Blogs started out as web logs or online journals. They have evolved to the point where they rival institutionalized mass media outlets. For instance, the Huffington Post, a news and opinion blog, gets more traffic than the New York Times.com does. The biggest blogs are usually written by groups of people, but single-writer blogs are very effective as well.
There are many services that will let you set up a blog for free. Google’s Blogger.com and Wordpress.com are the two most popular. Having a blog attached to your website can be a great thing. It will help get traffic and it helps establish you as an expert in your field. It’s also kind of fun.
Here are some tips to making your blog work:
- 1. Update regularly. As a general rule, try to keep your blog updated at least once a week. In a recent New York Times article, researchers discovered that 90 percent of all blogs were not updated in the last year. This means two things: 1. You probably have a blog already, but haven’t touched it in over a year, and 2. If you update once a week, you’re already more successful than nearly every other blog out there. Keep up the good work.
- 2. Link bait. Be as controversial as you can be and still feel comfortable. If you’re doing a blog for work, this still applies. Don’t just post anything on a blog. Mean it. Be passionate about it. Have fun with it. If you have a blog post that you think nobody would want to read it, then don’t post it.
- 3. Be a social blogger. Get your blog registered with Technorati.com. Explore other blogs in your genre, make comments and be helpful. When making comments on other blogs, don’t always link back to your blog unless it’s truly pertinent. Otherwise you’ll look like a spammer.
Focus on your niche. Keep your blog specific to one theme or idea. It’s not a bad idea to pick out keywords that will help define what your blog is all about. There are too many people on the Internet to be a generalist. To cut through the white noise, you need to be a specialist. Feel free to peruse this blog for more tips on blogging. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our RSS feed to get alerts when we have new stuff up.