Activity in your blog is much quicker to achieve than actual progress.

Activity might make you feel like you are accomplishing something, like posting 10 new boring and uninspired posts in a row on your blog, but true progress comes when you have created something of real importance.  Frequently activity and progress have very little correlation.
As a blog owner you can have all the activity you want, you can post 100 times a day, but if the content is bad then all you will have is activity, and very little real progress will come from it. Real progress will come from [...]

Every choice we make with our blogs, every experience we describe… we have options.

Are we creating opportunities for our readers or are we destroying them?
It’s so easy to cut others down, to downplay the potentials, to insult and ridicule, pick-on and punish. It makes things a lot easier. Denying potential means you don’t have to try to succeed. Not building people up means it’s quicker to proclaim you are done. And not taking risks means you don’t have to worry about failing.
Almost everything we value around us was created by others who went out of their comfort zone, they did [...]

Love comments? You should. Getting comments from your blog readers is great. It tells you that you’ve done a good job. It says people care what you are saying. It shows you aren’t just talking to an empty room. It makes you feel all warm and happy inside.
So what are all these strange comments that talk about erectile dysfunction and web design services doing on your blog. Are people confused?
Unfortunately your readers aren”t usually the first to comment when you blog. Typically the first responses you get are from annoying comment spammers. And they never stop. They are the price [...]

When pouring your heart, soul, and depth of experiences into your blog, remember that you have two continually dueling realities to contend with.

No one is watching you – but…

Everyone can see you

While laboring away in obscurity, don’t succumb to writing crazy, insulting, stupid, or otherwise ill-advised content for your site. While no type of attention is bad attention for your blog – there is such a thing as bad attention for your life. Don’t write about things that could boost your blog and ruin your life at the same time.
Examples: (DON’T WRITE ABOUT THE FOLLOWING TOPICS!!!)

Ways to cheat on taxes (you [...]

Here is the official FinanceMark Bloggers Manifesto. A top list of 11 and 1 half ways to have a blog and not suck.

Be True | Don’t plagiarize. Don’t just try to sell crap.

Be Credible | Show people why you know what you are talking about. Blog about what you know.

Be Consistent | Write about your topic, not other stuff. Follow a consistent pattern for frequency & tone.

Be Open & Transparent | Have a picture. Include your bio. Include links to social network accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

Be Helpful | Write your blog to help others instead of just helping yourself.

Be [...]

Looking for the best blogs relevant to your audience? Know where to start?
Here are great resources for finding blogs; the most popular, the most read, the most linked – the absolute BEST blogs. Great places to find your blog role models.

Google Blog Search – http://blogsearch.google.com – Use this tool to find blogs with content relevant to your subject. No one beats Google for search.

Technorati - http://technorati.com/ – This is the search engine built for blogs. You can find anything your heart desires here.

Digg - http://digg.com – Popular things hit here all the time. Don’t forget to search by your topic, [...]

Find a blog role model - FAST.
Better yet find five. Five great blogs that inspire, educate, and motivate.
How do YOU learn? I learn by seeing AND doing. Either one isn’t enough alone.
Learn to blog by seeing what the best do every day, and then experiment.
Take their example – and then blow everyone away making yours even better.
NOTE: Having a role model doesn’t mean imitating others. Find what works, but then make it your own – it’s the quickest way to improve.  As Dolly Parton once said “First find out who you are…  Then do it on purpose!”

Someone once said “Do what you love, and you won’t work a day in your life.”
Ever had a teacher who hated her job? Did you enjoy class? How much did you want to hear what that person had to say? How much did you learn?
If writing has become a chore, write about something different! Be true to your audience, true to yourself, and the rest will come naturally.
Or it won’t. And if so then save us all and stop writing.
It’s easy to ignore bad writing. It’s near impossible to ignore great writing. Great writing comes from passion – [...]

How do you find your voice? “Figure out who you are, then do it on purpose!”
Who are you? What do you like? What do you hate? Do you know anything? Tell me with your writing, it makes you more interesting. Keeping me interested keeps me reading.
Not sure what your voice is when writing? Write for a while and you’ll find out. If it’s boring, dull, or inappropriate then apparently you are boring, dull or inappropriate - but don’t change it, increase it!
Amplify your voice, don’t stifle it – because it makes you interesting, and keeps people reading your blog, which determines how successful [...]

Some new bloggers think that in order to have a good blog they need to be brutally verbose – write thousands of words – create a fire hose of content. Luckily this isn’t true.
One of the most famous and successful bloggers of all time, Seth Godin, typically doesn’t even break 100 words in his posts. View this recent post titled “Do More vs. Do Better.”
Mark Twain, another literary genius, made this quote “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
Writing more isn’t necessarily better. Don’t fight to hit a certain word count on [...]