Blogging Tips

• Use lists.
  
• Be topical... write posts that need to be read right now.
  
• Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
  
• Break news.
  
• Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year.
  
• Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
  
• Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
  
• Announce news.
  
• Write short, pithy posts.
  
• Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
  
• Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
  
• Write long, definitive posts.
  
• Write about your kids.
  
• Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to
• respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
  
• Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
  
• Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
  
• Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
  
• Coin a term or two.
  
• Do email interviews with the well-known.
  
• Answer your email.
  
• Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
  
• Be anonymous.
  
• Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
  
• Post your photos on flickr.
  
• Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
  
• Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
  
• Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
  
• Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
  
• Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
  
• Point to useful but little-known resources.
  
• Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.
  
• Write about Google.
  
• Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
  
• Don't include comments, people will cross post their responses.
  
• Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
  
• Run no ads.
  
• Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
  
• Write about blogging.
  
• Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
  
• Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
  
• Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
  
• Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
  
• Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
  
• Don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
  
• Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
  
• Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
  
• Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.
  
• Be patient.
  
• Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
  
• Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
  
• Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
  
• Write in English.
  
• Better, write in Chinese.
  
• Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
  
• Don't be boring.
  
• Write stuff that people want to read and share.
  
• Feel free to post your own ideas (satirical or otherwise) in the comments below.
  
  by Seth Godin