Who or What is your blog for?

So, have you decided why you want a blog? Do you want to share information? Make money? Have a place where distant relatives can keep track of you? Post funny jokes and links?

Before you start blogging, you should decide why you're blogging. That will help you decide where to blog (which type of host) and how to name your blog. An example is Wordpress.com; no advertising so no money. Also, if you're blogging for relatives, the name doesn't matter but if you plan to monetize, you need a name the is related to your blog topic.

In addition to name, the reason you blog will also affect things like frequency and topic. Again, if this a personal blog, no big decisions need to be made. Same with a blog designed to just share information; call it whatever, and post whenever, you like.

If you want regular traffic though, you need to be on topic and at least somewhat consistent. I consider this blog a tips blog (as in sharing info, not holding out my hand. ;-) ), not a money blog. I try to be consistent for my regular readers but I don't beat myself up if I'm not. I stay pretty consistently on the topic of blogging and the name of the blog is pretty much dead on for the topic I've chosen.

If I wanted to make money, I think the topic is a decent one although the blogosphere is pretty crowded for a blogging blogs. I think the title of the blog is winner. I named it well. Blogger isn't a bad choice for hosts as it has integrated Adsense and I can put any other advertising or banners that I want to. I would need to do something about my frequency though, I think.

If you want to make money with blogging, you need to build a traffic stream and the stream has to be interested in your blog topic (which is why I don't understand why there are so many spam blogs). To build traffic you need to post daily (at least in the beginning) and you need a lot of content.

When people show up, you want them to stick around for a while. That means plenty of articles. The faster you generate that content (multiple posts per day), the faster you will build traffic.

Right now, the vast majority of the traffic to this blog is from Google. I'm ok with that. My goal is to provide what tips I can. If people are finding me via google, and getting some use out of this blog, then I am succeeding.

Why are you blogging? What do you look for in a blog like this?

LewisC

P.S. This entry ended up being one of those that started at one place and ended up in another.

Technorati : blogging, writing

Sometimes, Everything I Write Sucks!

Yesterday I wrote about persistence paying off for bloggers. Brad made some good comments:

I come up with idea's for blogs and internally shoot them down as "not worth writing about" or "everyone knows this already, why write about it".

Oooh, I hate that. This is such a good point and is something I think every blogger runs into now and then. I call it my internal editor. If you read writing books, that is a major topic. Most of those books give the same advice: Write! Write! Write! Ignore the internal editor and go for broke.

It's not always advice I want to hear, that's for sure. I have to admit though, that it is true. When I wrote my book, I got up everyday, 7 days a week and wrote. During the work week, I did a couple of hours, usually starting at 4am, before getting ready for work. I'd do another couple of hours at night before bed. On the weekends, I would do a full day. 120,000 words in 4.5 months. And I maintained a blog at the same time.

I wasn't always motivated (for the book or the blog) but once I sat down and started putting words on paper, it usually started flowing. The same is true for blogging. Just type something. Even stupid ideas are a start. Many times, I start writing on a topic and I either spontaneously generate ideas for future posts, or I change direction and write a different post than I intended.

When it comes to "not worth writing about", you never know. One man's garbage is another man's gold. If nothing else, it might be entertaining.

On the topic of "everyone knows this already, why write about it". You might be an expert but not all of your readers will be. Sometimes something very basic will help someone else tremendously.

Every entry you write helps give life to your blog. Not every book is war and peace and not every blog entry will be a front page digg item. But that's ok. I don't want to read war and peace every time I open a book. Sometimes, I just want to be entertained or have some downtime.

So, my tip of the day is Write! Even when you don't want to. I'll try to do as I say, too.

LewisC

Technorati : blogging, persistence, writing

Blog Editors

How To Make a Blog

I am a blog editor convert. If you aren't sure what a blog editor is, it's a graphical editor that makes it easy for you to write, save drafts and post blog entries. Have you ever been typing a blog entry and had the browser crash? Argh! Many of the blog editors have autosave so that you don't have to worry about that.

They also make including links, adding graphics, block quotes, etc very easy with a visual preview. Have you ever hand coded an HTML table for tabular data display? I hate doing that. With a blog editor, it's a couple of button clicks and then you just enter your data.

I've used several to see how they perform. I narrowed it down to two editors: Windows Live Writer and Zoundry Raven.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer (WLW) is a free offering from Microsoft. I'm not an MS basher. I think MS tends to write very usable software. WLW is a very good looking, very functional tool.

WLW has a graphical UI and follows along with most other MS GUI tools. It has plenty of features

Zoundry Raven

Even though WLW is a good tool, I have settled on Zoundry Raven. I've used the support forums and I have to say I am very happy with them. The tool itself fits the way I work. It's easy to configure and run.

Some of the better features are:

• A true WYSIWYG editor. When I post a blog entry, it looks on my blog exactly like it does on the editor.


• Multiple blog support. I write about 15 blogs now. I can easily select the blog I am working on, post to multiple blogs at once and view previously published blog entries at any time.


• Great trackback, ping and tag support. Global and blog configurations make these painless.


• It can run from a USB drive. Go on the road and take your blog editors (and your blog posts) on the road with you.

Depending on how you write and what you're looking for in an editor, I would recommend either of these editors. Both are free so you won't lose anything more than a little time by trying either (or both).

Technorati : blogging, editor, raven, zoundry

Del.icio.us : blogging, editor, raven, zoundry

What if someone already wrote it?

A question I have been asked, and a concern I have thought of myself, is the question, "What if it's already been said?" Have you wanted to post on a blog topic and then thought about how many people may have blogged in that topic before you? How many people may have been more original on the topic? Did that make you stop and walk away from the keyboard?




To digress for a second, I get quite a few writer newsletters. I usually let them accumulate in my inbox and then read a bunch all at one time. One of the newsletters that I really like is WrteSuccess. Maybe one day I will write up a list of newsletters that I like but that's not the topic today.




Today's WriteSuccess had a very good quote from a master writer, CS Lewis.




"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." --C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)




Add blogging to literature and art and that answers the question. What if someone already wrote it? So what, give it your spin. Be honest. Write.

blog blogging

Anyone Can Write a Blog!

When I first started blogging and would tell people I was a blogger, they would ask what that was. Blogs have caught on like fire since then, I started at the end of 2004, and while most people still don't read blogs, they at least know what they are.




What I hear now when I say that I am a blogger is, "I could write a blog." I then get the "argue with me look". I don't argue, I agree. Anyone can write a blog. It's easy. Sign up with a host, start putting your thoughts down.




Writing an interesting blog is harder but it's still not that hard. No matter how mundane your blog might be, there is someone who will find it interesting. Even if it's just your family and friends.




Making money with a blog is harder but even that is not really that hard. I was doing it within a few months of starting to blog. I'm not a 6 figure blogger but I never really thought I would be a 1 figure blogger. Being a 5 figure blogger is pretty nice.




No, none of that is hard. You can tell that by the fact that millions of new blogs are started every year. According to some stats, like Sifry's The State of the Live Web, April 2007, there are 120,000 new blogs every day. If we are generous and say that 20,000 of those are spam blogs, that still leaves us with 100,000 per day or 3,650,000 per year.




The hard part of blogging is to continue blogging. Of those 100k blogs that are started today, how many are there tomorrow? How many next month? How many a year form now? They might still be out there at the end of a URL, but many, if not most, will be long dormant. The hard part is to sit down and write.




Ideas are easy and I think that's what people mean when they say they can start a blog. They have an idea. Might even have ideas. Ideas don't get it though. The ideas have to travel out of your brain and down your arms to your fingers so that they can be written. If you don't write, it don't matter.




When people give me that look and say, "I could write a blog." I say, "Yes you can. Here's the URL to blogger.com and wordpress.com. Send me an email after you get 30 posts and I'll link to you from my blog." I've heard that statement a hundred times at least. I've only linked twice.




Blogging is easy. Here's the URL to blogger.com and wordpress.com. Signing up is free. Send me a note and let me know what blog you created. I'd like to keep an eye on it.




LewisC

blog blogging

Should you allow comments on your blog?

Are comments on your blog a good thing? Some say yes, some say no. I personally like to get feedback and share comments with my readers. Not everyone does.




Some people are afraid of allowing comments due to lawsuits that might arise from what people post. One way to alleviate that concern is to only allow authenticated users post comments. That can get painful though on a mostly anonymous internet.




A good article that you can read is The Legal Issues with Comments fromn the Blog Herald. The author, Jonathan Bailey, covers Libel, Copyright and Trademark issues. He concludes the article with:

All in all, there are many reasons to consider dropping comments from your blog, but legal issues should not be one of them. In the vast majority of cases, if you approach commenting with good faith, the risk is very low and you are more likely engaging in riskier behavior in your blog itself.

With that in mind, it is still very important to be careful about what you say and publish as the protections offered to you for what your commenters say do not apply to your own words.

Everyone can be held accountable for what they post, just not what other people say, at least in the vast majority of cases.

This is a very clear and easy to read article from a very informed writer. He's not a lawyer but he also writes Plagiarism Today.




So how would i conclude this? I say you should allow comments. We become better bloggers by interacting, not by being talking heads.




Take care,




LewisC

blog blogging comments libel lawsuit Plagiarism

What should I write about in my blog?

This is an easy one. Write about whatever you want. Write as often as you want. It's totally up to you.

Now, if you are looking for a regular following, you should pick a topic and stick to it. That doesn't mean never write about anything but that one topic but, in general, the majority of your blog entries should relate to the topic of your blog.

If you want to write regularly on two unrelated topics, start two (or more) blogs. For example, I am writing this blog and I have my LewisC's Random Thoughts blog as well as several pure tech blogs, like my Oracle DB News Blog.

A quick tip to help you focus on your topic is to put a very clear topic description in your blog header. If that topic is not clear, people won't know what you're about and might not stick around. Make sure the message is clear.

Once you have a clear message, check each post as you post it. Does the topic of your post agree with the topic of your blog? If not, you may want to think about creating an additional blog.

Here is the "but" that you had to know was coming. If you are writing a blog for you, your family, or your friends, write about anything you want at any time that you want to. My Random Thoughts blog is really about whatever interests me. It really gets random at times. Then again, I am ok with not having a large readership on that blog. I hope people stick around but I understand if they don't.

Take care,

LewisC

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