By: Noel Swanson, 2007-12-29
After going through several blogs and books on blogging, making money out of your blog or website and marketing on the internet, it has been my observation that all bloggers agree on certain things that each successful blogger has religiously followed throughout the years. Here are the principles I observed:
1.) It’s all about passion – Articles you write in your blog should be something that you are passionate about. Topics that you have somewhat achieved a level of expertise in, topics that puts you on fire, topics that makes your eyes wide open when discussed about, topics that awes and amazes you and opens your mouth wide.
2.) Blog for people – Although search engine optimization is something that should be seriously considered by all bloggers, it should not take precedence over people. Blogs should not be all about keywords, tags or any other gimmick out there in order to make sure that we all each get a higher search engine. What is important that people keep coming back to your site because your post actually helps them or is relevant to them. I believe it was legendary marketer John Chow who said “People First before Google.”
3.) Its not how long are your posts, its how many times you post. – What is important about a blog is that it is frequently updated. The length of your post will depend on the topic discussed. It does not matter how long the post are. What is important is how frequently you post.
4.) Blog anyway – Don’t worry about your site statistics or that you still do not have comments on your site. This is especially true for new bloggers. It will probably take a while for search engines to index your site. Traffic will just flow if you don’t stop writing good posts for people.
5.) Be a studious blogger – Bloggers are serious students. They should not stop learning about their craft. You must force yourself to learn more about topics on how to be effective on your blogging, how to bring traffic to your site etc. Remember this, if you stop learning, you stop blogging.
6.) Read, Read Read !!! – What can you possibly blog about if you do not read ? You must have a voracious appetite for learning. You must also have a passion to tell your readers what you have learned.
7.) Be organized, schedule the topics you blog about – Having a blogging schedule will force you to come up with something to blog about. Others may disagree with this idea as they just write on whatever they feel about writing. For me personally, I work best when I submit myself to an organized way of doing things. In addition to that, following a blog schedule will help me have a balanced number of posts on the categories that I blogging on.
8.) Be personal – Inject some humor if you have to ! Your readers must feel as if you they are talking to a pal when they read your blog. The language and words you use should be so understandable that your readers should not have to resort to a dictionary before they could understand what you are trying to say. Explain things in layman’s term as much as possible, even if the subject matter is so technical.
9.) Aim for the best ! – Aiming for the best does not only apply in school or at work, it very much well applies when it comes to blogging. Among other things, you must go over and edit your posts. You must make sure your presentation and layout are user friendly and not an eye sore.
10.) Be a life blogger- Plan to blog for the rest of your entire life. Although there may be monetary considerations, it should only be secondary. Blogging should not be something that you only do temporarily just because you don’t have anything to do right now or something which you do in order to achieve a certain level of richness and afterwards you will then stop blogging since you have already arrived there. As you go about your life, having an attitude of blogging for life will make you further appreciate the suprises that life brings since you will always be looking forward to writing about it and letting the whole world know that this is what life is all about.
Zigfred Diaz blogs regularly about internet marketing, blogging law, leadership, management, finances, investments, technology & faith.