The Lifelong Learner :: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are -Roosevelt ::

Some good information how to have a better blog.

1. Question, Guy Kawasaki: What can a blogger do toascend the Technorati 100—or simply write a better blog, forthat matter?

   Answer, David Sifry, the founder and CEO of Technorati: There are no hard and fast rules, but Ican provide afew guidelines that seem to have worked well for the preponderance ofthe blogs on the Top 100:

   • Post often and post at regular intervals.Ideally at least once a day, or even more often.

   • Figure out what kind of blogger you are.Are you a blogger wholoves to collect links? Are you an essayist who loves to argue pointsof articulate new ideas? Are you a storyteller? Are you morecomfortable with video, audio, photos, or text, or all three? Try stuffout and see what you feel most comfortable doing, and then try to stickto it.

   • Link prolifically. Give yourreaders the benefit of youpreparing all of the source materials for them. Also, if you arerebutting or commenting on someone else’s idea or point, itis a signof respect to link to them. The hyperlink is becoming a new form ofsocial gesture used between people. Tools like Technorati also help youto find out who has linked to you, so when I see a blogger who haslinked to me recently, I’m more inclined to discuss his orher ideasand link back to them, driving traffic and conversation.

   • Be honest. There are very fewpeople who can get away with building up personas, and you probablyaren’t one of them.

   • Write about what you know. It makesfor much more engaging and interesting reading. I love blogs like EnglishCut, because he knows so much about the world of Saville Rowand he writes about it.

   • Be Passionate. Nobody likes boringwriting about boring subjects. First find your passion, then express iton your blog!

   • Practice, practice, practice. Yourwriting or podcasting or videoblogging—whatever will getbetter as you do it more. Keep it up.

   • Get a Technoratiwatchlist for your blog and for your name.Know when people are talking about you and be able torespond—either incomments on their blog, or even better, on your own blog, with a linkto the other blog.

   • Get a full-text RSS and Atom feed.Make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog. I’drecommend a service like Feedburner tomanage those feeds for you and get you stats.

   • Use tagging. Tags are an easy wayto create open categories, andthey help to make it easier to find your blog. You can get a tutorialwith tools here.

   • Claim your blog and put in blog tags.This puts you into the world’s largest blog directory, Blogfinder,which already has over two million entries. And it means that if youwrite authoritatively about a certain topic, you’ll show uppretty highon the list for that topic. Which means you’ll get moretraffic and newreaders and links.

ReferenceTen Questions with David Sifry, Guy Kawasaki