As you probably already know there are thousands of sites on the Internet that tell you how to create a good blog, but how many of them tell you how to find connections and form relationships with other bloggers out in the Blogosphere? Have you ever written a blog only to sit waiting for someone to visit and comment, and they never came?
I checked out the popular blog-hosting site WordPress’s ‘Introduction to Blogging‘ page. They gave this short list on ‘Hints for writing a great blog’. I elaborated on what they had to say.
Ok. Some may feel that this is all common sense but you’d be surprised at what kind of content many of the blogs out there are trying to pass off as being worthwhile. What we write is who we are so if we want to put the best foot forward these ideas could help you to relate to others better.
- ‘Post regularly, but don’t post if you have nothing worth posting about.’
This is important. Posting regularly shows visiting readers and bloggers that you are someone who is going to stick around. It’s no fun reading something cool on someone’s blog and then going back again and again only to find that they’ve seemingly been imprisoned on charges of laziness.
However, your content is a reflection of your identity so make sure you’re only writing when you’ve really got some relevant facts, opinions, and ideas to share with the community. If your blog is about science, telling people about your new car is going to tell real science buffs that you’re not focused enough on the topic at hand.
- ‘Stick with only a few specific genres to talk about.’
This relates to what I was saying above. Bloggers are attempting to find and communicate with others of like mind. If you’re all over the place writing stream-of-consciousness text about your whole life, the only people who will care will be you and a few stream-of-consciousness-loving weirdos (I’m sure there’s some!).
No seriously, stick to the content that you’ve professed to be your area of expertise or interest. This is how ‘blogrings’ (groups of people interested in similar content) are created. Everyone who loves classical guitar and who blogs about it are getting together, commenting on each other’s ideas, sending each other links to cool sites etc. Don’t be left out because you gave a detailed analysis on your guitar blog about how you brushed your dog’s teeth focussing mainly on the gums and tongue!
- ‘Don’t put ‘subscribe’ and ‘vote me’ links all over the front page until you have people that like your blog enough to ignore them (they’re usually just in the way).’
Integrity means being authentic, so too much advertising or literally asking others to come and see you is kind of like asking kids to be your friends back at primary (elementary) school. It’s not cool. Let your words be what attracts others. If what you’re writing is honest and interesting, bloggers will find you.
- Use a clean and simple theme if at all possible.
Don’t write huge taglines or ubiquitous-sounding phrases like, ‘A day in the life of me.’ If we all did that, by the year 3,000 there would be whole lot of blogs and nothing to show that we are individuals. Use your imagination but keep it simple and to the point. Using local slang terminology can and will confuse readers. People mightn’t necessarily be able to tell you’ve got a fried chicken blog if your tagline is, ‘Crispy, sticky cluck-clucks.’ Then again, who knows?
- Enjoy, blog for fun, comment on other peoples’ blogs (as they normally visit back).
These are imperatives. Enjoy yourself and relate to others. If you’re not having fun you won’t stick with it when times are tough. If you’re not commenting, linking-to (trackbacks, pingbacks), and visiting/reading other’s blogs-how will we know you exist? The best way to meet other people who love making hats is to search for blogs about hat making and connect. You can even often send personal emails to the blogger.
It’s common sense isn’t it? If common sense were more common, what then would we be lacking?
Jesse S. Somer is about to partake on a mission to relate to as many bloggers as possible. How many will he connect with?
This kid is a future Fishing Blogger.
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