Comments on: 8 Things I Wish I Knew About Blogging

By: Vivien

Vivien — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:18:25 +0000

Thanks, Tara. It’s actually interesting to note that even after almost 3 more months of blogging since I wrote this post, I still wish I knew more about these 8 things before I got into blogging. Nevertheless, I’m glad I did start blogging :-)

By: Tara

Tara — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:04:59 +0000

Great post. I can’t agree more with the addictive thing, I really didn’t think it would be. The people you meet are great too, you just wouldn’t normally be able to chat with like minded people all over the world in one day! I totally agree with you about the marketing bit too, I am happy to exchange links and tag etc blogs I read or like, but not indiscriminately for the sake of getting to the top of a chart.

By: Circular Communication

Circular Communication — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:02:15 +0000

5 Things You Should do Before Launching Your Own Blog…

I am well aware that there are probably hundreds of posts about starting a blog published every year, but still I feel there is room for (at least one) more. Everyone seems to have a slightly different view on things even if many revolve around the sam…

By: 8 Bits of Unforeseen Traffic From Search Engines » Inspiration Bit

8 Bits of Unforeseen Traffic From Search Engines » Inspiration Bit — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:23:12 +0000

[...] what i wish i knew before blogging – just look at these phrase, someone else was wondering about exactly the same 8 Things I Wish I Knew About Blogging [...]

By: Jonathan Nicol

Jonathan Nicol — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 06:59:54 +0000

Nice one – thanks for the “29 Traffic Generation Tips”! A lot of great ideas there…

By: ibit

ibit — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 02:17:29 +0000

Thank you, Jonathan. My methods for promoting my blog are similar to yours, in addition you can read my post on 30 traffic generation tips Other than that, I'm also trying to leave comments on other blogs for the posts on the similar topics I've blogged about, and I include a link to my blog post with a brief explanation why they should check it out. For example, I've written a post on 8 remarkable wordpress themes, and when I saw a similar article on Smashing Magazine's blog with the list of 83 Wordpress themes, I've added my comment saying that if any of you wishes to check the 8 amazing wordpress themes without going through a huge list of 83, then check my post. Until now I see people are coming to my site from that comment on Smashing Magazine.

By: Jonathan Nicol

Jonathan Nicol — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 22:41:09 +0000

This post is right on the money!

When I first started my blog, a little traffic would trickle in and my anxiety levels were very low -it’s hard to be anxious when no-one is reading. Then one day an article of mine got dugg, and I suddenly had 15,000 readers in a single day – the pressure to come up with a ‘killer’ follow up post was quite overwhelming. Of course the traffic spike dissipated, and reader numbers, while much healthier than before, have returned to a more modest level. And I found my performance anxiety reduced greatly too. Now I am more confident in my ability to select an interesting subject to blog about, and if a topic doesn’t occur to me immediately, I’ll just wait until inspiration strikes. If people like a particular article, great. If they don’t, so be it.

I figure that if my posts are pleasing and relevant to me, then they will probably strike a chord with my audience too. Like you, I try to avoid rehashing someone else’s article and putting a “spin” on it. In the blogosphere the signal to noise ratio is very low, and I believe that the way to develop a meaningful and sustained audience is to offer something substantial, insightful, unique and personally relevant.

Marketing is the area I need to work on most. In a sea of 50 million blogs it is certainly not true that “if you build it they will come”! You mentioned you had found your own methods for promoting your blog – care to share them with us? Myself, I try to participate in other blogs I enjoy (posting comments like this one!), and also post frequently in a few favorite forums.

By: ibit

ibit — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:08:20 +0000

Thanks, Ilker. Good for you – for having 100 draft posts waiting to be blogged about. I usually have 1-2 only sitting there, and the rest is in my mind – I’ve got a huge memory bank there :-)

By: ilker

ilker — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:03:41 +0000

Sorry about this but maybe that could be included in the “addictive” bit.. once you start a blog there is so much you want to write about that at some point your drafts list gets insanely long!!

By: ilker

ilker — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:01:40 +0000

Wait.. maybe not tomoro but sometime in the future. I forgot I had 100 other draft posts waiting to be blogged about!

Take care and keep up the good work.. we are reading ;)