Quick guide for new bloggers

Last night, before I went to bed, I decided to write down all I knew about blogging and how to make a successful blog. It took about four minutes.

That said, I think I have some helpful advice to new bloggers about how to get started, and what you'll need to do to get to a halfway respectable blog. (Assuming people consider this blog halfway respectable).

First and foremost, to get and maintain any level of readership, a blog needs to be updated everyday. Blogs are not somewhere to post up column length and style material every week or so. You can do that, but you'll want stuff in between. Also, if you just start blogging like that, you'll never get any readership because hardly anyone will notice you. So, blog every weekday.

Try to find your blogger personality as well. I think that a good blogger is a healthy mix of several different elements. Foremost, bloggers are cyber sherpas, e-guides on the vast information superhighway. The internet is just too huge, there is just too much information out there for most people to prospect on their own. This first created the need for search engines, now blogs further assist people in expanding their knowledge. I didn't come up with that philosophy, Hugh Hewitt did, I've just adopted it as my primary philosophy in blogging. This philosophy is partly the reason that I do the "Random Links o' the Day." By doing those, I show that I continuously explore the web, not just remaining happy in my small corner of preferred sites.

Also, a blogger needs to be part reporter. This is perhaps the most difficult element to try to do, because trying to be a reporter sucks. You have to call people, beg for interviews, email people. And for what? For your blog? It's a tough sell. However, it can be done. This is an especially rewarding project at the local level. It's about impossible at the national level, but just talk to Captain Ed sometime, he's just some guy with a laptop that never graduated from college and still has to go to work everyday.

A blogger is also part historian. Research is fairly important to a good blogger. The one thing we all can do is go to the library, look at our books at home, or do research on the web. Some of the best posts out there are those that compare something happening today to something that has already happened. (Lookup the Cranky Professor). This is the part of blogging that I feel I need to work on, as I typically don't do much research at all, except occasionally when there is newsworthy stuff involving psychology (my undergraduate major).

Finally, a blogger is part editorialist as well. Many of the reasons I've found that people blog is because they want to get out there and have their voices heard. That's why Captain Ed started, that's why Peter Swanson started. Peter especially was sick of getting his letters and column submissions edited by overzealous paper employees. One thing to avoid as a blogger is being an echo chamber, repeating the talking points of the major parties. Readers look to blogs for new ways of looking at things, insight, and information. If you can consistently provide an inventive perspective (IMAO does this) readership will follow.

Another element I like to see in a blog is variety. If you do different types of posts, some are sortacolumnish, some are just headlines with single sentence commentary, some stories, some history, I think readers will continue to show up to see what new post you come up with. Conan O'Brian avoids doing the same bits over and over (though he still manages to get stale) and I think the same is necessary in blogging. Mitch Berg is best at this, he posts all sorts of things, national stories, personal stories, reviews, music, etc.

Be a good writer. Sometimes this is about impossible, but the more you write, the better you'll get. People want literacy in those they read.

Pictures are also nice. Blogger makes it easy, and I'm hoping to start adding more pictures to my site.

I like to think of a blog as an ongoing conversation. This why comments sections are a must. Do your best to make sure that anyone, with little effort, can comment on your blog. Blogs are also described as "garage bands" and "open mic commentary." Both of these descriptions show that the blogosphere is an open market that favors the buyer (reader) and not the seller (publisher). But this also means that with a little effort you can move up in readership thanks to the liquidity of the blogosphere's audience.

In fact, the report for future blog readership is a good one. While less than 20% of all people visit blogs are on a regular basis (versus the 80% of journalists that visit blogs on a regular basis), some 30-40 percent of people under the age of 18 read blogs regularly (Sifry is the place I got those numbers). Soon enough, there's going to be a healthy rush of young readers that will drive the blogosphere.

[There's a small chance that blogging is just some fad, at least that's what some who don't read blogs have told me. However, I highly doubt it. The reason is this, there were probably people who thought that dime novels were just a fad when they started out. In the late 1800s there was a rush of books printed cheaply on cheap paper that were well known to be low quality literary trash. They were generally poorly written novels. I bet there were some who thought to themselves "why would anyone buy such crud, and look, these books don't last at all. They practically decompose on the shelf. Eventually people are going to go back to leatherbound copies that have shown the ability to last the tests of time. Those people would have been wrong, and 100+ years later cheap paperbacks are still the most popular form of book. Hugh Hewitt's book "blog" goes into more detail.]

Now, there's some of the nitty gritty elements of getting readership. Getting and keeping readership is tough. The first key to getting readership is making sure that any friends and family who might be inclined to read your blog know about it. Everyone knows 100 people. Of those hundred, maybe ten will start reading if you let them know about the blog. Blogs are very popular amongst the younglings as a way of letting their friends and family keep up with what they're doing if they are away from home, like at a college outstate. It's a good start, and I like the fact that blogging is a cheap (basically free) way of bringing family together. No need for huge phone bills, no postage, just what every really wants out of family, good story telling and news.

Hopefully, your family can get around your political views, and can forgive you for covering national stories if you choose to expand as a blogger. Then again, maybe that uncle of yours needs some better political insight. Whatever. At least having family as readership encourages you to blog. You might even keep a small personal blog, and later create a political blog. Then your family that is interested in your political stuff can read it without forcing your political views down the throats of your relatives.

Another key to developing readership is talking about other bloggers. This seems almost too bootlicking to mention, but it's the truth. However, I like visiting other blogs, and when someone posts something up worth mentioning, I post it. Typically, that person will then be interested in what I'm saying about him, and will visit. It's not brown-nosing, it's building community. The MOB typifies this way of blogging.

In fact, if you're not in Minnesota, you should consider starting your own blogger community. Find a dozen or so blogs you like, email them, and get started on a blog roll. Believe me, readership will build from there. My readership had a very healthy jump when I joined the MOB. IT had an even better jump when I started going to MOB events and actually meeting people face to face. In fact, that's a good idea too, have blogger socials at local pubs and restaurants.

Visit blogs a lot. I try to hit 10-15 random blogs a day (normally using the "next blog" button on the top of blogger pages). Sometimes, I'll leave a comment. One thing I like to do is frequent liberal blogs and get into flamewars in their comments section. This is fun, and it typically will get you a few extra hits a day. Also, if you have some favorite bloggers, comment in their blogs regularly. Finally, visit the blogs of the people who comment on your blog. It's building community and good will, as well as readership. If you post up good stuff, people will visit your blog. If you leave intelligent comments on their site, they'll likely visit your blog.

A few things you can do to get a few extra hits is get on the aggregator done by mnSpeak (I link it on the side bar). I also get a lot of hits from thefacebook.com. You can also get webspace on friendster.com. I get occasional hits from blogcritics.com as well.

Mind you, a lot of my readership I picked up because I had a radio show. I was also posted on CaptainsQuarters. However, my biggest readership increase came after I went to the MOB event in St. Cloud, which was a small social of about 20 bloggers from outstate. Meeting them and getting posted all over helped me quite a lot. I also got a fair amount of readership after I broke the story about the screw up at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce when they published a letter that mistakenly accused a St Cloud area state senator of raising taxes. It is perhaps the best piece of journalistic work I've ever done, and according to my friend at the Chamber, I introduced a lot of people to blogs that day.

That gets back to my main point about getting readership, post quality content and do it everyday and the readers will come.

As I reread what I wrote, I notice that this really wasn't a "quick" guide. My apologies. I've hopefully given a good framework for anyone out there hoping to enter the blogging world. Now, if you don't already have a blog, go to blogger.com and start...right now.

One of the things I want to do is bring more people into the blogosphere. I also want to help out and encourage new bloggers (young and old) as much as I can. If I can look back after a few years of blogging, and see people enjoying their new found platform into the cyber world, I will feel as though I haven't wasted my time blogging.

Finally, if there are any other suggestions for new bloggers or ways of increasing readership I might have missed, please leave them in the comments section. Also, I'd like to hear how some of my readers either started blogging or hear their stories about why they now read blogs.

Personally, I remember that I started blogging because I heard about blogs in the news. I wrote down "start blog" in my planner. I thought it'd be a good place to write and get writing experience and to try out column ideas. By the time the Kerry/Bush election came around I was already addicted.