Ten Tips for Great Blogging

This is the age of the Internet, and everybody's got a blog. I have six-one that's my journal, one that's for networking, one I run for an organization, and three that are group blogs. Through working with all of these blogs, I've picked up few tips and tricks that will help you make your blog the best it can be.

1. Post once a day

Try and post every day. If you go too long without posting, readers will abandon you, shattering all your efforts to build readership. In addition to this, post only once a day-posting multiple entries a day means that readers are less likely to read all your content and merely skim over what you have posted. Post once a day, every day, and try to stick to it.

2. Comment on other blogs

Find other blogs that you like and comment on them. You don't have to comment daily if you don't have the time, but try to comment at least three times a week-and make sure people can find your blog via a link in your comment or by clicking on your name. If you are an active commenter, people will follow your link trail to your blog to see what more you have to say.

3. Share original content

Simply reposting what others have said isn't only plagiarism (unless, of course, you cite your sources and have permission), it's boring. People come to your blog to read your work, not somebody else's. If you're going to bother to post, take some time and come up with your own content.

4. Offer something

Give readers an incentive to keep reading. Do periodic giveaways, offer advice, feature guest bloggers, or take questions and suggestions from readers. Post a question for the comments at the end of each post. Make your readers feel involved!

5. Make your blog easy to follow

If you can't post a Google Friend Connect module on your blog (Blogger does this for you), set up RSS feeds, set up a Twitter account that readers can follow, or create a newsletter. Make it easy for potential readers to subscribe and follow your content, so that they don't have to hunt down your link every time they want to read your new posts. This gets tedious and you will likely lose all but the most dedicated readers.

6. Share links

Share links to your favorite blogs on the sidebar, or devote a day each week to "blogger spotlights," where you share your favorite blogs or posts that you've come across and enjoy. If readers see that you are willing to promote others, they are more likely to promote you.

7. Be relevant

If you've started a blog about baseball cards, post about baseball cards. If you've started a blog about writing, post about writing. Be relevant and stay on topic. That's not to say you can't have personal anecdotes-indeed, this often makes posts more interesting-but just remember that people are reading your blog to learn more about your topic, not just you.

8. Have a simple layout

Busy layouts are hard to put up with. They hinder legibility and often take too long to load. Your best bet is dark text on a light background with simple sidebars and a muted background. If readers get eyestrain, they won't come back.

9. No sound, please!

If you have a playlist, do not-repeat, do NOT-set it to autoplay! Readers might not enjoy your favorite kind of music, and they may have multiple blogs open at once-as I often do-which prevents them from immediately stopping music they don't like. Autoplay playlists are irritating, and you could very well lose readership over it.

10. Be patient

You're not going to get a thousand followers in your first week-or even your first year. My most heavily-followed blog only has 167 followers, and I've been at it for two years. Be patient, keep posting, and follow the rest of these tips. As they say, "if you build it, they will come."