Advice on how to develop a good blog

[DoNoHarm]

Hello Everyone,

I have recently started to get into the world of blogging. I am starting to develop two blogs - one for entertainment and the other for academic interests. I'm not going to link to them here because I don't want to spam the boards!

They both will use wordpress and be hosted on my own domain. Does anyone know where there are good resources on how to develop a compelling and high quality blog? I'm looking for tips on how to keep the content appropriate, engaging, and useful.

Thanks!

 

[26139]

Yep

Read a lot, be honest and don't write too long of posts.

Write often, on a regular schedule if possible, and offer opinions instead or regurgitated statements.

 

[r.j.s]

Always do your own research. Don't take something you hear as fact and just spit it back out.

 

[michael.lauden]

be original and dont ask others for ideas for YOUR blog

do a lot to cover things that are huge issues.. for instance.. look at all the main questions asked on forums and answer them (and give credit of course) so people don't have to search through 2 year old posts that die out with no resolution

 

[KingYaba]

Keep your entries short and to the point.

 

[cjm3113]

Be original and be consistent.

The rest will follow naturally.

 

[dolphin842]

Merlin Mann and John Gruber tell it like it is. It's sensible advice wrapped in an entertaining package (more so if you know who Merlin and John are). Basically, it boils down to two points

1) Find your interest/obsession and follow it, and
2) Don't make decisions based on the question "Will this make my blog more popular?"

Or something like that. Good luck!

 

[Macrimonious]

find a niche and work within it, learn everything you can about that niche and be passionate about it.

 

[Melrose]

If you're presenting yourself as any kind of professional, always always always use good grammar and spelling. It shows and attention to detail and also that you know what you're doing.

 

[miles01110]

Read the wealth of tips and advice at ProBlogger.

 

[kolax]

A sleek, simple but good looking website is also key. No bloated stuff, like big banners. A nice font size is also good - I hate things that have headings in size 20.

 

[DoNoHarm]

Thanks

Wow, thanks everyone for the quality advice! This is certainly a great start.

How about everyone's favorite blog? Are there any good ones you know of?

 

[kolax]

How about everyone's favorite blog? Are there any good ones you know of?

I'd assume Engadget would be at the top of most people's lists.

 

[Macrimonious]

It's tough to say what a good blog is, such a wide wide range. I'd start by looking at the Denton empire (headlined by Gawker, also Gizmodo) Study MacRumors! You obviously like this one. What else...what are you looking to blog about? What are your goals / aspirations for the project?

 

[DoNoHarm]

It's tough to say what a good blog is, such a wide wide range. I'd start by looking at the Denton empire (headlined by Gawker, also Gizmodo) Study MacRumors! You obviously like this one. What else...what are you looking to blog about? What are your goals / aspirations for the project?

I guess the goals are what I'm most conflicted about. I'm a pre-med student genuinely interested in medical and health news, so one goal is to make a blog about that ("idea 1: medical blog"). I'm also going to move to Turkey for 6-9 months starting in August, so another idea would be to make a blog about my experiences there as a Turkish-American-Canadian moving to Turkey who can discover all these hidden spots ("idea 2: lonely planet like blog"). Finally, it could just be a personal blog kind of like a live journal ("idea 3: personal blog").

Is it better to make it a more general blog and just have categories for each entry or more of a specialist/niche blog? Perhaps start out as a generalist blog and then split into two blogs once an appropriate ammount of content has been generated? Thanks for your advice everyone!

 

[soLoredd]

I guess the goals are what I'm most conflicted about. I'm a pre-med student genuinely interested in medical and health news, so one goal is to make a blog about that ("idea 1: medical blog"). I'm also going to move to Turkey for 6-9 months starting in August, so another idea would be to make a blog about my experiences there as a Turkish-American-Canadian moving to Turkey who can discover all these hidden spots ("idea 2: lonely planet like blog"). Finally, it could just be a personal blog kind of like a live journal ("idea 3: personal blog").

Is it better to make it a more general blog and just have categories for each entry or more of a specialist/niche blog? Perhaps start out as a generalist blog and then split into two blogs once an appropriate ammount of content has been generated? Thanks for your advice everyone!

For me, personally, I made the mistake of trying to start out with two separate blogs instead of splintering from one initial startup. For example, my interests were personal experiences and then sports. Well, I ended up intertwining the two and actually lost interest in both of them. I have been toying with the idea of starting up a new, general blog with multiple topics - if they end up needing to be split later, I can deal with it.

 

[miles01110]

I guess the goals are what I'm most conflicted about. I'm a pre-med student genuinely interested in medical and health news, so one goal is to make a blog about that ("idea 1: medical blog"). I'm also going to move to Turkey for 6-9 months starting in August, so another idea would be to make a blog about my experiences there as a Turkish-American-Canadian moving to Turkey who can discover all these hidden spots ("idea 2: lonely planet like blog"). Finally, it could just be a personal blog kind of like a live journal ("idea 3: personal blog").

Is it better to make it a more general blog and just have categories for each entry or more of a specialist/niche blog? Perhaps start out as a generalist blog and then split into two blogs once an appropriate ammount of content has been generated? Thanks for your advice everyone!

I think you should start out with one blog, the reason being that until you have a lot of content, individual blogs for each subject are going to look empty.

I really recommend you head over to Problogger and read through the articles there. While the site is about making money from your blog, a lot of them also focus on getting traffic, developing content, SEO, and other subjects that don't necessarily relate to making money.

 

[Macrimonious]

I guess the goals are what I'm most conflicted about. I'm a pre-med student genuinely interested in medical and health news, so one goal is to make a blog about that ("idea 1: medical blog"). I'm also going to move to Turkey for 6-9 months starting in August, so another idea would be to make a blog about my experiences there as a Turkish-American-Canadian moving to Turkey who can discover all these hidden spots ("idea 2: lonely planet like blog"). Finally, it could just be a personal blog kind of like a live journal ("idea 3: personal blog").

Is it better to make it a more general blog and just have categories for each entry or more of a specialist/niche blog? Perhaps start out as a generalist blog and then split into two blogs once an appropriate ammount of content has been generated? Thanks for your advice everyone!

In my opinion, you're better off being in a specified field. I would definitley write about your experience in Turkey. That is going to be the thing that is at the fore ground of your experience, it will probably elicit the most interesting material, and it may well be what you feel like writing about, which is the most important thing. If you can find a way to tie in your interest in medicine, your preparations for med school etc., then that's even better. Pre-med living in Turkey, you've already got your niche. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.