subject: Blog Posts How-to And Tips [print this page] Before discussing any specific tips about blog posts, it might help to step back and look at it from a larger perspective. Blogs offer a place where the author can share personal information with complete strangers and kickoff a conversation. This kind of connection doesn't happen easily in real life, and this is what a blog is all about. Without this, it's just another pile of junk on the internet.
In the case of commercial and professional blogs, the core content and style remains the same, with the same personal tone and a bit of humor. But the look and feel is more polished and the blog reaches a much bigger audience. Here's a brief outline of the important things to keep in mind.
Subject: The first thing to decide is what the blog will be about. Blogs focused on a specific topic do a lot better. Important to remember that the author needs to be an expert, or at the very least should have a keen interest in the subject. Not much point in starting a blog about politics or football or gardening if the author is not passionate about it.
Back-end: The technology to be used is also an important aspect. Blog platforms come in all shapes and sizes, both free and paid. It's important to focus on individual needs, as opposed to following millions of other bloggers on popular platforms. That said, a free blog host platform is usually the quickest and easiest way to get started.
Professionals or corporate entities willing to invest sufficient resources should think about using a paid host. There is more room to fiddle around with the look and feel of the blog, and add some bells and whistles. It allows for running all kinds of scripts which are not possible with free blog platforms.
Design: Attention spans on the internet are very short, and the first chance is the only chance to grab a visitor. A neat looking website with nice graphics and a professionally designed logo makes a big difference. There are plenty of free blog templates that can be downloaded on the web, or one can hire a designer to do it. It all depends on the budget and the purpose of the blog.
Content: This is the single most important part of running a blog. Unless the author is able to belt out unique, interesting and timely blog posts, the rest of it is all a wasted effort. Each post should be written informally and in the first person, and should not exceed into a long discourse. The post needs to be peppered with humor and spiced up with strong opinions.
Traffic: Another very important part of the job. Thousands of blogs get dumped by their owners every day, because it seems to be a wasted effort sans readers. Building a reader base is part talent and part social skills, as in linking to blog posts written by others and posting comments on other blogs. There's also the optimization part, which is a whole new subject. The summary of it is that traffic acquisition has many components, from adding blogrolls to advertising and SEO.
