I’ve been blogging for almost 10 years now (not always here, though, in case you’re wondering). I’m not saying I’m an expert, but I know a thing or two. I’ve also picked up what I like to think of as a few best practices and good ideas along the way. Here’s some:
- Use WordPress. It’s not perfect, but it’s still the best out there as far as I’m concerned. There’s a free hosted version if you don’t want to mess with installing it yourself.
- Give credit where credit is due — for photos, ideas, whatever. Whether it’s required by law or not. That’s what links are for.
- If you’re linking to anything other than an HTML page (for example, a PDF), tell the reader in the link text. Put “[pdf]” or something similar
- Use a spell checker. I’m a good speller — a really good speller — but everyone makes mistakes. So double-check.
- Be consistent. This is something I’ve been very inconsistent about, especially since I became a parent (’cause, in case you didn’t know, kids take up a huge amount of time and energy). And I’ve paid for that with fewer readers and less traffic. So be consistent — blog regularly, and you’ll get and retain more readers.
- Don’t get paralyzed by trying to make things perfect. Do the best you can, hit publish, and then go on to the next post.
- Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your boss, spouse/partner, parents or children to see. Because they will. Discretion is the better part of valor.
- Do post about things that you find interesting and helpful. There’s a lot of other people in this world, chances are some of them are going to find the same things interesting that you do, and they’ll read your blog.
- Publish an RSS feed, and also provide an email subscription. There are lots of options to do this, and most of them require little or no knowledge of actual code.
- Use Feedburner for your RSS feed.
- Subscribe to your own RSS feed and your own email subscription (yes — both!). See what your readers are getting from you, so you can fix it if it’s bad and so you know if it stops working.
- Don’t blog on your employer’s time (unless you really are getting paid to do that).
- It’s OK to make a little money with ads, affiliate links or whatever, really. Being a blogger does not require a vow of poverty. Just don’t be the kind of smarmy marketer we all hate (for more on this I suggest Copyblogger’s excellent post on the ‘Third Tribe’).
- Write interesting headlines. One very basic, easy place to start: Put verbs in your headlines.
- Periodically go back and read your old blog posts. If you’ve been blogging for a while, it’s good to remind yourself what you’ve already done. You may also find some posts that could be updated or added to — in other words, a new post!
- Look at your blog through a different browser than the one you’re using sometimes — other people are, so you should, too.
- It’s OK to post a collection of links to other interesting stuff occasionally. Just don’t do it everyday. That’s what Digg and StumbleUpon are for.
- Get a Twitter account. OK, there are a few very successful bloggers who don’t have Twitter accounts. But really, if you’re one of them you don’t need my tips. So if you don’t have one, get a Twitter account.
- Be inspired. This post was inspired by David Risley’s 50 Rapid Fire Tips for Power Blogging. You’ll note we share many ideas about best practices. He does have a longer list than me, though.
Have some tips yourself? Please share them in the comments below.
