by Frances Laing

Created on: February 03, 2009

As the proud owner of at least one blog (now three months old) let me give you some advice on this one. You might learn from my early mistakes! Here are ten pointers:

1. Be persistent and stick at it. Most blogs launched die out within the first month. The owner gets bored of the topic or there's nothing left to write about. It takes time to build traffic. Put a date and a counter on your blog on the first day so you can tell how many readers you're getting and analyse stats if you need to at a later date.

2. If it's your first blog use an off-the-shelf blogging system: www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com both offer a variety of templates. You can be up and running in a very short time this way and you don't need to learn hyper text mark up language (html). You can always learn this later.

3. Be clear about how often you are going to put up a new post. Set yourself a goal. Anything less than once a week and it's not a blog. Twice a week is fine to start and if you manage more that's great. The main thing is - you need to keep going. Blogging is hard work - it will pay off in the long run.

4. Every time you change your template, download it and save it. If you lose your work you'll have to start again.

5. If you write for the web you need special writing skills. Don't make your blog post titles too long. 40 characters or less is fine. Write for an audience of one (yourself) and choose something you're genuinely enthusiastic about. Don't make your blog posts too long either. 400 words or so is fine.

6. Don't get obsessed with Search Engine Optimisation or traffic stats. You need to understand these to a certain extent but keep your focus on quality content and your readers will keep coming back.

7. Tell anyone and everyone about your blog. Have postcards made with the URL on them and offer them to shops and restaurants to put on the counter. Put your blog on your email signature. Work the chat boards and social networking sites. Find out what kinds of links bring you more traffic and a regular readership. There's lots of information on the Helium site about this too.

8. Read Darren Rowse's 'Pro-blogger' books and visit the website.

9. In the right place photographs are great. Reduce the size of them with free picture re-sizing software on the Internet.

10. Once your template is set up, don't keep fiddling with it. Get on with the writing, writing, writing...good luck!

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