In this day and age, blogging is not a new thing. It’s been around for about a decade. Sites like Livejournal, Xanga and MySpace all have blogging capabilities. In writing thisaa I hope to help those of you who are considering starting a blog. Each issue I’ll talk about tips on what to do to help your blog. I’ll also feature some bloggers who know exactly what they are doing.
1Think of a memorable name. There’s more to this than just a name people will remember. Also think about the URL that the blog is going to have. If the blog is hard to find because it’s hard to spell, there’s a problem. If the blog name doesn’t match the URL, make that known. One blog that I can think of with this problem is “Atop the Fourth Wall.” It’s a blog about comic book reviews among other things. The slight problem with it is the fact that the URL omits the word ‘the.’ So the site is http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com. This is a problem when someone hears about this blog by word of mouth and only hears the title of the blog. It’s easily found on Google but if readers need to put in effort trying to find you, then you’ll have fewer readers who bother looking.
2Have a good idea of what you are going to write about on your blog. Generally ,when you start a blog it’s because you are passionate about something. It’s really not necessary but at least tell your readers what they should expect from you. It’s good to stay consistent with posts. That doesn’t mean that all your posts should be the same, but there should be a commonality between them. Very few people get popular when they write random, off-topic posts. One person who does this is John Walkenbach of “The J-Walk Blog” (http://j-walkblog.com). His blog proudly proclaims that it’s about ‘stuff that may or may not interest you.’ He scours the internet looking for interesting things that might be relevant at the moment or are just plain funny. One post might about politics and current events while another might be about a banjo that he bought (he’s crazy about banjos) and yet another post might be about squeezable bacon and the bacon of the month club. They are all quirky little posts that don’t require much thought but are funny nonetheless.
3Don’t take on too much. If you are starting out with a blog, the worst thing for you to do is bite off more than you can chew. Make goals on how many posts you know you can keep. Don’t just say that you are going to post every day, mean it. Life is unpredictable, things get in the way of your goals and sometimes it’s best to be flexible. Don’t get overwhelmed. If you can’t post regularly, post often or write some posts in advance. That would come in handy during finals week when you are more concerned with tests than you are about your blog.
4Don’t over-think or under-think your posts. If you want to write a meaningful blog post you are going to have to put some thought into it. It’s natural. I’m talking about when you want to write a new blog post and you stare at the computer for upwards of ten minutes racking your brain for something to write. If it takes more than a half hour to write your post, it might not be a good time to write. Write short little posts until you get back in the mood to write something longer. I refer back to “The J-Walk Blog.” He posts several things a day but most of the time they are links to other websites followed by a couple lines of his own commentary. When there’s something he likes, he writes more about it. Simple.
5Don’t apologize. So, weeks have gone by and you haven’t posted a thing. Then suddenly you have something important to post. Don’t waste the readers’ time by apologizing for not posting more often. If you still have readers by then reward them with a meaningful post. That is worth more than an apology.
I hope these tips prove valuable to those of you considering starting a blog. If you have any questions or if you want to talk about blogging, my email is l-ocasio@neiu.edu and my blog, The Zaftig Latina Blog, is at http://zaftiglatina.blogspot.com.