A Successful Blog
August 09, 2004 | 
56 Comments
Summary: In response to reader’s request for advice on what makes a successful blog, I offer a few tips and talk about what I think makes a great blog.
Yet another post on blogging and this time, by blog and blogging I mean the actual act of, not the tools used.
I’ve recently received a few e-mails asking for advice on creating and maintaining a successful blog. I decided to sit down and think about what I felt made a blog (or blogger) successful. It was a bit of a challenge because I’m not sure how to define success in terms of my own blog. I started it out as simply a place to work on my writing and my original definition of what success would have been has changed greatly in the last year or so.
I’ve got readers now! Y’all have made it much more complicated — but I love you for it. I really owe it to the people who visit this site, you’ve made it much more than I ever planned. More work, more spam, more stress…aha…just kidding.
Anyway, instead of focusing on my own site, I thought about the blogs that I like to read the most and other blogs that I feel are successful. Here’s what I came up with. Depending on your views of what is successful and what you like in a blog you may disagree. If so, feel free to add a comment telling us what you think makes a successful blog.
A successful blog (or blogger) is…
- Well written. Good content will make or break your blog. Period. This it the #1 thing that makes a blog successful in my book.
- Frequently updated. Unless you’re a guru of some sort you really need to stay on top of it. This can be a real challenge.
- Consistent. This is kind of a combination of the first two. I like sites that are able to maintain quality and frequency overtime.
- Open. I like to read people who are honest and willing to talk about tough issues in a free and open way.
- Responsive. Those who respond to feedback and try to adapt to the wants and needs of their audience get high marks from me.
- Well designed. Yes, I do judge a blog by its design. It’s not the most important thing, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t matter at all.
- Aware of its audience. If you don’t know your audience it’ll show.
- Varied in topic. I feel there are lots of people who would disagree with this, but I like sites that change the subject every once in awhile.
- Personal. I tend to enjoy a blog with a bit of a personality. I want to “get to know”, to a certain degree, the person(s) behind the site. Tone and style have a lot to do with this.
- Thick skinned. With any successful site comes nay-sayers, trolls, pedants and spammers.
- Honest. Readers are smart and they can smell bullshit.
- Accountable. Mistakes are inevitable and there are times when it’s best to fess up and admit where you’re wrong.
- Funny. I like a blog that can make me laugh on occasion.
What do you think makes a successful blog?
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. Matt Raoul said:
This is a huge help especially to me becuase I have a blog that is just starting out. All your suggestions are aspect that I look for in blogs, and understand what I want in a blog gives me a clearer picture of what I want my blog to be.
Thanks for posting this, as there is probobly tons of reat blogs out there yet to be discovered, this info is priceless.
Posted on August 10, 2004 11:10 AM | #
2. Gabriel Mihalache said:
Succesful professionals make better authors. Take, for example, the design community. In programming, it’s even more so.
You might have great content but if you’re an “industry nobody”, like myself, it’s harder to get an audience going.
People tend to visit because of link or because of your name/reputation. They’ll stay for the content.
Posted on August 10, 2004 11:17 AM | #
3. Michael said:
I think you pretty much nailed what I look for in a blog, and also what I try to live up to.
Posted on August 10, 2004 11:31 AM | #
4. Keith said:
Gabriel – I agree, but at the same time I look for new sites, infuences and the next “industry somebody” all the time. I’d been designing and building Web sites for about 7 years before anyone knew who I was. There are lots of folks out there who have higher profile jobs and more experience than I do – they’re just hard to find is all. It comes down to content more than reputation I think…but I may be wrong.
Posted on August 10, 2004 11:42 AM | #
5. girlwonder said:
honestly, there are tons of different things that attract me to blogs. people who are smart, funny folks, really honest folks but the one thing they all have in common is that they’re each pretty unique. i read blogs from people from all walks of life - most not that similar to my own, and i guess that’s the appeal. to be able to almost live outside my own life while reading about someone elses’
Posted on August 10, 2004 11:47 AM | #
6. Michael Williams said:
I’d replace “Frequently updated” with “Frequently updated whenever you have something worth saying”. There’s nothing more likely to get me to unsubscribe from a feed than a lot of posts which are basically the author thinking out loud — and not thinking very hard at that. Even if there are interesting posts amongst them, I don’t have the time to find them. It’s like trying to drink from a firehose.
For me John Gruber is a good example of someone who posts almost nothing but worthwhile, well-formed ideas. Being only human, this doesn’t happen very often — perhaps once a week — but that’s fine. This is kind of covered under “Consistent” in your list.
What you define as worth saying depends entirely on the scope of the blog, which brings us onto “Varied in topic”. I agree that a curveball now and then can be fun, but, as a rule, I prefer a blog to stick to a well-defined (possibly broad) scope and to concentrate on something they’re uniquely/unusually knowledgable about within that scope.
There’s no shortage of stuff to read on the net, and I sometimes get the feeling blogging would have less skepticism directed at it by fashionable nay-sayers (myself included ;-) if bloggers acted as their own editor a little more.
And I’m certainly not thinking of anyone in particular when I write this (least of all Keith, whose blog I enjoy immensely). I don’t have a blog, so I may be being totally unrealistic here.
Posted on August 10, 2004 12:18 PM | #
7. Jon said:
A couple of notes that I try to stick to as best I can: Add visual elements to your post. In addition to trying to engage your readers with intelligent content, it helps to throw in an image every once in a while to draw them in. You may find that you get the reader to stick around for just that extra second before they click away because a well placed illustration or photo catches their eye. Plus, it shows that you are dedicated enough to spend a little more time working on your blog.
Also I tend to post random things in between my longer, more thought-out posts. It should be noted that little silly posts work as long as you don’t have too many in a row. A few will make people laugh, too many will bore them. But these tidbits do help keep it fresh. It all depends on what type of blog you have, I guess.
Posted on August 10, 2004 12:24 PM | #
8. Tomas Jogin said:
If becoming “successful” is very important to a blogger, he or she will never be – because then he/she is doing it for the wrong reasons, and the misguided intention will shine through.
Interesting blogs are written by people who write about things that interest them, does so eloquently, thoughtfully, with humor and insight.
I second Michael Williams’ opinion; John Gruber is a good example, so is Mark Pilgrim.
Posted on August 10, 2004 12:33 PM | #
9. Craig C. said:
I find myself struggling to reconcile “frequent updates” with “aware of my audience.” My blog is pretty much invisible, and without much readership I’m usually at a loss for ideas. There are lots of things that interest *ME* but those tend to be subjects I read about elsewhere. Hence I don’t always write about them because I feel it’s already been said by others before me. I should get over my fear of redundancy in the interest of generating more solid content.
When I launched a few months back I had the best intentions of posting daily, but that quickly reduced to about weekly. However, I think writing something of substance once a week is preferable to writing something short and superfluous once a day. Perhaps if traffic ever picks up I’ll get a better sense of what people are interested in reading.
Which brings me to an item I’d like to add to the list: A successful blog needs to have substance. It doesn’t have to be about Important Stuff, but there should be some actual depth to the writing, even if it’s just personal anecdotes. I don’t care about the mundanities of most people’s lives (unless it’s well written and/or funny… think dooce.com), so the blogs I return to are the ones that write about more than whoever someone is dating or whatever club they went to last night. If you’re going to publish a diary to the world, make it worth reading.
(just saw on the preview screen that Michael #6 said much the same thing… dammit, once again someone else says it before I do.)
Posted on August 10, 2004 12:37 PM | #
10. Keith said:
There have been some very good points made already. I guess one good thing to note is that the definition of success can differ greatly and that “success” isn’t always a goal one would want, or need to have – as Thomas (#8) points out.
But then again, the reasons one “blogs” can differ greatly as well. I don’t think there are any “wrong” reasons…
Posted on August 10, 2004 12:42 PM | #
11. Matt Raoul said:
Becoming succesful in my eyes invovles not only me being able to strengthen and expand my thoughs and ideas, but also people reacting to them.
I like to visit blogs where I can read through a whole conversation, an exchange of ideas. As a reader, I take much more out of someone’s musing when I can read other’s responses to them, which requires a certain level of community and returning visitors. This is how I will determine the success of my blog, not that it is the ONLY form of success.
Posted on August 10, 2004 01:01 PM | #
12. Daniel Oliver said:
I think those are the main aspects of what I consider to be a good blog.
This is a good entry and will help with my new blog so I know what I need to strive for in the future to keep visitors happy and coming back on a regular basis.
Thank you,
Daniel Oliver.
Posted on August 10, 2004 01:48 PM | #
13. Brad Daily said:
Thanks for the perspective Keith. I think far too often we, or at least I, judge the success of my blog by analyzing the stats. I had to get out of the mindset that I was going to write the next big, groundbreaking article and get back to stuff I enjoy.
I have found lately that writing about subjects I am passionate about benefits me more than anyone, and if others like it, that’s gravy baby…
Posted on August 10, 2004 01:56 PM | #
14. Bronwyn said:
While sites that update frequently are wonderful, it’s not as important as it used to be. Combine my RSS reader with the sheer quantity of stuff on the web, and:
- I no longer miss new posts
- I can read your new stuff at my own pace
- I can keep up with more sites with less work.
Quality matters a lot more than frequency.
Posted on August 10, 2004 02:18 PM | #
15. Keith said:
Brad – No problem! There was a reason I didn’t mention stats and traffic. It’s not because they’re not important to the success of a Web site (blog or no) it’s because there are more important things (content for example - ha) than stats.
Posted on August 10, 2004 02:18 PM | #
16. Jonathan M. Hollin said:
My blog is successful for me because it achieves everything I set out to achieve:
I have a journal I can refer back to at any time;
I get to sound off on issues that interest me;
I get to play around with ideas (design, programming, UI, etc)
But, most importantly for me, my writings are challenged by my readers. This encourages me to think, to redirect my thoughts and consider possibilities that I would otherwise have missed.
I find the process extremely rewarding.
Posted on August 10, 2004 02:59 PM | #
17. Dan Jallits said:
I know you already admitted that you knew some of us would disagree with you, but I would probably refine the first sentence of your eighth point to read as follows: Varied in topic, but consistent in subject matter.
I am so disappointed when I receive notice that one of my regularly read blogs has new content only to find that it is an entry completely off subject matter.
A blog should read like a magazine in my opinion. If it deals with Web design and/or development, just cover those aspects.
Granted, a quick entry noting that the blogger will be away due to a recent addition in the family, marriage or vacation is not only acceptable, but mandatory to explain why the site has not been updated lately.
Another quick point I would like to mention is that I like sites that have a publishing schedule. For instance, new content is always made available on a specific date at a specific time.
Why you ask. I hate RSS Feeds as you lose the presentation (site’s entire design) quality in which the content is presented. I also hate the disappointment of checking my regular sites only to see old content still at the front.
Posted on August 10, 2004 03:10 PM | #
18. Peter (01010) said:
Another great post, Keith. No wonder you are successful!
Getting to know myself better, learning to express myself better and just plain feeling good are always my main goals. That way at least I get to be happy even if nobody ever read my blog.
#14 by Bronwyn is very important I think. There is so much to read and we can now read it at our own pace. So I think the audience has now got a very big say in what quality means for bloggers who want public success. So I guess that comes back to Keith’s number 1 rule being the most important.
Posted on August 10, 2004 03:49 PM | #
19. Keith said:
Dan – It’s funny you mention a publishing schedule because this is something I’ve tried, loosely, to maintain. It’s also something I plan to focus on in the future. I don’t think I can commit to a hard schedule, but I do think I can define it a bit more.
Also, I know you said you don’t like RSS feeds, but if you are interested I provide a “No Play” feed that contains only the Web design related posts.
Posted on August 10, 2004 09:43 PM | #
20. monkeyinabox said:
I agree 100% with Jonathan, a blog is a great place to keep an archive of your thoughts, feelings and other life happenings or advice, complaints, how-to’s, problem solving, etc, etc… in a way that is fun for others to read. It’s a greta place to experiment with web technologies and graphic design in a more free environment.
On the other side of reading blogs, I’ve found a RSS reader an essential tool in keeping up with a large number of sites. Sure, it kinda bites to remove the content from the context, but I will visit the sites where the design is an important part of the presentation, but soemtimes it’s just quicker to always use the RSS reader. With the reader it’s also easier to skip over posts that don’t interest me. So if your auto-generated XML snipet only does a blurb, then having a killer intro that lets readers know what it’s about is very important.
Posted on August 10, 2004 11:28 PM | #
21. Andrew Krespanis said:
“Well designed. Yes, I do judge a blog by its design. It’s not the most important thing, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t matter at all.”
Very good point. Hixie’s Natural Log is (was - currently being redesigned) a good example of informative, well written content displayed through a somewhat lacklustre design. I’m sorry, but a white background with black Arial and no imagery is just too much! (or is that too little?)
Posted on August 11, 2004 02:01 AM | #
22. Eris said:
It’s interesting to hear what some of the people in the comments look for in another person’s blog.
Stay within a topic.
Stray from the topic.
Post when you have something to say.
Post on a set schedule.
I like it when people post comments (either positive or not) to the things I write about, but I find it is easy to fall into a spiral of appeasement if I spend a lot of time wondering about what makes a successful blog, worrying about how to attract and keep readers.
Because then it becomes a chore, it becomes more trouble than it’s worth to try and give everyone what they want. And for me, that quickly translates into losing all desire to blog. I don’t post on a schedule, I stray from my topic, sometimes I get upset at my commenters and I don’t intend to change any of that.
And I think that comes from most of us being in a position as creators of blogs and consumers of blogs. Maybe what I’m looking for in a blog isn’t something someone else wants to release and vice versa.
The blogs I like are the ones filled with personality and insight. Some blogs are full of great information, but very bland. You could read that person for 6 months and they’d still be like a stranger. They want their blog to be Professional, whereas I’d like to see something more personal, something to connect to.
I think the idea of trying to define a “successful” blog is very subjective. Successful according to whom? The person blogging or the person reading?
Posted on August 11, 2004 06:18 AM | #
23. christopher crippen said:
thanks for the tips. i just started blogging a couple of months ago, and now got my 6 year old son into it, i figured i’d start em young.
Posted on August 11, 2004 06:34 AM | #
24. Taco John said:
I think “successful” and “popular” are totally different things. All that matters for a successful blog is that the experience is enjoyable and rewarding. Thus, I think “thick-skinned” isn’t a requirement. If you’re posting your daily thoughts, and in response you get bombarded by trolls and spammers, then if you’re frustrated, the experience is lost.
The tips here seem to be for having a popular blog, i.e. lots of readers. When you read a blog, it’s clear when someone is writing about what they like or care about, and when they’re writing just to gain readers. So in my opinion, to have a successful blog, if I may quote a little Hamlet, “to thine own self be true.”
Posted on August 11, 2004 06:37 AM | #
25. Keith said:
Eris, I agree, that’s why I talked about what *I* thought made a successful blog and asked y’all to share what *you* thought made a successful blog. Of course, as with many things we talk about, concensus doen’t, by any means, have to be reached.
Taco John, It depends on what your defintion of “success” is—look to what Eris said and my reply above—to many “success” might very well equal “popular.” To me having readers come and share their thoughts is a sign that I’m succeeding. When you have lots of readers sharing you will most likely have trolls and the like, thus the “think-skinned” part.
Again, it depends on what you want to get out of it. There is no right answer with this.
Posted on August 11, 2004 09:52 AM | #
26. Richard said:
I think Taco John hit it just right: if the process is right for you and you’re not making a business or popularity contest out of it, it doesn’t matter how your design, CSS, writing style, or any of it stack up to folks who have been at it for years and are professional web designers or high profile.
I remember being involved in the postal (mail) art movement, then the “zine” movement and even then, pre-inernet, to me, the most interesting pieces and/or zines were the ones that weren’t so self-absorbed.
Yes, just the act of sharing yourself with others with 1000 postcards or a limited run of photocopied newsletters, or a personal web site (as in weblog) means you’ve got some ego involvement going, but there are degrees of this I guess.
It’s great that there are web standards, that zeldman and many of you have opened up new worlds of design and more. This is exciting stuff. But, that ought not intimidate folks from striking out on their own and making the necessary messes of learning this stuff and making sites that violate all the rules yet are interesting nonetheless.
The process is the product.
Posted on August 11, 2004 10:33 AM | #
27. Thomas Hawk said:
Very well put. I also think that timely commentary is important – relevance to what’s going on at any given moment. New product reviews, insight and commentery on new technology, editorials on current events all add to a succesful blog.
I also personally think that the links selected are very important. This drives a lot of my surfing when I know that I can get consistently great links from a site – yes this is click through traffic but I think that it adds to the credibility of the blogger.
In addition to frequently updated content I like to have a list of links and permanent sites that the author of the blog lists and finds relevent. Oftentimes insightful people can lead me to new insightful people.
As an aside – and not that you can define success by this – what about hits? Can a blog’s success be defined by the hits it gets in a day, week, month, year? What are successful numbers here – or is it growth rate of hits – most improved sort of thing? Or what about links to and from your blog? How important are these? Isn’t this how many people that rate blog popularity? And finally, what about significance and influence? Is some content or subject matters more significant? Is a political blog with less hits more influential or important than an entertainment blog with twice the traffic?
Would love to see this issue explored further
Tom
http://thomashawk.com
Posted on August 11, 2004 01:55 PM | #
28. David Bisset said:
You’ve just described ANY ideal piece of editoral, I think.
Or what I want in a woman. Not sure which.
Makes me what to go over flex-mx.com and see how I score in these areas.
Posted on August 11, 2004 03:12 PM | #
29. Lalitree Darnielle said:
This very post is a great example of what I think makes a great blog: it offers a unique personal opinion on something that’s fairly universally interesting, it’s useful, well-thought-through and well written. My favorite blogs all do this consistently, though of course that’s only one type of blog (the personal and occasionally instructional)–there are plenty of great blogs out there that are great for other reasons, e.g. BoingBoing, mp3 blogs, &c.
Posted on August 11, 2004 07:36 PM | #
30. Grod said:
Hmmm, you forgot 1 thing. A blog that meets all these criteria can still fail to attract a large audience, and that is the secret ingedient. Getting people to spread the word, link to you, pingback you, and leave comments. Problem is, no one likes a self promoting blogger. I’m still looking for a solution to this one.
Posted on August 11, 2004 11:30 PM | #
31. helge said:
i’d like to object “frequently updated”. in times of RSS blog consumption i really don’t care about frequency. i want quality. of course if i can get both, the better. on the other hand i prefer a blog with rare updates to one with multiple entries every day. it’s not that i’d be subscribed to just a single blog!
Posted on August 12, 2004 04:47 AM | #
32. Bronwyn said:
Regarding not getting the presentation in a feedreader, what I do is to use a tabbed browser and a browser-based feedreader (Opera + Bloglines). I open each interesting item in its own tab. Voila: convenience of feed reader and designer’s presentation. Plus, my regular reading follows me between computers.
Posted on August 12, 2004 06:55 AM | #
33. William Stewart said:
I think that originality is also a large factor in a successful blog. If blog B has the same links as blog A then there is no compulsion to stay with blog B.
Posted on August 13, 2004 08:52 AM | #
34. Sissy Willis said:
All good stuff. Design is as important as any other.
As we posted on our own blog awhile back, “Lots of weblogs out there are so unappealing visually that we just click away the minute we find ourselves in one. They make our eyes hurt and make us feel claustrophobic”:
Design should simplify and facilitate our everyday life
Posted on August 14, 2004 09:26 AM | #
35. Brett Kottmann said:
I would add “networking”. Getting out and amongst other bloggers can be key to the long-term success of your blog.
Getting on “blogrolls” helps, but you must also cultivate relationships with other bloggers. If they know a mutual agreement to credit each other’s blogs when citing good material it will open up your blog to their readship pool.
Posted on August 14, 2004 09:44 AM | #
36. John A. Kalb said:
I’d add “lucky.”
To a certain extent, showing up at the right moment, and all sorts of other things, have a whole lot to do with how successful a site is.
Posted on August 14, 2004 12:34 PM | #
37. PacRim Jim said:
A blog should be run by someone with unique information and an analytical mind. Also, negativity should be minimized (i.e., as little cussing as possible and a positive view of humanity). Lastly, no pictures of the bloggers children, cats, vacation, etc.
P.S. In your blog, “overtime” should be “over time.”
Posted on August 14, 2004 02:19 PM | #
38. J said:
I like the serial aspect of it.. following along with peoples’ stories .. story lines..
Posted on August 14, 2004 03:47 PM | #
39. Gerry said:
I think your advice is very good. If you get a chance, maybe sometime you could visit my blog and provide some feedback. My specialty is poll tracking and analysis, but I also often post just about random things from a conservative perspective, and also occasionally just about my kids or sports.
Posted on August 14, 2004 03:55 PM | #
40. Donald E.L. Johnson said:
I like blogs that help me keep up on political, business, health care, media and stock market developments. Rants don’t appeal to me. Incisive analysis does.
This means the blogs I visit regularly are updated daily and include good links and varying amounts of commentary.
I do a lot of linking without much commentary other than what I say in headlines and lead graphs. I like to ask questions about news developments. Every once in awhile I write an essay or mini editorial.
Kaus, Andrew Sullivan and Instapundit are my favorite political blogs. The number of good health care and medical blogs has grown quite a bit in the last six to 12 months. I haven’t found any good stock blogs. Therefore I still go to the forums at morningstar.com. And I haven’t found any good blogs on small business, probably because the subject is so broad, and small business owners other than myself don’t have time to blog and don’t want to say anything that will drive customers away. I’m enjoying Rhetorica.com, which features about one very well written essay on journlism each day, and those essays attract a fair number of comments.
The blogs that don’t work very well for me are those that are run by newspapers and magazines. Their staff just don’t care, and it usually shows. For example, they don’t work weekends.
Finally, I favor blogs that allow comments. Many don’t allow comments because they are afraid they won’t get many. I don’t get many comments from my cautious corporate readers, but maybe someday I will, and I love the give and take of message boards other than those published by newspapers. Newspapers’ boards that I’ve visited are dominated by nasty posters who like to fight and call names. Bored kids and shutins, I guess.
Posted on August 14, 2004 10:38 PM | #
41. Lynn S said:
I agree with everything you said and I would like to add one, although I guess you could say this goes under good design. Make sure your site loads quickly. More than half of us are still on dial-up. I generally will not wait longer than a minute.
Posted on August 15, 2004 05:59 AM | #
42. Kevin O'Keefe said:
Great list Keith. If I can get lawyers to follow half of the list in their blogs, we’ll start having lawyers look like real people that care about others. Right now lawyers only add to their stuff shirt non-caring reputation through the typical lawyer Web site.
Posted on August 15, 2004 10:31 PM | #
43. hernesheir said:
Good comments by everyone.
First and foremost, content rules.
Then, we all might also go back the design basics we struggled with when putting up our first HTML sites:
Eschew goofy backgrounds and the distracting clutter of rasping colors, blinking text, bells, whistles and obnoxious music loops.
Carefully choose a font that is pleasant and readable, and that conveys a sense of the mood your site is trying to achieve while suggesting a measure of classiness and believability.
Profanity or obscenity are never a substitute for cleverness.
LEARN TO SPELL AND PUNCTUATE.
Posted on August 16, 2004 08:27 AM | #
44. Janne Kalliola said:
Excellent post and commentary. I wrote my own thoughts on the subject to Nomadig.com, as they wouldn’t fit in the comments box.
Posted on August 18, 2004 04:06 AM | #
45. Jozef Imrich said:
Only on the web can one hope and actually digest thoughtful threats like this one; it seems as if the fingers spidering away in this comment path come from just about every time zone. (smile)
Speaking as a former soldier, I know too well that stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But being able to peruse great and small webdiaries is pure ecstasy …
I tend to enjoy the most obscure blogs, but it does not mean I do not visit Road to Surfdoms and Instapundits of this world ….
In the dream we are blogging under the entrance to Wimbledon: Meet Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same.
Blogs are increasingly becoming a primary source of news for many people. But neither Yahoo nor Google allow users to limit their Web searches to blogs. For that, we can turn to a savvy of smaller services, including Feedster (www.feedster.com), Technorati (technorati.com)
We are living in a pioneering golden age and we know it!!!
As long as we all help the truth prevail and help the hunger to dissapear … we can all consider to be part of the conspiracy of success…
Posted on August 28, 2004 02:28 AM | #
46. firemind said:
I always look for a unique voice or style that expresses ideas and emotions. I can tolerate some simple grammatical mistakes if they are honest and not due to laziness.
I like minimalist designs that don’t slow down browsers or cause eyestrain.
The two things that will make me move on are lack of posting and lack of feedback. In the first instance I lose interest in the site. The second issue makes me wonder why comments or guestbooks are active. Once I feel ignored I lose interest in the site.
I think posts like this one are great because they deal with what is important instead of the gimmicks and tools. Thankyou.
Posted on September 2, 2004 04:26 AM | #
47. Liz Ditz said:
There are two common mistakes being made here: 1. popularity = success and 2. confusing the methodology (blogging) with the content.
I addressed #1 on my blog Success?.
#2 is a thinking error: assuming that blogs are only a way of disseminating your opinions.
People are using easy-to-update web software (blogware) for all kinds of things.
If you have comments enabled, blogs are merely a many-to-many way for a group of people to communicate
*I used a blog as a way for an electoral committee to read about and comment on a group of people nominated for inclusion in the organization.
*Blogs are widely used to disseminate and comment upon student writing at the high school and college level (course blogs)
These are just two examples, there are more. I enjoy using “recently updated” sites to find new voices about different things.
Posted on October 9, 2004 05:23 PM | #
48. Joerg said:
I read your articles for something one year with large interest. Today I returned again to this article. For some time I have my own blog & sideblog. I read your points and think over.
Beautifully that you have now also a picture of you!
Posted on November 5, 2004 06:15 AM | #
49. Tacheman said:
Relating to your last point, I feel it’s important to make the posts funny although this means that sometimes that I don’t post as I don’t know a way of making the information I want to convey humourous.
Note that although this comment isn’t amusing, I posting this butt nekked and wearing a truly magestic fake moustache.
Posted on January 16, 2005 02:01 PM | #
50. W.M. Bear said:
I would add “Controversy.” I recetnly discovered Mac Tonnies’ amazing Web site(www.mactonnies.com) with commentable blog (“Posthuman Blues”) that invites controversy, especially around issues such as possible ancient Martian civilizations, etc. Mac posts two or three entries to his blog daily and responds promptly and wittily to readers’ comments. Honestly, after Mac, a lot of the other blogs I’ve read at strike me as pallid and boring.
–WMB
Posted on February 5, 2005 07:12 PM | #
51. W.M. Bear said:
Second suggestion. Don’t be anal about allowing/disallowing readers’ comments. So you get a few obnoxious ones, so what? When I go for my daily walk through Central Square in Cambridge, MA, I generally encounter several obnoxious types. I deal with them, I survive. You can’t filter out life. I’m sure you have your reasons, but if/when I ever start my own blog, I do not plan to vet readers’ comments, especially not “whenever I get around to it.” This will definitely be my last comment on this site.
–WMB
Posted on February 5, 2005 07:18 PM | #
52. Keith said:
WMB – Well, it’s obvious you don’t know some of the perils that come along with a successful blog. Don’t take it the wrong way, but the reason why I have moderation turned on for these old entries is because of spam. Obnoxious comments I can deal with fine, spam I cannot.
When I went to approve your comments this morning I had 14 spam comments on ths entry alone.
Posted on February 7, 2005 08:22 AM | #
53. blu~ said:
This is the most down to earth advice I’ve seen yet and thank you for that. I am at best a layman with the desire to excel in my journey of writing through my blog. I as well as many also are just starting out in the blog world and look gor these same qualities in other blogs. I know you are very busy as I see the comments here and oh how I would love to achieve this caliber of readership. If you get a second to check out my blog, it’s called blubloodunlimited…and give me an honest opinion and I’m positive you would about it’s potential it would be mucho appreciated, later…
blu~
Posted on April 19, 2005 03:05 PM | #
54. Novice Blogger said:
Someone might already have said this, but im to lazy to read through all 66 comments, so, here goes. Honestly, Someone should write a whole website simply about how to make a good blog, because, honestly, there are plenty of people just getting into this. And most of us (newbs) have no idea what we’re doing.
Posted on May 17, 2005 10:09 PM | #
55. Casey said:
I agree with all of your points - well said.
Any advice on how to increase blog traffic without resorting to selling ad space?
Posted on July 2, 2005 05:35 PM | #
56. Alexander said:
Fascinating subject, and great thoughts from everyone. Yes, I agree there is a difference between “Succesfull” Blogs (ones with a billion links all over the place,and all kinds of technical wizadry to get noticed) and “Popular Blogs” which have content which catches the readers attention and interest. The later, could be sheer luck.
You either have that creative knack, or you don’t. I’m not sure it can be created by learned technique. But there are some things we can do, I suppose. Unfortunately, many Bloggers have realized that arrogant ill informed political accusations are a sure way to enrage people and get them coming back for more and more argument.
People do love to argue,and often I see this occuring. It’s a cheap way to getting readers. As someone already mentioned, “this” very topic is the kind of thing that “I” think seems to make Blogs very interesting to read. “Interaction” and seeking reader’s views. People can be “told” things or “involved” in the whole experience.
Whether or not that occurs on a Blog,depends on the intentions of the particular Blogger and his or her personality I guess. Some people by nature of their personality are one way conversation with their Blogs. Other Bloggers may be curious as to what readers think in relation to what they post, and wish to make whatever they say an interactive experience so that they can learn from others.
I’m very new to Blogging, and this interesting topic causes me to stop and wonder “Why” I like certain Blogs over others. I get the impression we make up our minds within Microseconds, whether or not we will stay on a Blog. And, some of that may come in usefull for my own Blog. At the end of the day though, I still choose “Honesty” and “Authenticity” over “Learned Technique” though.
If someone by their nature isn’t interested in what others think, then it would be silly to pretend they are,when they write. My intention is to be honest on my Blog,and to learn from the process too. I leave posts open, as i’m willing to be corrected, and wish to interact with other’s thoughts and experiences.
Posted on January 22, 2006 12:47 PM | #
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