Does any one have any tips for blogging?

try to tell all people you know…to ask those people to tell people they know and so on so on…
then some kind of popularity will come :)
this will be a part…but you need FABULOUS design and few people working with creating interesting topics!

Innovate.
Are you going to make a design blog? Cool but hey, there are 10,000 out there.
Try to speak about something few people are talking about, focused, making your blog a niche for people interested in that particular matter. I believe 100 people checking your site 3 or 4 times per day, is much better than a large number stumbling upon once and never coming back.

Since you’re using wordpress let me give you some advice. Luckily Google ranks wordpress and blogspot blogs a lot higher than other forms so you’re already off to a good start. Get a lot of friends to comment. Subscribe to things like Digg, Newsvine, Technorati, Delicious, Etc and make sure that you always add each and every post you make to them. The design in is important, sure. But the actual content matters a little bit more because blogs with fresh content get ranked higher than stagnant ones. Join blog communities like Bumpzee and Blogger. I have a design blog here, and I’m running a wordpress theme that doubles as a really great CMS (Content Management System). I’m also running a series of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugins which help me properly name all of my title tags so Google can scour through them properly with real titles. So take a good look at plugins.

Write articles for places like Ezine Articles that are packed of keywords relevant to your blog with some links back to it. And it sounds like cheating, but create other blogs that reference the content in your main blog (with unique posts) and provide back links for it.

Hope that helps.

Yes. Stop using wordpress. It makes posting way too much complicated. I have a tumble-log which is use for just about everything but mostly for posting links. I am going to say NO to seo plug-ins. They are good for the short term effect but have a high risk of your site being banned from google if it realizes that you are using such methods to boost up your pagerank.

As for how to create a better blog ? Post good content. People will come once they find something good on your site

SEO plugins only get you banned if you’re using ones that make your site look like spam. Google will also only ban you if every page has the same title tag, header, etc. Use the SEO plugins logically, sparingly, and where you need to. I’ve never seen good blogs get banned from Google, and a lot use SEO plugins merely as ways to organize their posts, tags, categories, and page titles. I’m not sure what sort of SEO plugins you’re referring to that get you banned.

This article 16 Ways to Drive Traffic to You Blog has some helpful ideas.

WordPress is a good way of starting a blog because it provides all sorts of hooks for other people to find you through. You won’t have much control over the design without paying WordPress extra, however, (which I thought was really lame, and is pretty much the sole reason I won’t use http://wordpress.com) but that could be a good thing. It means you will focus on content, which is, of course, the most important part.

Like gashgai said, it’s probably best to provide some unique content with a focus. Don’t make a design blog or a web trends or technology blog unless you really think that you can do better than the thousands of people out there doing the same thing. That’s a lot of competition. Try to find a smaller, but still interesting niche. What are you interested in? What do you know a lot about? Write about that! Tell your friends. Update frequently, at least until you have a loyal readership. Link to other articles in your entries that are relevant. If your writing is good, people will find you.

Don’t expect it to happen immediately, or even for a long time. Remember that you’re writing a blog for yourself as much as for other people. Even if not a soul visits you weblog for months, you’re still writing which means you’re still getting better at writing which means someday maybe your content will attract someone else to read it.

Yus, lapliofu is right. I totally agree.

If you’re trying to build up a strong readership, update on a regular schedule. Regular more content is more impressive than good content, if you’re forced to choose between the two.

How many posts per day do you recommend?

I’m also interested in photography. Would that be good as well?

As many posts as you can manage per day would be fine. It’s up to you really. Photography has proven to be a pretty good bait for blogs as more people are apt to look at pictures and read small amounts of text. Which is why on Digg the majority of popular things tend to be lists of stuff. (These lists have pictures and small blurbs of text).

My question is why do you want to blog your blog to be successful ?

So mirza, you think that people should blog because they feel like they have something important and worth sharing? What are good reasons for blogging?

@lifeflame – as opposed to what? becoming famous?

@lifeflame: yes all blogs should have a purpose. Whether its to spread your knowledge, become famous, post stuff you hate/ like, etc – it should have a purpose. Personally I started my micro-blog to share all the cool stuff i found online with my friends and somehow it got famous (meaning 582 followers) and now other people visit it each day,

And i have said this before, Starting a blog solely to make money is like learning ventriloquism to meet girls

And can i add that a blog does not have to focus on one thing. Heck i post just about everything (that have no collation whatsoever) on my tumble-log and it still gets decent page views and is a lot more popular then both meganaloncat or lapiflou’s site (according to compete and alexa).

And since i am on a rant, SEO is nothing but spam. You are basically trying to get visitors by tricking them. Why not just have a good blog and people will come automatically.

No, there’s a difference between good SEO and bad SEO. Google can tell the difference which is what matters in the end. Sites that spam get banned from google indexes, plain and simple. =\.

Good SEO means you’re not tricking people, you’re leading them to something they already want. If people don’t want to go somewhere, they won’t click the link. And if by tricking you mean a “cute ponies” link takes you to a “gorey death link”. Those sites get banned by google pretty quick. Also, pages with high page rank where you insert keywords that link back to your blog/website/whatever don’t allow you to do that. You can only have relevant links to relevant words.

But hey, if you can get a 8+ pagerank without SEO, I’d love to see it and learn how.

@megalongcat: Currently I have a pagerank of 5 (although some tools say its 4). I have never used seo. i dont have sidebars linking to other blogs whatsoever and yet i am in the top 0.02% of blogs tracked by Technorati. Also I dont tag any of my posts so thats a no to individual keywords

That’s fine and dandy, but 5 isn’t the hardest to achieve without SEO; it depends on your type of website, how long you’ve had the domain and plenty of other factors. I’m glad you’ve achieved a nice little page rank for yourself. But that doesn’t change the fact that SEO helps a lot of people, companies, and blogs. It makes it easier for the traffic you want to find your website. Plain and simple. If you don’t need it that’s great, but that’s not the case for most people. It helps when done properly and it’s still my suggestion for the person who asked this question.

You don’t necessarily need to post every day; in part, this depends on how long your posts are. Shorter posts would need more frequent updates; longer ones don’t necessarily need to be every day, or even every other day.

Megalongcat, I have a page rank of #1 for ‘Ben Seven’, and I have never touched a search engine optimisation tool in my life.

May not quite fit the discussion, but I trust Google’s search algorithm enough to place me where I should be…

Blog Solid is a good place to get ideas. It’s whole purpose is to give “ideas for better blogging”

@ bridold – nice name, nice link to.