Bloggers o’Plenty seem to have plenty of ideas on how to be a successful blogger. Mind you, I’m not yet in the successful group, but in reading other blogs online, I have discovered three key things that make them successful.

1. Personality. J. Peterman. Jungle Jim’s. American Science & Surplus. These are all stores that have personalities, whether driven by their owner or by the staff.

Julia Child. Justin Wilson. Emeril Lagasse. Alton Brown. Wolfgang Puck. All of these chefs do the same thing: they prepare food. What makes them different are their personalities.

Blogging is no different. You have to let your own voice and personality show through. This may be difficult, especially if you’ve never written anything before, and it may take time before you find your own voice. But, you must let your personality show through your blog.

There are a lot of blogs out there, many offering similar content. What will make your content stand out from the next blog? What will propel you to the top of the heap? Personality.

2. Know the Rules. You have to know “the rules.” In that, I am including all the rules that are relevant to your blog. You have to know the rules of blogging: what works, what doesn’t. You have to know the rules for writing: what people want to read, what they won’t (or say they won’t) read. You have to know the rules for your subject matter. Make sure you know the rules.

You must know the rules so that you will also know when to break the rules. Too many people will buy into the idea that things have to be done a certain way, that there is only one right way to do something. Now, if you don’t understand why they are done a certain way, then you had better follow the “rules” otherwise you may look foolish. But, if you understand the rules, then you know when you can bend or break them to your benefit.

If you just simply follow the rules, you’re not going to stand out in the blogosphere. Mind you, if you don’t understand the rules, you might still get lucky and break them in ways that are beneficial to you and your readers. But, it’s also possible you’ll come across as a fool. It’s best to understand “the rules” before you go about messing around with them.

3. Identify Your Niche (But Don’t Be Glued to It). A common bit of advice is to choose a small niche, a particular focus, for your blog, and stick with it. But, I don’t think so. If you stay too tightly focused, your blog is going to be boring; it is not going to stand out from the crowd.

Mind you, you can’t jump around all over the place. Choose a topic, yes, and keep the majority of your posts on that topic. That’s what your readers came to you for and that’s what they want to read.

However, people don’t just want to read about the same thing over and over again. Add some variety. Go off-topic to keep your readers interested. Experiment a little. Just be careful not to lose your primary focus. People want to learn, but they also want to be entertained. So, don’t be afraid to sprinkle in some lighter or entertaining posts now and then, whether it’s on-topic or off-topic.

Sticking to your topic is not the most important thing, but not straying too far is. A good ratio for beginners may be 4 on-topic posts for every 1 off-topic post. Or, stay on topic Monday through Thursday, and do something fun on Friday. Test things out to see what works best for you and your readers.

There you go: the 3 keys to having a successful blog.

And, finally, don’t forget to share lots of “link love” with other bloggers, like Average Joe Blogger for example.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 12:32 am and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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