Guide To Blogging

Tips on how you can blog longer

Now it’s hard to maintain the level of competency in blogging, at some point you’re doing this great post, but on the next week you’d been posting dull articles or not even posting at all. Ideas run up and sometimes get exhausted, so here are tips to keep you blogging for a lifetime, blog indefinitely, and to be able to blog longer and have fun doing it.

Keep it simple and small, yet fascinating
Ok, it’s best to start to blog small and simple. Don’t start with a view from the top and work your way down it doesn’t work that way. What you need to do is start small, at the bottom then work your way to the top as blog becomes bigger and your topics diverse.

Make blogging enjoyable by blogging about what you love
If you like what you are blogging about chances are you can blog about that certain topic for as long as you like. If you’re really into a certain topic, chances are you have deep knowledge on the subject matter and will have fun writing great, descriptive and helpful posts.

Set a Blogging schedule
Doing a week’s worth of blog post can wear you out so it’s best that you keep a blogging schedule and very much stick to it, follow it to the letter and also allot a free time to recharge your batteries, such as taking the weekend off from blogging or spending time with family, friends which is not related to blogging. This may cause you to miss the part of blogging which in turn would give you the fuel to make a great post.

Blogging as habit
Blog regularly to make it a habit once you get the hang of it, blogging comes easy to you that you just can’t live without it, a day may seem incomplete and you may feel lost when you aren’t able to blog. Maybe a good or a bad thing.

Make a list of ideas and topics for your blog
It’s a very good idea to keep a blog topic list or a stash of ideas, so you have ample time to think about what to write. This saves time and mental energy instead of cramming the thick skull for ideas which seem to fly away from you mind. And also if ever a sudden flow ideas pop in your head in those inconvinient times when you can’t fire up your laptop or PC, then I suggest keep a handy little notepad or a tape recorder, so you can input ideas on the said devices or tools

Read, read, read
Read other blogs daily check out their writing style, how they write their ideas to be able to reach their readers, you can learn a lot form other bloggers simply by just reading at their post. Plus it will encourage you to do well on your blog too. Also read the comments on your blog, if you ever you get a bad comment or got criticized for something you posted you it to better yourself and your blog. Use negative comments, as your “blogging fuel”.

Blog for the people
Blog for the people, blog about what they want to read and blog to help your readers. Give solutions to problems, give the reader what they want. And also add media to your blog. Don’t be confined to a 2-dimensional blog, make it unpredictable, add media, like pictures, video, etc, to make it appealing as well as entertaining to the readers.

I like this article… It’s a very realistic and has dynamic feel to it… as you can interchange the word “blogging” and insert any type of hobby you are into… “designing, programming, eating”… hahahhaa!

Taken from Jaren‘s PostBlog Tutorials – Blogging Indefinitely

No, writing creative blogs does not include topics of absurd imagination or far-fetched ideas. Creative blogs may contain everyday stuff but keep the Dear Diary format on a minimum. So what really is a creative blog?
First, do away with stagnant topics. Stagnant topics are everywhere and they are the ones usually comment-able by “wow, great post” and it ends there. Write about thought-provoking stuff. Your readers are sure to comment endlessly, with you joining the comment conversation. Eventually, one comment is sure to strike you and it can lead you to write a new topic out of it. You can also try posting reviews of whatever’s current – movies, books, TV series and the like. This is sure to create a discussion among your readers and with each insight comes a new idea that you can write about.

Avoid These WHEN Writing
- Spell check: Ignore the red-underlined words.
- Dictionary / Thesaurus: Resist yourself from always looking for a “better” word.
- Sentence Structure: Never mind if it doesn’t really make sense or if it’s run-on.
- Google / other search engines: Don’t stop with the goal of “adding more stuff” to what you are writing. You’ll end up digressing and eventually, procrastinating.
- Looking back: Write until all else is pretty much exhausted from you.
Imperatives AFTER writing
- Do all those listed above.
- Always, always separate editing from writing.
- Never ever interrupt the momentum of your creativity.

Sometimes, it’s so difficult to finish a blog post of 150 to 200 words, with good content and satisfying overall quality. Personally, this problem comes from my being obsessive-compulsive in writing. It is when I am writing with so much eagerness and ideas, I suddenly stop and break my momentum. And no, it wasn’t because of some emergency but because I itched to edit what I’m writing. You see, I learned that writing and editing are two different things. When you write, you just write – just put your ideas down in words. Editing, on the other hand, is what you do AFTER writing. Never mind if you find a bunch of errors, what is important is that you’ve concretized those thoughts dying to get out of your head.

Procrastination is a common problem of all people, in particular, bloggers. Sometimes, we get lost in our research and end up surfing the net for things that are totally unrelated to what we’re supposed to write about. Other times, we just put off writing altogether. How do we beat procrastination?

This might be a little on the cliche’ side but discipline is key. Discipline yourself. Most of us whine that we can’t work unless it’s late and everyone’s asleep and we have the house to ourselves. Fine, point taken; we all have our working timetables and I, too, am guilty of such whining. But sometimes, it is best to actually get it over with first thing in the morning. You will realize how much more productive you can be when you start working early. After all, you just came from period of rest and your mind is pretty much fresh and more receptive to thinking.

Blogging for personal satisfaction or blogging for monetary gain.

There are two sides to blogging, and that is blogging for personal gain – as a hobby, or just having fun – and the other is blogging for money.

We all know the joys of blogging and as well getting paid for it, but sometimes blogging or writing articles sometimes maybe a bit hard when you’re not into that subject, or the topic is not in your personal interest. I know, I experience these quite often especially when I’m being asked to blog about a topic I absolutely have no interest in.

Blogging for money can sometimes take its toll, being asked to blog about a subject or topic you aren’t familiar with. As with that experience you get stressed as your deadline grows near, you start to lose focus, and just stare idly at the monitor at worst case it leads to having a “writer’s block”, I usually experience the emotions and when I experience a writer’s block I feel it’s the “Great Wall of China” of writer’s block.

In blogging for money, you create posts that are “okay”, but when you blog passionately about a subject you produce a great post. Not to mention the satisfaction you get from writing something you are absolutely passionate about.

It’s good that you choose to blog about what you like. That means you are in control in choosing topics you want to talk about. And you’ll have no problems if you find the topic you chose is difficult: you can always change it. However, when blogging for money, you are assigned to write about certain topics, and you cannot choose. Mostly you can easily do the tasks and get on with it, but there will be times you have to wrack your brains for something to write about.

“it takes anyone to write a blog… but it takes a lot of skill and “weirdness” to write the good ones…”- the QuickStop Project

Communicating Your Ideas Through Blogs

Blogging is both an endeavor of creativity and communication. Communication as we know it, can be defined in a very broad sense involves not only written (blogs) and oral speech (podcasts), but also music, the pictorial arts(photo-blogs), audio-video, and in fact all human behavior, and yes it can even be relating our point of view on a certain thing, an idea or our wants. That’s why blogs are so important and popular today because it gives people an outlet of their emotions and thoughts. Yes, we know that some are better at communicating to their ideas to others, while some are not, but that doesn’t mean that blogs are limited to those who can communicate better. Blogs are for everyone, it just takes practice and an idea to get the ball rolling

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When starting a blog, ask yourself: what is my target audience?

Do you intend to write for teens? If so, start researching on what would make young people read your blog. Some just talk about mundane experiences like shopping for new clothes, or beating their friends at DOTA or Counterstrike. Other writers get by with articles mostly about relationships.

If you want to cater to yuppies, you may share a common ground by writing about work, plans in life, career growth, and relationships still.

On the other hand, if you’re targeting people from a specific field, then you have to keep your articles related to their line of work. If you’re eying sales managers or the like, then don’t even consider posting articles about chastity education. Your audience and your message are interrelated.

Pick on what would interest them most, and you might even have them coming back for more.

For some people, maintaining a blog also equals attracting readers. If you want to make a connection, then you better know how to entice your reading audience. The idea is to make them feel comfortable while reading your blog. This actually doesn’t have to be as neat as other biz blogs do. Think of newspaper articles. You wouldn’t read something that looks, or seems, so common to you already. The first thing that catches the people’s attention is the headline. Pick a title that you think would surely arouse their curiosity. The content, of course, has to be more interesting than the headline. You don’t want them to get disappointed in the middle of reading it and smirk at your blog, do you?

Immediately at the beginning of your article, give your readers an idea of what the content is about. Then as you write the succeeding paragraphs, expound on that gist. Avoid beating around the bush as this will just leave your readers scratching their heads in frustration. Be upfront in what you want to say. Most people easily get tired of reading such lengthy texts. If you can whip up concise but witty articles, then you’ve got their eyes glued to your blog.

Flock, one of the newest social network platforms is trying to make itself felt again with a try into linking with Twitter and FaceBook as they strive to make their site a sort of social mashup. Mashups are the latest in-thing in the world of social networking with email, geo-tagged pictures and videos all coming together for a more social web experience. The many startups that are trying to come up with new and more innovative ways to bring the net to more users as they shift from desktops to mobiles (as in Twitter’s case) that has been sweeping the globe at a very fast pace. Continue Reading »