04.21.08
Reminded how to ruin a blog
Posted in Best Practices at 11:54 am by Mosey
I have been spending my freetime screwing around with facebook applications, including an application builder. Problem is in that time, the last week or so, I haven’t posted here at all.
I was quickly reminded of the first rule of blogging, content is king; consistency is queen. Going from one or two posts a day to non for a week made my visitors log look like a downhill ski slope.
Sure, I got a few random hits from the long-tail of whitegold.com and a couple other posts. Sure, some message boards gave old reffers, but realy traffic died.
There are three things I tell people when they start blogging and I broke all three.
1. Have a message.
Don’t just blog about anything, if it is a personal blog, keep it personal, if it is on ice cream don’t post randomly on shoes. Get a theme and keep it. If you really want a random blog, that is your theme, but you will still have one because even you have a theme, you just don’t know it yet.
2. Make a schedule, keep a schedule.
Just because you can’t blog every hour on the hour doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a blog. If you are weekly, then stay weekly (but never expect huge numbers unless you are really special). I check most of my blogs daily. I check them if they have been crappy for a while or if they don’t post. When they don’t post I get grumpy, like it is owed to me…. and I know better.
3. Warn me when you are going to do that.
If you are planning on not posting, tell people. I guess you can say why. If anyone cares, have a guest blogger. Guest blogging can give you huge traffic, and makes everyone happy.
Follow those three things and the rest will come. Your readers will appreciate the consistency and courtesy.
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