Five Blogging Tips

Inspired by the contest over at Problogger.net, I want to share some of my experience. I’ve been blogging for approximately 3 years now, here are a few things I learned -

1) Write what you know. Just starting up a blog to make money may work for some, but I know it wouldn’t work for me. Blogging is a pleasure, not a job. There are plenty of corporate blogs staffed by journeyman writers being paid to write about stuff they don’t know. You can recognize them on the spot - if you are like me you move on before you are halfway through the first paragraph.

2) Lower your expectations on ‘blog income’. I make a modest income from my blogs, enough to pay for things like trips or tickets to Red Sox games (go Sox!) but definitely not enough to quit my main line of work. Since I don’t depend on the day-to-day income to feed my family or put a roof over my head, I don’t get stressed about things like traffic and page ranking. I don’t want to be stressed about something I take pleasure from.

3) Become part of an on-line community. Blogging is an easy access hobby. If you have a computer and an internet connection, you’ve paid all of the access fees you have to pay. The technology is push-button stuff now, anyone can blog if they wish. On-line communities are not terribly different from real world relationships. Be courteous, apologize when your not, and make as many friends/connections as you are wired for. Being part of a community means linking into other people’s work, or at the very least mentioning their names now and again! Comment sections are a great way to keep a discussion running amongst dozens of people across multiple time zones and life schedules.

4) Make efforts to connect face-to-face with members of that community. Ok, not really a blogging tip, but it will actually keep your desire to blog alive. The blogscape is littered with blogs that were started with enthusiasm and then quickly abandoned. Non-virtual connections (I won’t say ‘real’ since despite the actual defination, virtual relations are real relationships) are important for keeping your interest. It is how we are wired - we want to interact with friends.

5) Blogging is writing. A lot of blogs run on bullet points and very short observations. For a few moments distraction, these do the job. The ones that keep my attention are the blogs that stick to writing standards that were taught to all of us or that the more talented (e.g. not me!) writers somehow draw upon naturally. Make no mistake - being a good writer is work for everyone. How do you get to blog about Carnegie Hall? Practice, man, practice.