Thoughts For The Beginning Blogger

One of our clients is starting to charge full-force down the blogging path and asked for some feedback on the posts they were working on. Not going to get into the details of what they’re working on quite yet, but had some thoughts that I was sending over based on reading the initial bits that were being put together. About halfway through, realized that these items were fairly relevant across-the-board, so here they are. What would you add to this as far as suggestions for someone just starting down the blogging path?

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First off … Every successful blog eventually has a voice and a corresponding “positioning” (sorry for the marketingspeak) that is applied to it by its readers. The voice of the blog will evolve and, just like positioning in the pure marketing sense, a “tone” of the blog will be applied to you by your subscribers. This will take some time, but if you have a feeling as to how you would *like* to be positioned, you can certainly help it along via the choice of name, categories, commonly-used phrases, etc. Think about what you want the blog’s mojo to be: is it an inside look at the tales of a startup? Is it a viewpoint and *the* reference on long-tail software, or perhaps SaaS? Something else?

Think about your blog’s tagline. (The tagline WILL be reproduced elsewhere, so try to make it capture the core of whatever theme you want to tie everything together.) If the theme is still evolving, it may take a couple of months for the right tagline to present itself…and it will probably uncerimoniously assault you in the shower in the pre-caffeinated hours one morning. But it will show up. Write it down and integrate it when it does.

The positioning and general mojo are ultimately critical…but short-term irrelevant. Just write. Then write some more. It’ll evolve, and don’t force it. It took about four months after inception for the Social Customer blog to find its voice.

Additionally, a well-conceived and executed “About” page is a must, as is a picture. A well-written post will trigger a click to the About page which will, if also well-executed, trigger a click back to the mothership. Make the About page personal. It’s you!

A couple of other general thoughts:

– More links to other blogs inlined in the text! As a result of the current state of measurement and search tools, bloggers are narcissistic link whores (it’s all about the Googlejuice, baby). The more links you throw out to others, (a) the more likely someone will come to your blog (since they saw your blog show up in their vanity feed in Technorati) and (b) they may even put a reciprocal link in one of their posts in the next week, pointing to “hey….here’s a cool article on *x*” that shows how you can use whatever they are pimping in doing *x*. If you can’t link to a blog, link to a news article. If you can’t link to a news article, link to a product site. But link! As Anthony Kiedis so eloquently put it…give it away, give it away, give it away now. (However, for the love of all that is good and right in the world, please refrain from experimenting with RHCP tube sock attire. ::shudder::)

Last, but certainly not least, make sure you have an RSS feed that can be subscribed to on Day 1. Get readers on the drip. First one’s free…

best,
c”