Two weeks ago, Streamhead turned 3. Combined with the years end, it seems like a great idea to look back and reflect on why you might want to write your own blog and how you can enjoy the process in the long run. Because if you don’t, you’re probably not going to last a long time. So in this post I present 9 guidelines that help me keep going.
3 years ago I published my first test post to get this blog going. Initially it was supposed to be more of a gadget blog (and how to hack them), but I followed my passion and it’s now much more focused on programming, web development and multimedia. I still follow the Make: blog religiously, so there still might be some gadget hacking in this blog’s future. I’m not promising anything though 🙂
Over those 3 years and the blogs and experiments before Streamhead. I’ve sort of refined my reasons for blogging and the ways I can keep continuing. Although it’s always somewhere in the back of my head, it is certainly not about the money. The Internet is full of sites trying to convince you that it is possible to make a viable career out of blogging. They are probably right, but I don’t know how much the enjoyment factor is when it’s your primary goal.
If you’re primary focus is not money, the rules change a lot. The reason’s why you might investigate “sales funnels”, SEO, and Internet marketing in general are different. And most of all the type of pressure you experience is entirely different.
These are the guidelines that have helped me throughout the years.
1. Have an audience
Even if you’re doing it for fun, you won’t like it if you don’t have an audience. Most people have the tendency to be passive bystanders, so make sure you install some kind of tracking script. This way, you’ll know people are interested (or not), even if they don’t mail or post much. I myself like Google Analytics, but there are many options.
2. Pick a topic
Choosing your blogging subject is a difficult balancing exercise. Try to focus on one topic, but make it broad enough to expand or evolve. You don’t want the blog to feel like your day job, so make sure it reflects your current interests. And if those interests change, let the blog change with them. You should never feel forced to write about something you don’t like. That’s the quickest way to kill your blog.
3. Don’t create 100 blogs
If you’re not doing it fulltime, stick to one blog only. While it is very attractive to start a blog for every niche interest you have, few people have the time and stamina to write multiple posts per day. So if you’re doing it on your own and in your spare time, the update frequency of those 100 blogs tends to be too low to attract loyal readers. Try to figure out a way to combine all those interests. Maybe you can create a new niche that suites exactly right.
4. Take it slow
Don’t feel stressed to do things you have no interest in. If you’re a techie, you probably won’t care too much about design. So just take a nice template and use that. At some point the interest in design will come. Same thing goes for SEO or all kinds of widgets. Only invest time in them when you feel like it, don’t spend time on them because other people tell you you have to.
5. Don’t do the same work twice
If some one is already in your niche, or doing a project that you’d love to do yourself, try to team up with them. There’s much frustration and no point in doing the same thing twice. For instance, if there is already a great Wikipedia page for something you want to discuss, why not contribute to that and post a link? Only when you feel you have something unique to add should you do it on your own. Obviously, this is a personal choice.
6. Pick a popular and widely used blogging platform
If you like to fiddle with the technology that is running your blog, you’re better of picking the most popular software. A small and lesser known blogging software might be open source, so infinitely expandable, but it you have to do all the expanding yourself, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Each time you see a neat new widget on another platform, it will cost you a lot of time to create that for your own software. I like WordPress because you find the answer to any question via Google and it’s cheap to get hosting. On the other hand, if you don’t care about all those fancy widgets or your blog will be about creating widgets, go ahead and pick anything you like.
7. Stick to a schedule
This might be the most important advice you’ll ever get: For both professional and freetime bloggers alike it is important to set a posting schedule. If you’re unsure, start with one post a week, for instance, every Sunday night. Why this is important? Two reasons: it will make sure that you keep posting and don’t let the blog slip away when you are short on time or interest. And secondly, regular posts will keep the regular readers coming back and attract new readers (and it’s good for the search engines).
8. Listen to other people’s advice
There’s a lot of advice out there. Problogger is one such a great resource. Even if it is aimed at people wanting to become professional, over half of the posts are important for any blogger.
9. Don’t listen to other people’s advice
Blogging is not an exact science and it certainly is a personal thing. You should never feel like you need to do certain things because every one is doing them. Above all: Experiment! Try everything out yourself. If it doesn’t work, no worries, try something new and blog about it.
Conclusion
I’d like to conclude with the words of Merlin Mann, a great blogger:
Find your obsession.
Every day, explain it to one person you respect.
Edit everything, skip shortcuts, and try not to be a dick.
Get better.
(from his talk at IzeaFest)
Keep on blogging in 2011.
(image credit)