And So it Begins...

Photo Credit: Jeffrey James Pacres, Writing, uploaded via Flickr, Creative Commons License

For my first post, I will be summarizing what I’ve gathered from reading a number of articles on the subject of blogging.  Yes, I’ll be blogging about blogging; it’ll be just like ham radio operators using ham radios to discuss their interest in ham radio.

Many a helpful hint awaits the reader over at Chris Brogan’s site.  His article How to Blog Almost Every Day offers myriad tips from this prolific blogger’s bag of tricks. 

Brogan points out that if you make a habit of revisiting some of your favorite news/commentary sites regularly, you should have no trouble finding plenty of fodder for post topics. 

Of course, there’s more to it than just regurgitating a news story that you read elsewhere, or chiming-in “me too” in response to an opinion voiced by someone else. 

Brogan suggests that posing a question about a topic helps to solicit engagement with your readers. Creating conversations, he says, makes your blog more of a community than a soap box.

Furthermore, Brogan trumpets the old axiom that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Including a photo or image adds instant visual appeal to your posting, making it more inviting to the reader.

Perhaps most importantly, Brogan advises that perfectionism is the enemy of proliferation.  He stresses that you need to get your ideas out while they’re fresh, rather than holding them back until they’re “just right”. 

In his article How to Blog, blogger Farhad Manjoo consolidates some tips from some of today’s better-known news and technology posters. 

Tips cited here include defining a definite frequency for your posts, and holding yourself to that schedule.  The more you post, the easier it becomes to do so.

Like Brogan, Manjoo stresses the importance of quantity over quality.  Blogging is a less-than-formal writing venue, so there’s no need to agonize over the minutia of every sentence.  Readability is important, but don’t waste time on scoring points for style.  Also, keep in mind that your audience is likely not interested in you wordsmith prowess.  They simply want to read what you have to say, so get to the point.  Anything in excess of 800 words is just too long for a post.

Further insights on post frequency come from Darren Rowse’s article Use it or lose it!  He stresses that it’s important to post not just consistently, but *with* consistency.  That is, if you readers are accustomed to seeing several new posts a week, they will likely be off-put if you suddenly go cold for two weeks, or flood them with five posts in an afternoon.

Finally, if you’re exploring the use of a weblog to promote your business, you might want to check-out Matthew Bandyk’s How to Blog Your Way to Small-Business Success, or What a Blog Can Do for Your Small Business, by Darrell Zahorsky.  Although these articles are somewhat dated, the former touches on the important topic of search engine optimization (“SEO”, or “Google Juice”), which has become an important “black art” in today’s world of e-commerce.   

This point is illustrated by the latter article, which appears within the About.com domain.  About.com is regarded by some as a web-spam content farm these days, but they’ve dialed-in their SEO to the point that they regularly show-up on the first page of search results.  You don’t have to like what they do, but give ‘em props for doing it well.

-Mike