Blog Tips

Blogging Tips..

The content of your blog will depend largely on your purpose. If you’re just blogging for fun, to keep family apprised of all the happenings in your part of the world, or to share your interest or expertise in a particular topic, the posts will probably include stories, events, photos, and more.

If you are blogging to build your expertise in a particular area, you may want to include all the latest news stories on your area of interest.

If you are hoping to inspire others to join your nonprofit organization in serving others, you might include stories of those who have been helped by your organization in the past.

If you want to get the word out about your candidacy, share your passion for movies, or share your philosophy with the rest of the world, you may include links, stories, photos, resources, and engaging bits of information in the areas you want to highlight.

Here are some questions to consider as you plan the content for your blog:

• Who is your “typical reader”?   Getting a clear picture of that person—and that person’s expectations—can help you connect with your reader right from the start.
• What age is he or she?   Knowing the general demographics of your typical reader will be helpful. Chances are that, because blogging is a kind of “real voice” medium, you may connect most easily with those close to your own age level. But many people have a knack for speaking to everyone at once. Know the interests, energy level, and passions of the audience you are addressing.
• What is he or she most interested in?   Is your reader fascinated with technology, passionate about the environment, concerned about the political climate, or focusing on her newborn? Thinking about what your reader may be fascinated by right now will help you develop a sense for what others will find interesting on your blog.
• What do I want the person to do after reading my blog?   If you want the person to come back, subscribe to your newsletter, try your product, sign up for your mailing list, or write to their congressperson, be sure you say so directly somewhere in the body of your blog.
• Are there any limitations on your subject matter?   If you are writing a corporate blog, there may be definite guidelines for the type of content you can include. Additionally, you need to consider the fact that public blogs can be read by virtually everyone, which means you may have children as well as adults reading what you write (including your mother and grandmother!). Think through any limitations—and any ramifications of your posting—before you post.

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Blog Maintenance

Blogging is rampant. Blogs are aplenty on the internet. Some are still around after many years, while some have simply stopped their activities. To keep the blogs alive, bloggers have to put in a lot of effort to effect continual blog maintenance to their blogs. Technology supports this move. Blog-publishing tools are helping to automate blog maintenance.

Certain factors that will have a bearing on the results of blog maintenance include the following:

(1) Quality of Content and Extent of Time Commitment

What your blog needs is content. It should be fresh and of quality. The reason for this is because you need to entice readers to return to your blog for more refreshing information. Your blog should not be an island with no visitors. It needs traffic to keep it alive and grow. Content for your blog should be updated actively. It can be scheduled to be on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. You have the prerogative to determine this schedule according to time availability. For bloggers with multiple blogs, efforts should be doubled in terms of apportioning the right amount of time to each blog. Different kinds of blogs may require different amount of time commitment from you. The main factor here is consistency. Each different blog under each different category should be consistently updated in line with the preset time commitment schedule. If you have a blog that is health care related, you can post it on a daily basis. With a sports-related blog, posting can be done weekly. Posting can also done anywhere at any time, for instance at internet cafes. Consistency is the keyword.

(2) Management of your Time Commitment

Posts can be written at any time of the day and at any place. When you have an inspiration or when an interesting topic strikes up in your mind, jot it down first. You should do the same even if many inspirations come to mind at the same time. There will be no scarcity of ideas to write your posts when you need them urgently. It would be good to fix a certain time of the day to compile your posts onto your blog. This would instill some discipline into your blogging activity. Staying focussed on your posts will certainly produce well-written posts that will be pleasing to read. Such diligence will certainly contribute positively to blog maintenance. Strict adherence to your posting time schedule is good for the blog, but do remember to inject some fun into the blogging. Blogging will appear to be robotic and writing posts will be a drag if it is turned into a boring and cumbersome activity.

(3) Simple and Fast posting

Different types of posts can be written in many styles that suit your writing mood. Posts may vary in length. They may be easy or slightly more difficult. Posts can be written in a simple and fast manner. Be straight to the point in sentence construction. You can include a little personalization and emotion. Things that you can write about include a topic about your favorite memory, your ideal wish, what have you heard on the news today, or even what thing you have done lately that makes you feel proud to share. You can show your passionate feelings on such topics, and this makes writing so easy, because these are things you are familiar with. Reading will be so much more fun and pleasurable.

(4) Archival of your posts

The archives that are part of your blog will support the function of archival for your posts. This is extremely effective as your readers will be able to retrieve them easily. You can decide on how the archival system should be constructed. Archives can be done on daily, weekly, or monthly basis. For instance, monthly archiving will show the link indicating a single month Jan 2008, Feb 2008 and so on. Archives can also be categorized according to different topics. It enables readers to click on the link of the relevant topic they are searching for. Archiving generally helps readers to search for older posts more easily. It will help you administratively especially when you intend to retrieve the dates of certain past programs. Archiving your posts efficiently serves an important role in blog maintenance.

(5) Install backup for your blog

There must be a backup system for your blog. This is imperative as it will save you the trouble of retyping your old posts. It can be done on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Technology makes blogging so enjoyable, but it is better to be safe than sorry. There is a host of vulnerabilities that servers are subject to. No one can tell when technology will fail us, therefore, it is indeed wise to perform backup for your blog. You must discipline yourselves to perform the backup, be it on any time basis. Do not gamble on it!

(6) Occurrence of closures of blog providers

No one can predict what will happen to the blog providers now and in the distant future. A closure to the business owing to poor returns is often the ultimate way out for the blog host. Observations reveal that some blog hosts are giving premium fee-based services in their attempt to keep their survival hopes alive. There are also others who agree to share their online advertising revenues with their bloggers. It will indeed be wise to back up both your blog posts and computer. This is to protect yourself from unnecessary work if even your computer decides to take a break! Always be proactive and ready for such an unfortunate twist of circumstances.

The list given is by no means exhaustive. Having your blog out there is an achievement in itself. The added responsibilities of ensuring that the blog is functioning well lie upon your shoulders. Your blog needs your help. You have to be diligently involved in blog maintenance.