Eleven things every blogger should do to remain viable

It doesn't take a blogebrity to tell you that there are some underlying characteristics of the world of weblogs; the blogosphere, if you will. The key here is to try and use these characteristics to your advantage, as a blogowner, or even as a blog reader. This is a list of Eleven things that will improve your blog, or help you start a new one on the right foot. You might not agree with all of them (in fact, I kind of hope there's some dissent in the ranks - discussion is good), but plain and simple, these are Eleven things that I have found myself wanting on more blogs, both my own and others.

1. If you act like nobody will read it, then chances are that nobody will read it. Be kind to your readerbase, whether you're sure they exist or not. If you only blog because you want other people to enjoy your writing, you're half-dead already: the largest part of why you blog should be that you enjoy writing. Satisfying your needs here will attract visitors in the long run. This kind of leads to my next point:

2. Blog when you feel like blogging, every time you feel like blogging. The more often the better. If you can do it from your PDA, then do it from your PDA. Blog early, blog often: it's not like you're spamming a public message board and people just hate what you're writing. This is your blog: if somebody is here, they're here to read what you have to say.

3. Get a daily-link bar, or find some way to show off your favourite links of the day without making an entire blog post necessarily devoted to them. Three Great Sources.

4. Use the technology when you can: Live Comment Display, Live Search Functions, sIFR, and especially web standards. Keep your medium in mind: this is the internet, and with it you have certain key tools that you can take advantage of. I'm particularly lazy when it comes to adding new technology after the initial creation of a blog, but please: do learn from my mistakes. Web standards is key critical because it leads to more people being able to read your blog. Think of it as future-proofing your site. Use This for reference if need be.

5. Get an RSS Feed. It's pretty critical. You don't need to sign up to any specific feed services if you don't want to, but at the very least, have a feed available for any users that would like to use it. About 1/3 of the returning traffic to philrenaud.com comes from feed links, and even I use netvibes as my start page. I recently talked about it over at fad.tastic, too.

6. Comment in your own comments, comment in other blogs' comments. Be more productive than "Hey, nice blog!". You can do better: have something meaningful to say, and say it. For your own blog, respond to the people that comment. Be nice, even to the assholes.

7. Know your stats. Shaun Inman's Mint is the best stat-tracker I've come across, both aesthetically and in terms of information. Pay attention to who is reading what, who your referrers are, etc. Make sure to send your referrers nice christmas presents.

8. Link your linkers. The blogosphere is a community, and it's important to remember that. Link it because you love it, link it because you hate it, just link it if you think it's something worth talking about. Blogs should support eachother if they're worth being supported by anybody.

9. Social Networking is your friend. Promote other links, see yourself get promoted. The essentials: Del.icio.us, Digg, LookSmart's Furl, Spurl.net.

10. Know what a blog is. A blog is not a syndicated news magazine, or a public-relations package. The only demographic that your blog is restricted to is internet-users, and in some cases, not even that is true. The point here is that you're presenting opinion, not cold facts, and it will always be interpreted like that. Always should be, and that's ideal. It's all subjective and it's all relative, and that's the beauty of the blogosphere that you'll never find in your daily news.

11. Keep On keepin' On. Don't be inconsistent, posting 5 times in a day and then leaving your readers wanting, sans-blog, for a week straight. At the same time, don't ever get discouraged that your stats are low. If you build it, they will come. If you keep building it, they will keep coming. It's as simple as that.

My five favourite blogs, overall: Tony Pierce, Colly Logic, The Superficial, Matthew Good's MBlog, A New York Escort's Confessions. In no particular order, and all for different reasons.

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