iSmart Software | - How to bake a better blog

How to bake a better blog..

The use (or lack of use) of a blog from my experience is determined by two factors. The activity of the author and the the activity of the readers.

You can increase the activity on the blog in a few ways.

Make it easier for people to access information
Not everyone knows about rss and the way blogs work. Setting up a 'receive posts via email' facility can be effective. I have used this on a few of my own projects with very good results.

Create more buzz
The blogoshpere tends to be all about buzz. The blogs that do well are the ones that create conversations on the web. People link to the posts and have an opinion on it. The more people link to the blog, the more people will read it and comment on it. If you re-hash news items or content that's already available on the net, why would someone choose your blog over a news website.

Have an opinion
When people go to blogs, typically it's because of the author / authors writing style, opinion on a topic etc. Make sure there is personality in the posts.

Comment on other related blogs
One thing that will bring more readers is to find related blogs to yours and make sure you read and comment on them. This will get others reading your blog and also making comments. If someone goes to a blog with zero comments for every post, sometimes that can give the impression that no-one reads it.

Link to other related blogs
Linking to other blogs and news sites gives people options to look at alternative views and opinions about the topic you're writing about. This will also help in getting people linking back to you.

Get more comments
Write about issues that people get fired up about and then ask them for their opinions in the comments.

In regards to getting other people to write on the blog, this is difficult without some type of direction for the way posts should be written, content guidelines and issues to talk about. If you leave it open, my guess people will fill it up with stuff they are interested in (along with that is the possibility that it will be not be relevant) or people won't have the time nor inclination to update it and it will die off.

The best way to get ideas about how to make blogs better is to read the popular blogs and try to figure out what they're doing.

Here are a few that I try to read on a regular basis

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Seth gives this great advice on a recent post

The most effective marketing use of blogs seems to be when the advertiser/marketer uses the blog as an opportunity not to sell a product, but to attract people who are in the right mindset. Joel Spolsky rarely writes about his product, but that's fine. The people who read his writing are the very same people who need his product, and his proximity to the valuable ideas (and his reputation) makes it not such a leap to go ahead and buy what he has to sell.

Attract people in trouble-->Help solve their problems-->Build your reputation-->Sales happen.

http://battellemedia.com/
John Batelle talks about the search industry a lot on his blog and it's very popular.

http://www.problogger.net/
This is a blog written by a guy called Darren Rowse in Melbourne. He started blogging about three years ago and now makes a full time living off it. His blog is about blogging and has some great info on how to create better blogs.

http://www.copyblogger.com/
This is a great blog about writing good copy and attracting people to your blog.

Peter Dowse