The Blogger’s Challenge
Written on November 30th, 2008 by Blogger
There are so many things bloggers write about when it comes to blogging. How to monetize your blog, how to SEO it, what communities to join, how to deal with the performance of your blog, how to get more hits, how to keep people coming back, etc. And although that is truely a challenge, in my opinion it isn’t the greatest. The greatest challenge is content, good content. That’s what blogging is all about.
Depending on your subject of choice, getting new, original and attractive content can be a huge challenge, especially if you want to write regularly. So what to do? Widen the scope of your subjectmatter? Make do with lesser quality? These things aren’t really an option, because you will loose the regular visitor very quickly.
Let’s see what strategies work when it comes to getting a regular stream of good content.
- Don’t blog if you don’t have content. It’s better to wait another day, than to write a lousy post
- Write unpublished items when you have some to spare and publish those when you don’t
- Browse a lot, you will get ideas to blog about
- Don’t be afraid to as for advice to likeminded bloggers or regular visitors, what do they want to read?
- Search for keywords and frases related to your blog-topics. Search engines, and especially image-search-engines come up with unexpected content which is exactly what you may be looking for
- Make sure you follow sites, blogs and feeds of the subject matter that’s related to your blog and
- be active in social networking communities about those subjects
and 
November 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
And always use spell-check. No one likes a blog post that has bad grammer and spelling mistakes.
November 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I’ve developed a habit of reading before I write, writing before I promote and promote before I choose to play games for the rest of the day.
As for me, I maintain six blogs listed on EC and a couple that I don’t list. I don’t write them for promotional purposes. Highly targeted blogs work better for me, rather than broad-topic blogs.
Regarding keywords and phrases, I don’t really search much. I’ve found that checking my stats package provides me with search terms I need to use
November 30th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
You have listed a good set of blogging rules to blog by here.
November 30th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I think this is a great article, and something that we all need to keep in mind. We shouldn’t be SO concerned with promoting our blogs that we lack the content that will attract those people and turn them into readers.
For Entrecard, and for everything else, promoting your blog will only ever be successful if your content shines. Thats why people will come back. Contests and social networks, and entrecard are all great to get people to look at your content, but if it doesn’t draw them in, you’re wasting your time promoting when you should be focusing on creating the best content you can.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:31 am
follow your intuition and mind
December 1st, 2008 at 2:09 am
Got some good ideas from you. Great!
December 1st, 2008 at 5:21 am
Totally agree with you, blogging is not easy job, and maybe hardest part is to make and produce idea for new quality post.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:55 am
In the second last sentence, it’s weekly and not weakly.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:58 am
Thanks for all the good advice…very nice reminder,even though I have been blogging for ages,I sometimes forget these important little things
December 1st, 2008 at 6:31 am
You try to post at least weakly.
Seems to be in contrast with the intention you have with your article: to bring blogging to a higher level.
I bet you mean weekly!!
I hate the fact that blogging also should mean being involved in online communities.
I don’t have the time.
And I don’t agree that one should get ideas from other blogs.
That’s teh reason why it is so boring dropping entrecards: the same sponsored posts and the same content, over and over again.
To me blogging is about enjoying the process and writing posts about things that might be interesting for others, but are mainly part of the outflow of what I humbly call: my creativity.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:54 am
Nice Advice…will have to follow many of them!
December 1st, 2008 at 9:54 am
@ #1 and #8
Ouch, yeah, I noticed at least three misspellings in this blog post. Gotta use Firefox.
Its slightly ironic that the post is about writing good content.
Nevertheless, I think this is a good post because I see a lot of bloggers who seem like they are committed to posting every day even if they have nothing to say. I agree that worthwhile content posted semi-regularly is still better than bad content written regularly.
Nathan – Inkweaver Review
December 1st, 2008 at 10:23 am
Yes, I am still learning …
Thanks for useful tips!
December 1st, 2008 at 10:37 am
A Google Reader full of blogs and websites helps find good subjects to link to or debate.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:46 am
A nice article, Yea I’m still a noob and hardly know much about professional blogging but I do feel content is the most important thing a blog is related to.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Man you are 100% correct the easiest way to blog popularity is content..content.. content
December 1st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
nice play on words, Laane!
December 1st, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Read! I get so many ideas from books, magazines, and newspapers that I keep a large clip file by my desk.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Test, Test and re test find out what works and stick with it. If it isn’t working for you scrap it and forget it. Immersion in your niche is one good way to get inspiration and ideas to blog on. Ya’ll have great ideas here.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Here are a few more points:
Be original and yourself.
Social networking is only as useful as any other tool. Don’t rely on it. Rely on your content.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:38 pm
thanks for some pointers about blogging..
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:07 am
good points. thanks for sharing.
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:54 am
Try creating and maintaining contact with other people writing on similar topics if your blog has a theme. Not only can everyone improve content through feedback and discussion, but you can direct to each other for greater traffic and make new friends.
PS: awesome spelling of “frases”
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:59 am
Those are some nice points, but finally I found someone with more vocab. mistakes than me, lol!
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:36 am
lol nice points. I’ve posted about this as well on our team blog.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
When I write on a certain topic, I do not just click the publish button. I review it more than once
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:57 am
Good points. focus on a subject than trying to write about everything.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 am
Thanks for all the nice replies and sorry for the spelling errors. I’m no native English speaker (oh, you noticed?
This was my first post on this blog and I’m happy to see that people like my contribution. So thanks again and hopefully I’ll be back to write here some other day (and following my rules). I promise to check spelling before posting….
Willem Kossen
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 am
[...] And here’s the link: The Blogger’s Challenge [...]
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Laane
One reason it is good to visit other peoples blog especially in the niche you are interested in and blog about is two fold.
First you get to see what your competition is doing and can see what they are offering others. Second, there is nothing wrong with commenting and being active on your competitors blogs as it can sometimes lead to JV deals. I commented on Scraps of Mind for about a month before Karen agreed to let me come on as a guest blogger.
She also freely linked to my blog in my weekly posts and it drove a steady amount of traffic to my blog for several months. It wasn’t a huge amount but it was enough that I never hurt for traffic and it further built me up as an authority in my niche.
As I said in my earlier reply you have to test what works for you and what doesn’t but don’t discount one method until you have had a chance to rely try it out and see if you get any long term results. Remember Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a successful blog or website.
I disagree also about the dropping being boring. Read my post on my own Entrecard experiment.
http://www.wildheartsworks.net/2008/08/my-own-entrecard-traffic-expirement.html
It was a worthwhile experiment.
I hope you give what you said some second thoughts and at least try some of my ideas.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:51 am
I don’t have that much to say, I just want to thank you for the post and the tips therein contained. I follow most of your tips already. I agree with you 100 percent when you say “The greatest challenge is content, good content. That’s what blogging is all about” because that is what blogging is and always has been for me: good content. I have a great respect for people (including myself) and I think they deserve the best we can produce. Sometimes my visitors drop comments in my blogs that let me see that they appreciate that and I feel great with those comments. Mine are mostly literary blogs but nowadays I am blogging promoting democracy and trying to bring down a dictatorship in Nicaragua. It’s a great challenge to produce good and useful content in this “thema” and this context, movving people is not so easy but I keep trying. It will take more than one blogger to bring down a dictatorship but I am doing my part the best I can. Hartelijk bedankt Willem!
Oh yes: welcome everyone who wants to help.
Pio
December 11th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Great advice. Content is definitely king. Sometimes I just blog for the sake of blogging, which I need to quit doing. Im sure my readers dont want to hear me babble about nothing. Useful and informative is what I need to shoot for.
December 12th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I always took the stance that a good blog promotes itself, so I agree that content is important. Because without good content, people wont read your blog, wont come back and wont share the content.