Blogs are being used on internet since 1999 for sharing thoughts, writing about personal life, political situations, liking and disliking, reviewing the news and much more. They have a great impact on Social Media. Different people have different definitions of Blog. According to me,

Blog is a great way of social interaction. The basic purpose of a blog is to describe your thoughts and to interact with those people who read the blog and post comments on it. And the person who manages all the process involved in blogging is a Blogger.

Almost every aspect of life would have been discussed in blogs. There are blogs about sports, games, videos, shopping, science etc. A blogger, write about the things and subjects that fascinate him. Blogs are a unique form of social networking sites. People not only read the contents of the blogs they like, but they use them to make friends, share ideas, and personal experiences to help each other.

The popularity of a blog depends on the number of readers it has .Whatever is the content of a blog; every blogger wants his or her blog to be popular.

There are many Do’s and Don’ts of effective blogging. But I will describe here the most basic techniques of Blogging that can make a strong impact on the popularity of your blog and can help a lot in driving more traffic to your blog and hence, more people to read the contents of your blog. If you are really serious about your blog then you should consider these tips.

DO’S

1-List Your Blog In Top Directories:

After creating the blog, the first thing is list your blog in all the directories available for blogs. This way, your blog will be listed in the search engine and it will have good search engine rankings, which is good for driving more traffic (readers) to your blog. You can have a comprehensive list of available directories here.

2-Reply To Comments Or Questions:

Once you have written the blog then be prepared to reply for the user comments. The comments can be positive or negative. So, try to reply them all in a graceful manner and if there are questions then reply with solid answers that could be useful for the readers.

3- Add Videos And Pictures:

Try to include videos and pictures where appropriate. This will improve the look of your blog and will be attractive to the readers. But be careful in the selection of pictures and videos. Sometimes, too much multimedia contents make the webpage difficult to load in the browsers and hence can irritate the readers of your blog.

4-Quote From Other Blogs And Link To The Resources:

It is recommended that you try to write everything in your own way but it is also good to quote from a relevant source as long as it is cite. This way other people will quote your writings as well and traffic will be generated for your blog. But be careful, as many authors have reserved copyrights for their contents. If you are in doubt about the copyrights of any material , i.e. article, video or picture etc then it’s better that you avoid adding it to your blog or just provide links to the relevant resources in your blog so that if readers are interested they can follow that link. As far as I know, there are no copyright laws for linking to other websites.

5- Be Careful About The Content Of Blog:

It is recommended that you should be very selective about the contents of your blog, after all a blog is all about the content. Try to write the meaningful and useful things for the readers. Try to be focused on the quality of what you write rather than the quantity. It is good if you do some research on the topic about which you want to write. Choose such a niche for your blog that fascinates you. This way you will take more interest in your articles and you will be more productive. Also, people will get something good from you.

DON’TS

1-Don’t Forget To Include RSS Feed In Every Page Of Your Blog:

RSS is very good in maintaining a constant traffic and permanent readers to your blog. There are many popular feeds that you can add to your blog. Nowadays, Google feed is very popular among the readers. Try to add it. If you are a WordPress user then you can get a very good plugin containing subscription to all the popular feeds here..

2-Don’t Forget To Update Your Blog Regularly:

It is very necessary to keep updating the blog. People expect new things to be added in the blog regularly. That’s what a blog is about i.e., adding new things or stories to your blog constantly. It is a good habit if you add something to your blog daily or at least three to four times a week. But if it is not possible for you to maintain your blog then you can consider setting up a community blog. A community blog is one that is run by many people who are like minded, instead of simply by one individual. This helps to eliminate the needs for constant posting by one person. With several people comprising a team of bloggers, each person can post a couple of times a week and result in a blog that is relatively active.

3- Don’t Forget To Add Trackback:

Track back is good to let others know what you are writing about them. If you comment or reference to the contents of some other blog in your article then try to add trackback in your post. Track back is a great way of communication between blogs and generating traffic for your blog. But, try to use trackbacks only when it is most appropriate to use them.

4- Don’t Forget To Create A Blogroll:

Create a blogroll or link list of blogs and websites that fascinate you. Blogroll is good to keep a track of the websites and blogs that you like. By doing so, your readers will be introduced to those websites that are on your blogroll. It is also possible that the websites to which you are linking they might link to your blog in response, hence a good way to improve your readership. However do not create a huge blogroll as it can be annoying for your readers.

5-Don’t Forget To Backup Your Blog:

Always back up your website on daily basis or if you are unable to do it daily, then try to back up your blog at least weekly. This will save you from a great headache in case of any mishap like server crash down or if somebody hack your website. You can find an easy guide to backup your website here.

I hope the above points and links will be helpful to create a good blog. But you must remember that it is not easy to build a solid readership for your blog, overnight. For this, you must know what people like to read and then try to write that is worth reading. You should try to read other blogs, commenting on them, participate in social networks like Digg, FaceBook etc to promote your blog.

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2. How Blogging can help a business
3. Blogging Etiquette
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5. Viral Blogging: Tips and Tricks