70 Practical Suggestions for Bloggers

Some years ago, I published a series of posts where I shared lessons I had learned about blogging. These posts are still in the archive, but I stopped referring people to them because much of the advice now seems dated. I have long promised to create an updated version. Today, it's finally finished.

Here are seventy suggestions for beginning bloggers. This list is by no means a cookbook. Each blogger must find their own unique path. But if I can help make their journey easier, I am delighted to assist.

I divided these suggestions into four general categories: Approach, Style, Content, and Technique.

Approach:

1. Have fun. Be creative. Share yourself. Do what feels right.
2. Arrange blogging around the rest of your life, and never the reverse.
3. Check out blogs you admire. Notice how they do things. Look for good ideas you can adapt.
4. 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.
5. 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 helpful to have a unifying theme that can be easily understood by first time visitors.
6. Respect your readers. Their time is precious too.
7. Try to learn something new every day. Use your new knowledge to make your blog better or your readers better informed.
8. Ask for suggestions and comments. When you receive them, take those ideas seriously.
9. Avoid being too predictable. Change things up from time to time. Strive to surprise and delight your readers.
10. Pay it forward. Help bloggers who are just getting started. Who knows? They may become a blogging superstar, or better yet, a good friend.
11. Get involved with the informal community of bloggers. These people can provide valuable support, both personal and technical.
12. Avoid judging people or their beliefs in all but the most extreme cases. There's generally no benefit to be derived from offending someone.
13. If you receive an offensive comment, delete it immediately without mention.
14. 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 and loud audio are especially offensive.
15. Be honest with people, but not too honest. Avoid sharing details that reveal your specific location and full name, especially if you’re female. Like a superhero, you must protect your secret identity.
16. Be positive. Some people may demonstrate sympathy for your troubles, but few readers will return to a blog dedicated to whining.
17. 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.
18. Try to be nice to people. Most of them deserve it.
19. Set reasonable expectations for your blog's growth. It can take months of regular posting to build a sizable core readership.
20. If you are serious about blogging, schedule some time each day for this purpose.
21. Recognize that blogging involves more than writing posts. There are also important backstage conversations with readers and other bloggers. These exchanges are essential, though time-consuming.
22. Don't feel intimidated when you talk with popular bloggers or models. They're real people too and most are happy to converse with bloggers who have similar interests.
23. If you don't know your way around, it's OK to follow the crowd. Once you do know, however, it's better to let them follow you.

Style:

24. Work to create a unique and memorable visual style. Build a brand. Choose a distinctive title, tag line, font, color scheme, logo, and layout. Make it identifiable and uniquely your own.
25. Recognize that a blog is an organic entity. Most successful blogs change and grow throughout their existence. Sometimes, blogs move in directions that their creators could not have foreseen at their inception. Don't be afraid to redefine your blog when opportunity knocks.
26. In general, a clean, consistent, and uncluttered presentation is superior to visually busy pages. Blog widgets can be beneficial, but when used to excess, they draw the reader's attention away from the content you want them to see.
27. Spell check and proofread your posts.
28. Check the links in your blogroll regularly. Trim the dead or inactive ones.
29. Most readers never explore a blog's archives. It's sad but true. For them, all of those great old posts simply never happened. You can encourage visitors to look around by adding navigational aids such as thematic tags or drop down boxes.
30. Structure your text for easy reading. Avoid long paragraphs and run-on sentences. If you frighten the reader with huge blocks of impenetrable text, they are likely to make a quick exit.
31. Artistic presentation is wonderful, but people need to be able to read your text. If the text color is too similar to the background color or graphic, it will be difficult to discern. Many visitors will choose not to work that hard.
32. While we're talking about text and readability, if you're expecting any visitors over the age of, oh, say 35, you'll want to select a clean font and a reasonably large point size. I find the default text size in many templates to be too small.
33. It's generally best to let readers know the subject of each post in the title or first paragraph.

Content:

34. The three most important ingredients for a quality blog are content, content, and content. Only strong material will keep readers coming back.
35. Talk about subjects you know. Especially if they are subjects you love.
36. Share the love. When someone takes the time to comment or send an e-mail, try to acknowledge their contribution and respond.
37. Get your readers involved. People love polls, quizzes, and open questions that invite discussion. Let them be part of the blog too.
38. Be topical. People love news. This can be as simple as tying in the theme of a post with a holiday or popular event.
39. Pace your posts. Many readers examine only your most recent article. If you post much more than once per day, even your regular visitors may miss seeing some of your best work.
40. Pace your comments too. I've discovered that some readers will not comment after I have responded because they think the discussion is now over. As a result, I sometimes purposely wait several hours before weighing in.
41. Variety is the spice of life. It also spices up a blog. Avoid posting two similar features back to back. If possible, separate them with a very different post.
42. It's fine to blend fact with fiction, so long as you explain to readers which is which.
43. Lightweight “filler” content like photos, memes, and polls have a rightful place on most blogs. Few bloggers can produce high quality, meaningful content every day for any extended period of time. Occasional “filler” posts allow a blog to stay fresh for readers without causing burnout for the blogger.
44. When quoting another blog, be sure to reference and link both the author (using the main blog page) and the specific post. Proper citations are a sign of respect.
45. If your blog is intended for a mature audience, beware of links to or from vanilla blogs or web sites. These can cause problems that no one needs. If a vanilla blog has linked you, you may want to write the owner and politely ask them to remove the link.
46. Conversely, if your blog is linked by a site that you feel is offensive, you might consider writing to them. This is far from a sure proposition, but it might work.
47. I find that unless a post is positively riveting, many readers lose patience somewhere around 1000-1500 words. Consequently, even an excellent post can be more effective if broken into bite sized pieces.
48. When another blog mentions your blog or cites your material, it is good practice to publicly thank them for their kind gesture. These folks are doing you a favor by sending you traffic and readers.
49. You may encounter spam blogs that steal your text, or more likely snippets of your text, in order to draw hits from search engines. As of today, there isn't much we can do about these creeps. Save your energy for a worthwhile fight.
50. It's all right to be outrageous or controversial sometimes, as long as it fits the theme of your blog. Many readers like a good rant once in a while. Just make sure you know when you're ranting and, for the readers' sake, please label it as such.
51. Every time you have an idea for a post, write it down immediately, even if you don't think it's a very good one.
52. Maintain a file of post ideas. Consult it when you need a topic.
53. Prepare some posts in advance. These posts can then be used when time and energy are at a premium. It reduces stress on the blogger and keeps the blog fresh and original.
54. Consider incorporating regular features. They give readers a reason to return.
55. Remember that the Web is a flexible medium. You needn't stick to a diary format. Your entries don't have to be prose. Consider poetry, humor, music, video, games, or whatever you think readers might enjoy.
56. When used in moderation, teasers and hooks boost readership. A teaser is a reference to an upcoming post that encourages readers to stop back. A hook is an intriguing post title or lead-off sentence that draws the reader's attention and makes them eager for more.
57. Avoid spending too much time on any one post.
58. Consider guest posts as an alternative content source, but make sure they fit the tone of your blog.
59. Your arguments will carry more weight if you back them with meaningful quotes or statistics.
60. If a topic or formula works, use it again.
61. Remember that it’s ultimately your blog. As writer, editor, and publisher, you make the final decision.

Technique:

62. Post as often as you reasonably can. Readers flock to ever-changing blogs and stop visiting those that become stale.
63. Install a counter and regularly analyze your traffic data. The statistics can tell you a lot about who is visiting, from where they came, and what they choose to read.
64. Links are a critical element in increasing readership. 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.
65. Register with search engines. Go to the major search engine sites and submit your blog.
66. Learn about RSS feeds and syndication. It’s an easy way to make your blog accessible to more people.
67. Test your pages to ensure they look right in common browsers.
68. Back up your blog content and your template, just in case.
69. Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, it's best to adhere to basic blogging conventions such as placing newest posts first, allowing comments, including a date and title with every post, and making embedded links easy to spot.
70. You can easily promote your blog by regularly commenting on similar blogs. If you are inclined, social media tools such as FaceBook, Twitter, and MySpace are another excellent method for getting the word out.

So there you have it. Not all of these recommendations apply in every situation nor for every blogger. But this is what seems to work for me. I hope your blogging experiences are rewarding and fun!