My Blogging Smarts

(What I Learned While My Pants Were Up)

If you’re searching for hot spanko tales, keep scrolling down. This post is about blogging!

I’ve learned a lot about publishing a blog over the past several months. It’s been great fun, but it’s also plenty of work. I’ve tried whenever possible to share my insights and discoveries about spanking in the context of a committed relationship. My goal is to make the path easier for those who follow. It seems only reasonable to apply the same concept to blogging.

As with spanking, I don’t claim to be an expert, but I’ve tried a lot of different things. Accordingly, here are my forty blogging tips:

1. The three most important ingredients for a quality blog are content, content, and content. It's not that hard to attract first time readers, but only great content will keep them coming back.


2. Make it attractive. You want your site to be visually distinctive. People especially love pictures and graphics.


3. Avoid using the standard templates. You don't want to blend with the crowd or appear generic. You can and should modify them to obtain a unique appearance.


4. Use a counter and regularly analyze your counter data. If the counter you're using doesn't give detailed information, consider one that does. The counter data will tell you a lot about who is visiting and from where they came.


5. It's all about links. If your link is on a popular page, you will get a lot of first time hits. Few big name blogs will give you a link unless you link them first. Link the blogs you would like to have link you. Choose blogs similar in topic and tone to yours. Then visit those blogs and get involved in the conversation. Beyond a valuable link, you may well find help, inspiration, and friendship as well.


6. Check out the top shelf blogs. Notice how they do things. Look for good ideas you can adapt.


7. Post every day or as often as you reasonably can. Readers flock to ever-changing blogs and stop visiting those that become stale.


8. Stay on topic and on message as much as you can. It's your blog and you can write pretty much whatever you choose. However, it's good to have a single purpose that can be easily understood by first time visitors. If you want to discuss several unrelated subjects, consider multiple blogs.


9. Share the love. Anytime someone takes the time to comment or send an e-mail, acknowledge their contribution, thank them, and send them a response.


10. Join Technorati. If you haven't been there, it's kind of a search engine for blogs. It's based upon tags and is not very hard to implement. If you choose the right tags, it can bring in plenty of traffic.


11. Go for the gizmos. You will find, in the right column of my blog, a bunch of little chicklets beneath a heading that reads "Twiddlies." Every one of these is an index site, top site, or web ring. If you go and register, they will send you some traffic. Some of these can be time-consuming to set up, but if you want traffic, it's probably worthwhile.


12. Get your readers involved. People love polls, quizzes, and open questions that invite discussion. Let them be part of the blog too.


13. Have a brand. Choose a distinctive title, tag line, font, color scheme, logo, and layout. Make it recognizable and make it uniquely your own.


14. Register with search engines. Go to the major search engines sites and submit your blog.


15. Look up your blog periodically on those same search engines. Know who is linking to you. Visit their blogs. Introduce yourself. Get to know them. Return the link if you like their blog.


16. Try to learn something new every day. Use your new knowledge to make your blog better or your readers better informed.


17. Ask for suggestions and comments. When you receive them, take them seriously. I have received numerous excellent post ideas from readers.


18. Check your links regularly. Trim the dead or inactive ones.


19. Learn about RSS feeds and syndication. It’s an easy way to make your blog accessible to more people.


20. Avoid being too predictable. Change things up from time to time. Strive to surprise and delight your readers.


21. Test your pages to ensure they look right in both Internet Explorer and Firefox.


22. Back up your blog content, just in case.


23. Pay it forward. Help those bloggers who are just getting started. Who knows? They may turn into a blogging superstar, or better yet, a good friend.


24. Get involved with the informal community of bloggers. These people can provide valuable support, both personal and technical.


25. Avoid judging people or their beliefs in all but the most extreme cases. There's generally no benefit to be derived from offending someone.


26. Have fun. Be creative. Share yourself. Do what feels right.


27. Talk about subjects you know.


28. Be topical. People love news. This can be as simple as tying in the theme of a post with a holiday or popular event.


29. Respect your readers. Their time is precious too.


30. Explain your vision for the blog early and often. This kind of statement will help to attract and retain the kind of dedicated readers you seek.


31. If you receive offensive comments, delete them immediately without mention.


32. Avoid becoming too commercial. If you choose to have advertisements, that’s fine. But no one wants to visit an online billboard. Pop-up windows are especially offensive.


33. Spell check and proofread your posts.


34. Make it easy for people to visit and stick around. Pick a memorable name and URL. Provide navigation aids such as drop down boxes to help readers find articles of interest.


35. Be honest with people, but not too honest. Avoid sharing details that reveal your location and identity, especially if you’re female.


36. Be positive. Some people may demonstrate sympathy for your troubles, but few readers will stick around a blog dedicated to whining.


37. Take one step at a time. It doesn’t make sense to promote your blog heavily until you’ve accumulated a decent sized body of work. It’s hard to take seriously a blog that has only two posts.


38. Arrange blogging around the rest of your life, and never the reverse.


39. Try to be nice to people. Most of them deserve it.


40. Remember that it’s ultimately your blog. At the end of the day, you are the publisher who decides what is and is not a part of your content. As soon as you start writing your blog for other people, it becomes real work.

As I said, I’m no expert. Six months ago, I knew none of this stuff and I’m definitely still learning. However, these are the techniques that have worked for me.

If you haven't started a blog, but think you might want to try, I encourage you to take the plunge. It's very easy to begin. If you're like me, I believe you'll discover that you have quite a bit to share.

For those who already have a blog, I hope a few of these suggestions will be helpful.

Note: For more blogging tips, I have since published two more articles. You can find them here and here.

Keywords: blogging