are actually too hard to disassemble in a reasonable amount of time, and are just avoided by users."
— The Seven Most Commonly Made Bad Blog Design Choices
"Writing a home-run post on a Saturday afternoon will probably happen from time to time. However, does your blog have good traffic on Saturdays? Analyzing your blog's stats to determine when it naturally has the most traffic can get more eyes on a great post, which will translate to more social votes and more links. If you have created the post of your life, wait for a good day to publish - it will cost you about 1 minute on a later date to put it up."
— 10 Ways to Improve Blog Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less
"The lack of an "About Me" page-- or a simple name to attach to the author's writing -- is unforgivable. But it's still a problem today. Every time a reader encounters a blog with no name in the byline, no background on the author, and no simple way to click through to find out anything about the author, it strains credulity to the breaking point. It devalues not only the author's writing, but the credibility of blogging in general."
— Thirteen Blog Clichés
"Time is valuable for blogging, if you don't have it your blog can suffer. Time management is a huge key for a lot of bloggers. If you stretch yourself, your time, and resources too thin you may come up with many unfinished projects. Several of my blogs could do a lot better, I just don't have the time to dedicate to them."
— 23 Things I've Learned Blogging
"If you shut off commenting because you were drowning in a sea of comment spam, using Akismet and Bad Behavior for Wordpress will allow you to turn it back on by eliminating 99% of your spam for free. If you're simply afraid that people will say something that might detract from your totally awesome post, then maybe your post isn't that awesome after all. Come out from under your bed in that giant ivory tower and let people love or hate your posts. Eliminate barriers. Get some feedback. Make a couple of friends. Communicate."
— How To Piss Me Off With Your Blog
"Terrible things are happening in one of the following: the world, the web or a television show you really like. Make a blog post about it! People will comment about how much they agree with you. Then they'll make their own blog posts about the subject, and other people will comment about how much they agree with them. If we all work together we'll learn that we can make a real impact on our pageviews."
— Secrets of the 7 Basic Blog Posts
— What Makes for a Good Blog?
"Stats are a good barometer for some things. Especially if you have a clear-thinking mind. Or if you're approaching your blog experimentally and viewing your stats with a marketer's mindset. But if you're mindlessly checking stats all the time, looking at your affiliate earnings every hour, then it's time to step AWAY from the computer. Go play with your dog."
— 18 Stupid Mistakes Bloggers Make in their First Year
"Instead of writing entire posts, write down titles. If time permits put down your initial thoughts and build on it later, from wherever you are. Face it you will check your email at least once a day, if you have your title and initial write up ready your blog post can be done in a few minutes."
— No Hurries, No Worries - Your Blog Will Survive
"There are only a handful of default Blogger templates available to use. Since Blogger has millions of active users around the world, you can be sure that hundreds (at least) will be using these same templates as the visual basis of their blogs. To make sure your blog stands out from the crowd, you need to ensure your design is in some way unique."
— 7 Reader Friendly Methods of Improving your Blogger Blog
"While the functionality of tag clouds is arguable helpful, unfortunately most tag clouds appear as nothing more than a jumbled mess. So messy in some cases that they are actually too hard to disassemble in a reasonable amount of time, and are just avoided by users."
— The Seven Most Commonly Made Bad Blog Design Choices
"Writing a home-run post on a Saturday afternoon will probably happen from time to time. However, does your blog have good traffic on Saturdays? Analyzing your blog's stats to determine when it naturally has the most traffic can get more eyes on a great post, which will translate to more social votes and more links. If you have created the post of your life, wait for a good day to publish - it will cost you about 1 minute on a later date to put it up."
— 10 Ways to Improve Blog Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less
"The lack of an "About Me" page-- or a simple name to attach to the author's writing -- is unforgivable. But it's still a problem today. Every time a reader encounters a blog with no name in the byline, no background on the author, and no simple way to click through to find out anything about the author, it strains credulity to the breaking point. It devalues not only the author's writing, but the credibility of blogging in general."
— Thirteen Blog Clichés
"Time is valuable for blogging, if you don't have it your blog can suffer. Time management is a huge key for a lot of bloggers. If you stretch yourself, your time, and resources too thin you may come up with many unfinished projects. Several of my blogs could do a lot better, I just don't have the time to dedicate to them."
— 23 Things I've Learned Blogging
"If you shut off commenting because you were drowning in a sea of comment spam, using Akismet and Bad Behavior for Wordpress will allow you to turn it back on by eliminating 99% of your spam for free. If you're simply afraid that people will say something that might detract from your totally awesome post, then maybe your post isn't that awesome after all. Come out from under your bed in that giant ivory tower and let people love or hate your posts. Eliminate barriers. Get some feedback. Make a couple of friends. Communicate."
— How To Piss Me Off With Your Blog
"Terrible things are happening in one of the following: the world, the web or a television show you really like. Make a blog post about it! People will comment about how much they agree with you. Then they'll make their own blog posts about the subject, and other people will comment about how much they agree with them. If we all work together we'll learn that we can make a real impact on our pageviews."
— Secrets of the 7 Basic Blog Posts
Labels: blogging
