Vindi's Top 5 Tips for New Bloggers

Being a blog-virgin (can I write that?), it wasn't the easiest of tasks to come up with 5 tips for other new bloggers. Here goes nothing...

#1 DECIDE WHICH BLOGGING SITE IS BEST FOR YOU
I had previously heard of a couple of blogging sites (Blog Publishing Systems) through either general web browsing or even on television. My research in finding the best site for me started with reading other people's suggestions on the NET.11 Discussions page. Reading some of these opinions from my fellow students would help in my final decision.

I also checked out the 5 most visited blog sites in the world (Alexa.com traffic ranks), so that I could see the variety of blog sites available and which one I would find most suitable for me. The top 5 are listed below, with my comments beside them.

- BLOGGER (nice interface, big icons, simple layout)
- WORD PRESS (professional-looking, if not a little bland)
- NETLOG (according to homepage... targeted at Europeans)
- LIVE JOURNAL (probably a bit complex for a first-timer)
- FOTOLOG (wouldn't meet my needs for this course)

Blogger.com became the obvious choice for me. Ease of use was always going to be the deciding factor, and this site is the most popular in the world for mainly this reason... just click a few buttons, type away, and click a few more and you're done!


#2 READ SOME OF THE BEST AND MOST POPULAR BLOGS FOR IDEAS
To make your blog stand out from the millions and millions that are available on the Internet, it's a good idea to peruse through the best of the best. Technorati.com is a great search engine for finding many different types of blogs ('search the blogosphere' they say). A quick read through the Top 100 Blogs on Technorati will give you dozens of examples of the type of content you can include in your very own blog to make people want to read your blog.


#3 KEEP YOUR BLOG ORGANISED
There can be nothing worse than having a messy and unorganised looking blog. Text and pics all over the place in no particular sequence will turn readers away. I would suggest using large and appropriate headings, only use pics when absolutely needed (ie... don't overkill) and I would highly recommend making use of 'labels', especially when your blog becomes bigger and longer as it will save a lot of time when trying to find a particular post. Also, SPELLCHECK!!!!


#4 SPEND A DECENT AMOUNT OF TIME BLOGGING
It will be painfully obvious if you have rushed your last few posts to get them out of the way so that you can go play some online poker! A good blog will not only have a good amount of content, but that content needs to have thought and emotion behind it. Instead of just doing the bare basics (in our case, just uploading our Module results), show some imagination, some humour, some creativity and most importantly, something unique.


#5 CONSIDER HAVING TWO ONLINE BLOGS
A serious blogger will be updating their blog every day, with heaps of their thoughts, events and ideas. Just throwing it out there... why not 2 separate blogs? For example... a blog for work and all things job-related, and a blog for your personal life. Who doesn't want to keep their work-life and actual life separate? Of course this might not work for everyone, but some might see it as a valid idea.


I welcome all comments and feedback for the above tips.

Coming up next... Vindi tackles the Module 1 tasks.