Latest Articles - Blog Flux en http://talk.blogflux.com Blog Flux's Latest Articles Finding your Blogging “Voice” http://articles.blogflux.com/article/finding-your-blogging-voice/ how do you find it? Three words: practice, practice, practice. The more you write, the more comfortable you’ll be, and the more your true personality will shine through. Blogs, no matter what the subject, are driven by personality. It’s what separates blogs from other publishing platforms. We are allowed, by the very design of our means of publishing, to be more spontaneous and personal. So don’t be afraid to let your true voice and attitude shine through in your work. When you write, keep in mind that if you’re reporting something like industry news, that people can go to any blog or site on that subject and get the same news. It’s the way its presented to them that makes them come to your site. How do you present your news and information in a way that is unique to you? Those of you that have been writing for years offline or even in forums, will probably not have trouble letting your personality show through in your blogging, but even still, you’ll find - over time - that your style will change and evolve to fit the medium in which you’re writing. Don’t rush it, though. Take your time finding your “groove” when you first start blogging. Set a schedule that you can keep, and stick to it. If you’re more experienced, try to take an objective look at what you’re writing, and how you’re writing it. Make sure you enjoy reading what you’ve written. If you don’t find it engaging - how can you expect the reader to? There are thousands, if not millions of different voices out there in the blogosphere, and each one them is interesting in different ways. That’s how crowded niches can still be successful for multiple blogs. It’s the different voices that make the sites unique. Find yours, and your blogging will become a little easier...and a lot more fun. ]]> Tue, 06 May 2008 01:57:27 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/finding-your-blogging-voice Keep It Simple: Finding the right look for your blog http://articles.blogflux.com/article/keep-it-simple-finding-the-right-look-for-your-blog/ directory for themes, as does Wordpress.net. Design Disease, the designer of all the Bloggy Network blogs, has an amazing collection of designs, and there are countless others. The problem you’re going to run into, typically, is not that you can’t find a design that’s right for your blog, but that you have too many choices, and can’t narrow it down to what will suite your site the best. With that in mind, let’s talk about what works, and what doesn’t work, in blog design. There are some wonderful - and some terrible - blog designs out there, and its really important that you look long and hard before picking the right design for your blog. Here are some things you need to keep in mind before you make your selection.

Content is Key

The content of your blog is 1,000 times more important than the look of your blog. Now I don’t say that to mean that you can simply stick with the Wordpress default blog and expect to be successful. Your blog does have to have a visually interesting appeal, and does need to be distinctive, but the most important thing is that your readers can easily see, and easily read your content.

Simple is Better

(image) There are some amazingly beautiful, and amazingly complicated looking blog designs out there. You can find some that are so visually stunning they will blow your mind, but you have to think to yourself before you apply one of them to your site - is this simple enough? Is it easy for your readers to navigate? Can they immediately find the content, or will they be distracted by a giant header image? The simpler your blog design is, the better off you will be. Take a look at few example blogs from popular online ‘WebCelebs’. Robert Scoble’s blog is almost blank, Jason Calacanis is similar, but slightly more complicated and sporadic. I think both blog designs do a good job of not only making the content easy to find, but they also represent the personality of the blogger. Which happens to be our next topic...

Make it Personal

Your personality is key to the success of your blog. Sure, some of the big corporate owned blogs can be run by 15 or 20 bloggers and be as sterile as the inside of a bottle of hand sanitizer, but you’re not one of them. Your personality is going to be key to making the blog unique. Now, let’s be clear - I’m not talking about your ego, or slapping your face everywhere and trying to make yourself into a WebCeleb, what I’m talking about is making your blog different from any other blog out there, and the only way you can do that, is with your personality. In your content it should be expressed in the “voice” in which your write. In your design, it should be expressed through the colors you select, and the layout you choose. If you’re a happy-go-lucky person that is going to joke a lot, a dark black site with white text and purple highlights probably isn’t the best choice. If you’re very environmentally conscious you may want to earth tones to match your subject matter. If you’re looking for a more journalistic approach, then you’ll want something with a stark white background, and possibly a newspaper-like layout.

Make It Your Own

(image) If you have even the most rudimentary image editing skills there is a very good chance you can edit a header image (if available) or add a side bar image to make the site distinctly yours. You need make sure that when a visitor stops by your site, that they understand it is - in fact - your site. You don’t want them to be confused because you’re using the same theme as someone else. Before you edit anything, though, make sure that you have permission to do so from the designer of the template. In most cases, you should be ok, but check your usage rights before you install the template of your choice.

Make Room for Ads

Its highly recommended that you don’t litter your blog with ads - especially not when you’re first starting out. You run the risk of alienating your potential readers, and making them think your blog is actually spam. You should, however, be prepared for your eventual success. If you don’t expect to be successful, then you’re defeated before you even start - so think about where ads are going to go when selecting a theme.

And Finally...

Remember that there is more than one way to go about selecting your theme. You can choose from a variety of free themes online, you can find themes for sale in a lot of different places, and you can even hire a custom designer to help you get a totally unique blog design. You have plenty of options. Choose the one that’s right for you, and make your blog shine. ]]> Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:20:07 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/keep-it-simple-finding-the-right-look-for-your-blog How to Comment Like a Professional http://articles.blogflux.com/article/how-to-comment-like-a-professional/ wrong way to comment:
Ur blog RoCks! - SuPeR KeWl BlOgGnUtS http://thisismyblog.blogspot.com http://myotherannoyingblog.blogspot.com
I think it’s pretty obvious why this particular comment would get deleted, but you’ll be surprised how often it shows up. For starters, blog comments are a conversation. Whether they are a conversation between you and your readers or just your readers themselves is entirely up to you. Since this is a conversation we’re talking about here, the basic rules of conversation etiquette should apply. Would you jump into the middle of a conversation a group of strangers were having on the street and scream “You people rock!” then yell your website URL at them and walk off? If you answered “yes” to this question, there really is nothing I can do for you. If you answered “no”, then it should be pretty clear why the comment above is useless. When you comment you should be contributing to the conversation. Engage the audience on the blog and speak intelligently on the topic being discussed without starting a flame war or belittling any other commentors. You can certainly disagree with them - but do so in a respectful manner. When it comes time to close off your statement do not leave your blog URL in your comment. Almost every blogging platform in existence gives you a place to input your URL when you are typing in your comment. Put the address in the box that specifically asks for it - and leave it out of your comment. Why? Because you are a professional. The two or three visits you might get from that link are not worth the number of eyes that will completely skip over your comment if you leave it in there. The first thing that most people think when they look through comments and they see a URL is either: it’s spam - and they skip it. it’s some blogger just trying to post links to his/her site....which is also spam...and they skip it. Do you want to be lumped into the “some blogger” category, or do you want to be an authority on your topic? Do you want people to look to you thinking you are a professional or an amateur? Now, don’t misunderstand and think that your comments have to be several paragraphs long. That’s actually another way to get your comment skipped over. Keep your thoughts as concise as possible, and try not to be over-wordy. Here’s an example of a good comment from my Apple blog. The article, “7 Predictions for WWDC 2007” sparked a lot of feedback.
“I don’t think multi-touch is going to take off for at least another year or so. I think any iLife/iTunes updates will be saved for Leopards release, as Peter stated. If this turns into another iPhone event, I’ll be upset and I’m not a developer. Just my 2 cents.”
Bryan’s comment is part of the ongoing conversation of the blog. He expresses his thoughts concisely, contributes to the conversation and doesn’t spam the blog with a URL. So next time you stop by a blog that you like and read an article that sparks your own desire to comment, get out there and do it! The more you comment the more you’ll become part of the community of your niche, and the better off your blog will be. Just don’t spam them. :) ]]> Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:31:29 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/how-to-comment-like-a-professional Is It Time to Streamline Your Blog? http://articles.blogflux.com/article/is-it-time-to-streamline-your-blog/ Moving From Old to New Website Technology As many of us old-time web folks did, I started my first site in 1994 with a table-based grid design. By the end of 1999, I got with the program and turned it into the more powerful and flexible CSS table-less design which separated presentation from architecture. This streamlined my site's template and downloading times, but created a nightmare lesson in search and replace techniques. While I changed the code structure of the site, I didn't change the content. Hundreds of pages of static HTML content within that old design came into the new century with me. By 2003, I started investigating Content Management Systems as the old hand-coded method of writing web pages was tedious and taking more time than generating content. Fixing a single error in all that heavy coding across hundreds of static HTML web pages was also a nightmare. I needed a simple method. I wanted a template system that would use a single design template and PHP to pull out my content from a database into the template. As history shows, after a long period of research, trial and error, I finally chose , along with a growing number of enthusiasts who saw the power and flexibility in this new blogging program. The conversion of my static HTML site (with content and code from 1994) into a format which would be imported into the MySQL database was a nightmare. Now, you have many choices and options for importing content into WordPress. Then, it was still new. The closest I could find to meet my needs was the import method for Movable Type, which meant I had to convert my static HTML web pages into a huge single file for importing into the WordPress database. This meant stripping out all of the not-post-related HTML and converting my old style HTML into XHTML. Along the way, I had to make a lot of compromises and gave up some structure, data, and design elements that I really wanted to keep. WordPress is powerful and flexible, but it does have its limits, no matter how much I love to push them. While I was thrilled that the import was finally working, my new design was limited and dated. With that part over, I had time to dig into the web design and customize the look of my site - for only a few months. WordPress 1.5 was released, introducing the modular template file concept we now know as WordPress Themes. It was back to the design drawing board with a totally new way of thinking. I had to rip and tear into my site to create a new modular Theme from scratch, which gave me a chance to fix a lot of the HTML errors I'd been carrying around with me for a long time. At least within the template files. I still had some issues within the post content itself to solve. Ah, but those can wait. Can't they?

The Magical Powers of WordPress Plugins and Customization

Then I discovered the power of WordPress Plugins and began working with WordPress developers and Plugin authors to create flexible and useful WordPress Plugins that continue to be popular today. Who cares about fixing content when there are so many toys to play with on your blog? Ah, what times. What memories. What energy and enthusiasm was flying around as people started discovering the possibilities inherent in WordPress. Here was a publishing system that seemed to know no bounds. We tugged, pulled, pushed, and stretched it to its limits, and while we borked it, we rarely really broke it. Like Timex, we beat it to a pulp and it kept ticking. WordPress gurus dug into my site as it quickly became the WordPress Plugin Crash Test Dummy playground for testing new and powerful Plugins. I still use some of these prototypes that didn't go very far in development but I needed them, as well as a lot of powerful and unusual queries and codes we developed over the past few years. As with all things, the glory and fun of research and development has to turn to the grind of work. With the latest releases of WordPress, my brilliant bits of code and customization are breaking and becoming obsolete. After the past two years of living on the web host from hell, I'm now on a new, more powerful server and updating my WordPress blog, only to find the same problems such shifts from old to new methods bring. I'm rediscovering all the bandages I have put on my blog over the years. My blog looks like a smaller version of what my husband's project involves, and it makes me cry.

Moving Forward With The Updating Times

Preparing for the newest upgrade of WordPress, my heart is heavy. As I look at each bit of code, cleaning up or throwing out, it brings back memories. Such precious memories of jumping on the live chat and begging for help to make this and that work the way I wanted it to work, whether or not it was even possible to make it work that way. And of all the brilliant WordPress volunteers and gurus who helped me make the impossible possible. I get teary over each Plugin I have to deactivate because it no longer works with the new version, and the author has moved on or away, no longer supporting their brilliant creation...it breaks my heart. Like their authors, these Plugins are my friends and I hate losing them. Still, life goes on. People move and change. But I so miss my friends. In a way, it feels like I'm saying a final good-bye as I turn off and remove their Plugin from my blog. As I talk to my husband about the challenges of working with the new people to convert the data and old methods into more modern and efficient methods the new team can use, while still giving credit and appreciation for the hard work the others have done to get to this place on the project path, I think about how much old is still left in my blog, and how much it meant to me to have so many contribute so much to the success of my blog and WordPress experience. It's time. It's time to renew. It's time to get excited again. It's time to dig into the old code, peel off the bandages, and cut away the gangrene. It's time to investigate all the new and exciting WordPress Plugin authors and contributors with vibrant hot creative ideas, and welcome them as new friends on my blog. It's not just time for a spring cleaning but a major overhaul. It's time to clean out the old, get rid of the clutter. It's time to say goodbye to old methods that don't work any more. It's time to put some sparkle back into my blog. What about you? Are you still dragging around 3, 4, 6, or even 14 years of technology and code on your blog or site? Maybe it's time to say goodbye to old friends, and clean up your house so you can throw a big party of welcome to your new friends and a fresh new way of blogging. About the author:Lorelle VanFossen began her online journal in 1994 as one of the first website owners and publishers on the web. continues to be one of the most popular blogs on WordPress and blogging on the web, and Lorelle is author of "Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging". Her original site, , is one of the oldest websites on the web. As a public speaker and teacher, Lorelle travels extensively teaching writing, blogging, and photography, and her work can be found as a regular contributor to the and Blogger and Podcaster Magazine, as well as in many other popular print and online publications around the world. ]]> Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:37:19 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/is-it-time-to-streamline-your-blog 5 Types of Lists Guaranteed to Generate Traffic and Links to your Blog http://articles.blogflux.com/article/5-types-of-lists-guaranteed-to-generate-traffic-and-links-to-your-blog/ Good Linkbait - An entertaining or informative article that is well written, well researched, and highly linked to because of its entertainment or educational value. Bad Linkbait - An inflammatory or poorly researched post written on solely to generate traffic to a blog - sometimes even going so far as to lie to the reader. If you write Bad Linkbait, ultimately it will come back to haunt you. You may see a short term gain in traffic, but you will not retain readers for the long haul with this kind of tactic. DO NOT WRITE BAD LINKBAIT! It’s one of the worst things you could ever do to the long term success of your blog. I hope I’ve made that clear. Now, let’s talk about the kinds of articles that people like to read, that can generally result in links to your blog as well as a nice traffic boost. 1. ‘Best of’ Lists - You’ve seen them everywhere...you love them, and you know it! Top 5 hottest super models, Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies of All Time, Top 5 Punk Rock Albums of the 70s... The list goes on and on. 2. ‘Worst of’ Lists - Again - it’s just like the ‘Best of’ lists - only in reverse. Most of the time these lists are more humorous than their ‘Best of’ counterparts. Top 5 Worst celebrity nose jobs of All Time, 10 of the Worst Movies in History, 5 TV Shows that never should have been made! 3. ‘Info’ Lists - People love learning new information. Especially when that information is presented in an entertaining way and is easy to absorb. Lists are perfect for this. You should keep things shorts, however, because if your readers wanted to read a novel...they’d buy one. 5 Things you didn’t know about the Spanish Inquisition, 10 Animals that shouldn’t exist, but do!, 10 Historical facts that will blow your MIND! 4. ‘Resource’ Lists - The Resource list is a close cousin to the ‘Info’ list, but with one big difference. The Resource list is filled with stuff you can actually use. Sometimes it could be a list of organization software for your OS of choice, or a list of things you need to do before starting a business. These still need to be kept short, but they can be a bit longer, because the people seeking this information are generally looking for solutions to a problem. 5 Must Have OSX Applications, 8 Things to do before starting your own business, 5 Mistakes every first-time Podcaster Makes, and how to avoid them. 5. ‘Humor’ Lists - The ‘Humor’ List can fit into any of the list types mentioned above, because you can always write your lists in a humorous fashion, but sometimes, depending on the blog, a list purely written to make a reader laugh. That is something different. That is the only list you can lie in. You can make up whatever you want, as long as the list is clearly satire....but there is a fine line there, and you better make it clear this list is meant to be funny, or it can backfire on you. 5 Reasons I am convinced Steve Jobs is my father, Top 10 things that make you a bad person, 8 Sandwiches that will kill you from the inside out You see what I did here? I wrote a list about writing lists. Why? Because people LOVE lists. Lists are easy to digest in the limited amount of time that our attention spans will give a website. Readers can get in, get out, and get back to filing their TPS reports. Writing lists is a great way to generate traffic to your blog, but - again - I want to stress the importance of writing good, valuable content. Research your lists, make sure you have the facts right. Write good content, promote that content, and you will be successful. Now...how do you go about promoting that content? Well, that’s another article all together... About the author: Michael is a professional blogger and podcaster. As well as problogging tips offered here at Blogflux you can also find Michael on Bloggy Network sites Apple Gazette, TV Jab, and other upcoming projects. He also spends way to much time on Twitter. ]]> Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:33:57 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/5-types-of-lists-guaranteed-to-generate-traffic-and-links-to-your-blog Picking Your Niche http://articles.blogflux.com/article/picking-your-niche/ Why am I doing this? This is the very first question you should ask yourself - and do not be ashamed if the answer is “to make money”. If that is your answer, then you’ll need to do research on what niches are the most profitable (which is an entirely different topic that we’ll cover in the near future). My suggestion to you if you’re taking your first steps into blogging is that even if your ultimate goal is to make a living blogging, that you don’t jump right out of the gate and try to find an insanely profitable blog niche. Instead, you need to make sure blogging is the right thing for you first. Again, I want to be clear there there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit from your blog, but before you can get out there an rake in the AdWords money and commission sales, you need to know what you’re doing. If money is not your intent, then you’re already ready for the second question. Either way, if you’re a first time a blogger, this is the next thing you need to ask.

What am I passionate about?

Answering this question honestly is the only way you’re going to make a go of blogging. No matter what your ultimate goal is, if you are not interested in your first blog you will not keep at it, and you will not be successful. When you are a serious blogger, you have to be committed to what you’re doing just like any other serious endeavor. You have to set an update schedule, and you have to keep updating on that schedule if you ever want your audience to grow. People have to be able to count on you being there when they come looking for new content. If you’re not, then they won’t stick around for long - there are too many other options out there. So - what are you into? It doesn’t matter if its Apple products, Japanese Monster movies, politics, or foot cream - if you’re into it, chances are somebody else is into it too. So take a look around the house, assess what you spend most of your time thinking about, and start a blog about that.

Can I Write about this every Month/Week/Day?

When you decide on what you are most passionate about, you need to then ask yourself if you can seriously write about that topic every month, week or day. When you begin to blog on a schedule, you need to think about more than just how much free time you have. You also have to consider how much content there is to talk about. If your chosen topic is Bass Fishing, you probably have enough stuff to talk about every day - or at least every week. New fishing products come out all the time that will be worth discussing to your community. If, however, you’ve chosen a topic like soap box racing, you might need to do that on a lighter schedule (either weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly) because there is no real daily “news” or products released for that particular topic. Figuring out how much content you can realistically provide on a subject is essential to your success. If you start to update daily, but the topic doesn’t really merit daily updates, you’ll quickly run out of things to talk about, and your blog will die on the vine.

How much do I know about this subject?

Just because you consider yourself passionate about something doesn’t mean you actually know all that much about it. You need to make sure that you have a basic understanding of the topic you’re choosing to write about. If you don’t, the readers of your blog will tear you apart in the comments on your site. If you have a basic understanding of something, but don’t feel like you know enough about it to be an authority on the topic - then do more research. Learn about what you’re passionate about - that should be easy - you’re already passionate about it! Once you’ve learned enough to feel confident when you speak on the subject, go ahead and start your blog - but remember - if you start stating things as fact that aren’t, your blog will lose credibility, and your readers will find other sites to spend their time on.

Will I keep doing this?

This is the hardest question that anyone thinking of blogging has to answer. At first, of course you think you’ll keep at it. You wouldn’t start it if you didn’t think you could do it. What you really have to think about, though, is what things are going to be like for your in a week, a month, and a year. If you can’t see yourself writing about this subject at this time next year, then you probably need to find another topic. These are just a few of the questions that you’ll need to ask yourself when you start a blog. The key to a successful blog is content. Yes, marketing, promotion, and a bit of luck will all play a factor in the blog’s ultimate success - but if there is no quality content there, then none of that other stuff will matter in the end. These questions should help you pick the right niche for you, and I truly think your first blog should be about something that you love, or at least enjoy. When you start blogging, you’re not going to make a nickel at first, and you need to enjoy what you’re doing. After you get good at it...then you can go out there rake in the cash. About the author: Michael is a professional blogger and podcaster. As well as problogging tips offered here at Blogflux you can also find Michael on Bloggy Network sites Apple Gazette, TV Jab, and other upcoming projects. He also spends way to much time on Twitter. ]]> Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:33:23 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/picking-your-niche Internet Marketing Techniques Every Blogger Should Know http://articles.blogflux.com/article/internet-marketing-techniques-every-blogger-should-know/ SEO (image) I don't buy into the "SEO is everything" mentality any more than I do "content is king/build it and they will come" line of thinking. SEO does though have its place. * Select a clean XHTML valid CSS template as a starting point for your blog theme. * Use good foundation SEO practices in additional markup (eg. H tags for subheads, order crucial content before less priority items, use alt tags, bold etc). * Take care over keyword use in titles and anchor text An important thing to remember is you do not just want to just cater to search engines. We need titles to be actually clicked on and people to actually want to link to your stuff. Stuffing keywords everywhere and other spammy techniques will get you no further than had you not even attempted any optimization.

Tracking

(image) ROI. Three letters that should be the foundation of any online business but so ignored. Return on Investment is the bottom line. Are you getting out more than you put in? Where does your ROI come from? Do you even track ROI? This could be money, say advertising dollars, or your time, ie. are you getting sufficient rewards for the effort? What can you do more of (or less of) to improve your ROI? In addition to the blogging basics, such as RSS subscribers, visitors, page views, you need to know at least: * Where best traffic is coming from * Which keywords are being used * What topics attract the most loyal readers If your goal is to build an audience to sell to then you need to attract visitors who are willing to buy, while on the other hand you want people who click your ads, what do those people look like? Where do they come from? How can you attract more? Your stats will tell you.

Link generation

(image) Links are the key to good quality direct traffic and search rankings. You get far more loyal subscribers from a fellow blog than you do any other source. It makes sense, those visitors are already involved in reading blogs and are looking for more of the same. People do often think that attracting links is automatic when you have a blog. It is true to some extent, once you have found success. If your blog doesn't already fall naturally in the technorati top 1000 though you need to do some work. Directory submissions are not going to cut it any longer, nor are link swaps. Quantity is not going to get you on to page 1 of Google. With this in mind you need to focus efforts on generating good, clean, valuable content. This is much harder than spamming and a slower process but does pay off. As well as good, solid, regular content, you also need to look at generating “Linkbait”. Linkbait is any content or tool that has “I need to link to this” baked right in. It describes creating something so remarkable it inherently viral. This is hard to do but massively successful when it works.

Email Lists

(image) Not all blog readers are RSS savvy. Supplying at least the ability to sign up and receive daily Feedburner emails can almost double your potential subscriber base. On my blogs I usually see around 40-50% of subscribers use email, and my topics are often high-tech, so you can imagine how resistant readers in more mainstream niches will be to feed concepts. Also do not throw away the traditional email list either, they still work despite spam problems, and outperform blogs as far as product or affiliate sales are concerned.

Summary

Even though many bloggers think that blogging threw out the old school rule book, in fact the techniques are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Just as internet marketers borrowed from offline direct marketers best strategies, bloggers can learn from those that came before too. About the author: Chris Garrett is a professional blogger and internet marketing consultant. You can read more of his blogging tips, internet marketing advice and copywriting articles at ChrisG.com ]]> Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:27:11 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/internet-marketing-techniques-every-blogger-should-know 5 Lessons from 10 Years of Blogging http://articles.blogflux.com/article/5-lessons-from-10-years-of-blogging/ Blogger.com didn't arrive until 1999, so the masses didn't really have the easy tools we take for granted today. My first blogs were hand coded in Perl, Java, ASP and PHP. Now you hear the word on prime time news, in papers and magazines, over chats with friends and in song lyrics. There are now over 70 million real blogs, not counting spam. Every topic imaginable has a growing audience of keen bloggers and readers. What a wild ride for something, on the face of it at least, so simple or even trivial! Blogging has indeed come a long way from those simple "new sites I discovered today" and "what my cat ate" articles. Let's see what ten years of blogging has taught me and how those lessons can help you today:

1. It's not just technology

Geeks pioneered blogging so people think it is all about the technology. It isn't. Focus on people. It is people who read, subscribe, comment and tell their friends, technology is merely the tool you use to bring your content to the people.

2. Content is only the start

Yes, content is king, but without an army, what is a king but a simple man in a funny hat? If content is your king, promotion is your army. Saying all you need is content is like saying all a pie needs is flour. Success comes from several ingredients in the right measures; consistent, quality, valuable content, with good promotion, community and most of all patience!

3. It's not just WHAT you know

Networking is the key to success in blogging, and probably in life. Yes, it is not just what you know but also who. Get out and make friends.

4. Be nice on the way up

As a continuation of the previous point, I have seen so many people use and abuse their contacts and readers only to find when the proverbial hits the wind making device they are all alone. Do not make this mistake, be nice on the way up and you might get some friendly help when things go rough.

5. Give to receive

(image) What you get out all depends on what you put in. Over the years, I have seen the idea constantly reinforced that before you try to take any rewards, you need to give, give and give some more. All too often people think blogging is a route to riches, so they slap ads all over their theme, push dodgy affiliate offers and generally try to extract every last cent from their blog before even creating any useful resource. Remember, garbage in, garbage out. You will notice I don't talk about specific tactics, technologies or marketing techniques. Those are all important but I have found the key thread behind the successes and failures I have witnessed or experienced are those above. It's all about your approach and intentions. Get your head right and the blog will follow! About the author: Chris Garrett is a professional blogger and internet marketing consultant. You can read more of his blogging tips, internet marketing advice and copywriting articles at ChrisG.com ]]> Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:21:48 EDT http://talk.blogflux.com/topic/5-lessons-from-10-years-of-blogging