10 Lessons I've Learnt While Blogging

While you might have concentrated on optimizing your blog for search engines all this while, there are somethings you master on your own while you write and trim and maintian the whole thing – the little things that matter, the little things that lead to the bigger ones.

1. Don’t let them get stuck in there – Link your blog to other (possibly more) authoritative sites. If a user lands up on your blog, make sure he has many ways out of it, even if that means linking to Wikipedia all the time.
2. Build an arcade – Link your posts together through some keywords. When I read a post on your blog, make sure I can either make my way out of your blog or jump to another post within the same blog.
3. Move around yourself – Don’t stay put. If you’re a WordPress user, go around and make some friends in the blogging circles. Suggest, comment and criticise actively. Make sure people reading comments on other sites are able to make note that someone like you EXISTS.
4. Keep the place clean – Keep it clean, keep it cool. People coming to your blog shouldn’t have to look long for important links.
5. Let everyone know whose blog they’re reading – Don’t be anonymous, you’re not there yet. Put up a prominent ‘About Me’ page with the relevant details.
6. Take it places – Your blog’s like a kid. Everyday, take it some place where it can have fun. Don’t be shy of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. At least, if you don’t like Twitter like some of my friends, use Facebook.
7. Stick to your goals – My goal is to keep writing no matter what – a selfish endeavour if you will. And I’ve put up 362 posts including this one. It keeps me active, but a greater merit is one keeps showing up in WP circles and Google also keeps an eye out for one’s updates.
8. Keep it specific – If you’ve been catering to a target audience, keep them in mind all the time. A sudden change in theme, if sustained, can have you lose a lot of addicts.
9. Categorise – Like #4, make it easy to look for specific things in your blog. Just a search form won’t do. Having categories (and a tag cloud if you want) can be very helpful in this regard.
10. Proofread your entries – Yeah, it’s somewhat like writing your novel. Even if you’re not so keen on keeping everything spic and span, broken sentences and incomplete phrases can put people off.