Advice to new bloggers

If you want to start a blog:

1. Do it! It is easier than you think. Go to blogger.com or wordpress.com and sign up!
2. Write about what interests you. Write what you are hot for. Do not care if it interests anyone else. Google will bring the right readers to your blog. You will be surprised at how many people are like you!
3. Write the truth. Tell it just like you see it. Do not hold back. The truth is so much more interesting and worth reading. If that means writing under a pen name and hiding certain facts about yourself, then do it. But be prepared to back up what you say when commenters challenge you on it.
4. Write regularly: once a day, once a week, every Tuesday and Thursday, whatever you can manage. It creates expectation, giving your readers a reason to come back.
5. Comments: Allow comments but make sure you have a spam filter too. One of the best things about blogging is the comments! Read your comments and try to reply to as many as you can. Let people say whatever they want so long as they remain on topic. If a comment gets you angry, do not delete it but do not answer it right away either. Wait till you are calm.
6. Read other blogs. Learn from them. Add the ones you like best to your blog roll and go back to them.
7. How I write a post:
   1. Write the title first.
   2. Write the first paragraph.
   3. Write another 500 words or so to flesh it out. Do not care about how it sounds or even if the paragraphs are in the right order. Just write!
   4. Put the paragraphs in the right order and make it readable.
   5. Cut it back to between 480 and 500 words. This forces you to get rid of the deadwood. Look at the longer paragraphs. Cut words where you can. Prefer fact to opinion, the important to the unimportant.
   6. Correct the English. (Get a good dictionary.)
   7. Read it over again, out loud if you can. Repeat till you find no more mistakes.
   8. Add a picture.
   9. Add cross-links to related posts.
8. Cross-link to other posts you did on the same or related subjects, even if it was a year ago. Otherwise all that most people will ever see of your blog are the last dozen or so posts.
9. Put  links at the end of the post since otherwise they will break up the flow of what you are saying.
10. Keep your posts short – not more than a thousand words. I keep mine to 500 words, which seems to be a good length – not too short, not too long.
11. Keep your paragraphs short too, like to about four sentences or so.
12. Keep your words short: prefer words of one or two syllables.
13. When you get an idea for a post write it down.
14. I prefer WordPress, but Blogger is good too. Blogger might be easier for beginners. It is what I started with.

– Abagond, 2008.

See also:

• blogspot.com
• wordpress.com
• Blogging is 80% writing and 10% web design (and 10% other stuff):
  • How I write a blog post
  • web design
  • search engine optimization – how to get higher up in the search engines
• Writing blogs: the reader’s point of view
• Ten things WordPress has taught me about blogging
• Why I write under a pen name
• blog