How to write a good blog

I'm getting a lot of traffic lately so I must be doing something right. Time to play Guru!

There are million other articles on this topic. As always, I don't give a rat's ass. There! Lesson number one. Write whatever you want, and don't give a damn if its already written.

Write Original

Sometimes, I publish stuff written by others. I was surprised to see my posts get more traffic / comments than those. Obviously, I publish other's content when its real good. So why is that? Because you peeps have already read other's content, ya savages!

In a nut shell, my traffic is directly proportional to the effort I put in. Make your post based on research, not exactly like it. Use hyperlinks and quotes.

Be brief

Write tight, for the love of God. I revise each post many times and keep making it tighter. Forum posters, are you listening? I don't read blogs and forum posts that could be shorter. Spell check is a must.

Write daily

Or every other day. Be consistent. Only way to get steady traffic and regualr readers. How do you expect traffic otherwise? Getting co-authors is a good idea in hectic days.

Blog Hygiene

Keep your blog clean. Don't clutter it with too much gadgets. And please don't go for a complex design if you are not a designer. Look at this idiot. He's a great guy and all but I can't read that mess blog. And it is much cleaner now!

Have a designer review your blog time to time. Running ads doesn't have to look ugly.

Trackback

I just learned it. If you see track back installed in a blog, it means author expects to be notified when linked. Not having trackback in your blog is no excuse for not sending them to others.

Track back means you send a 'ping' to post you linked. That 'ping' can be sent either from

• Trackback tool of your blog
• External tool like haloscan.

This 'ping' will be stored in trackback section of that post. It will also have URL of your post. You can send trackback from static sites, even a forum post using haloscan!

Benefits of trackback

• You link some one, and you automatically get linked back! Because your URL is showing up in trackback section of that blog. That means more traffic! Send some trackbacks to popular blogs and see traffic go crazy (Don't abuse it).
• Instead of comments, you can have blog conversation via trackbacks!
• You will sleep better.

Use pictures

Don't be too square! Use them time to time. But don't slaughter the design by using them too much.

Think of readers

Why are you blogging exactly? If you don't care about readers, you don't need a blog.

Update:

MLM Today has changed its template. Much better. All the jingles gone, content is prominent, thus more readable. I laud Dave Stone for embracing the first rule of web: visitor first. You write your blog for people to read right? And here is a kicker, lesser the jingles, more the people relate to you.

Yesterday I gave it a quick glance then (I was ass-busy), but some titles got registered, e.g. professional doing network marketing etc. These eye catchers were not so catchy in previous design. Now I have to go back and read it, D'oh!

I can't find a link where it says that end user decides in 4 seconds to read your site or leave it. Make best of these 4 seconds.