this is the personal blog of brandon quintana.

TechRepublic has a post giving 10 tips for making your blog better. Most bloggers already know these tips, but they’re pretty good tips for those just starting out in blogging or just want some information before you start blogging. I’ll go over the 10 tips and give my take on them.

Define your purpose – When you start a blog you have to have a topic. Even if its a broad range of topics they still have to fit accordingly into your blog. An example, my lightenment.com site is focused on gadgets. My personal blog however covers a wide range of topics but are categorized into topics of interest for me.

Create visual appeal – Content is probably the most important part of your blog, however, people tend to be attracted to things that look nice. If your site is easy to use and people like looking at it, it will give them a reason to come back.

Use the proper tools – There are many tools out there for people that aren’t technically inclined to start blogging. Also there are some open source applications out there for you to get started. I created my own blogging software so I could customize it for my needs. I do use the software across all the blogs in order to keep consistent functionality.

Make it easy to navigate – Everyone hates sites on the web that are hard to use and sites that make it hard for them to find the information he or she is looking for. Blogs are no different. There tends to be a lot more content, but there’s no excuse for poor organization.

Stay in one place – Keeping the same service and URLs are important. People that go and read the site over and over know your site by its name. If it always moves around you’ll make it hard for them to find it. Also keeping the same service and IP addresses will help search engines cache your site.

Engage your readers – Write about stuff that people enjoy. If the reader becomes hooked they will come back over and over. Keeping posts up to date is an important part. Of course, that’s easier said than done. People are busy and I sometimes find it hard to find time to make sure I post to the blogs.

Establish a blogging schedule – Blog readers like to read new content every time they visit the site. For me the blogs I read probably post multiple times a day. This is easy if you have a team of bloggers on the site, but much harder if your just one individual especially if you have multiple blogs. Keeping a consistent routine will help the blog and keep your readers.

Proofread before publishing – Even though blogs are written pretty casually, that doesn’t mean it should have spelling errors. It should also make sense to most people otherwise people won’t want to read it.

Go syndicate yourself – RSS is probably one of the most important parts of the blog. Having people subscribe to it as well as posting in RSS/Blog search engines such as Technorati and Feedburner will help bring traffic to your site.

TechRepublic has some great tips. There’s a lot more research that can be done and of course if there are any questions about blogging feel free to send them to me or post a comment below.