The #1 Rule of Blogging

Someone on a mailing list I’m on was interested in setting up a blog for her business and went looking for advice about what to do. My response to her was that there was only one thing that really mattered.

Be interesting.

Oh, sure, there are lots of technical details to explore and lots of decisions to be made about which blogging platform to use, what theme to use, whether to use partial or full feeds, whether to write long posts or short posts, etc. etc. If you want to know more about these kinds of things, read ProBlogger and Copyblogger. I can only bow to the masters.

But the #1 Rule of Blogging, the one to rule them all, is to be interesting:

Be interesting to prove that you’re human, not just some bot that mashes and reposts other people’s content.

Be interesting to incite readers to revisit, because usually you only get one chance to make a good impression. (It’s kind of like dating.)

Be interesting to communicate, because Lord knows it’s hard for anyone to pay attention when they’re bored.

Be interesting to reach your readers on an emotional level, in a way that dry recitations of facts (”Hey, let’s publish our press releases to the blog!”) and obviously overhyped sales material (”It’s the best thing since sliced bread!”) can’t and don’t.

Perhaps the best reason to be interesting, though, is that it makes the world a more interesting place. And I’d argue that a more interesting world is a better world.

Don’t create yet another boring business blog. Be interesting because you don’t have a boring business blog. Ideally that means having an interesting business blog, but if you can’t manage that then just don’t have a blog!

Author:  Eric Giguere is the author of Uncommon AdSense  and Make Easy Money with Google. He also runs the award-nominated blog Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense. Interesting name, interesting topic, interesting blog.

 

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1. Create posts that are interesting and that people will want to read.
2. Optimize the posts for search engines.
3. Submit the blog and RSS feeds to directories.
4. Ping the blog services.
5. Build links to your blog.
6. Turn the blog posts into articles and submit them to article directories.
7. Create buzz about or within the blog.
8. Make sure to get email addresses of your readers.

 

Source:  WebProNews

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I’ve been spending more time lately on teaching-related activities, as over at InfoSource (my online learning company) we’re about to launch a nifty new service for teachers and students that will let them, from all over the world, share teaching and learning materials.  Cool stuff, and I’ll let you know more about it post-launch, in a few weeks.

So, it was through my stumbling around on that project that I came across a couple of free blogging services for teachers and students.

Learnerblogs.org for K-12 students
Edublogs.org for teachers and trainers
Uniblogs.org for university students
Eslblogs.org for ESL students

Cool stuff, all free.  You can set up a blog through these services, using WordPress (a great blogging tool, and the one I use here).

Check ‘em out.

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I’ve been a fan of WordPress, the open-source free blogging tool ever since I started using it earlier in 2006.  If you’re thinking about setting up your own blog, or moving to a new one, I can’t say enough about WordPress.

What I really like most about WordPress is that, once you’ve set it up, it is just so eazy-peezy intuitive and fun to use.  It’s great for non-technical types, although there are a lot of custom tools you can use or add to a WordPress blog later on once you become more comfortable with it.  (Full confession:  I just call my techno-pal, Eldon Sarte, to give me a boost from time to time.)

Very bottom line?  WordPress is a Top5er.

I remember in the early 1980s when I moved from an IBM Selectric typewriter to my first computer (an Osborne II — great little machine in its own right, and from the company of the same name founded by Adam Osborne, one of the true luminaries in the early PC days — just loved the guy — funny, brash, innovative) and how I knew then and there that my work life had changed forever.

That same feeling came over me when I first started blogging with WordPress — I knew that my work life had changed.

Word Press has allowed me to become a very active and creative participant in the online and Web worlds without having to learn all sorts of new technologies.  (Yup, I do run technology companies, but because I’ve been managing people and operations for the last 20 years or so, my tech IQ stopped growing with the last version of DOS.  Really.)

So, check out WordPress.

And, along the way, check out a few free overview WordPress tutorials at Learnerblogs.org, a neat-o organization in its own right that supplies free WordPress blogs for teachers, students, writers, and other education-oriented souls.

Good stuff, check ‘er out.

 

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