This is a guest post by Tom Walker of CreativeCloud, a refreshing blend of printer technology news, guides, and reviews.
There are tens of thousands of blogs out there, many of which will never make it past the initial stages of early bloghood. Sometimes this is just due to bad luck, harsh competition, and poor planning, but equally as likely is that the decline of these blogs is due to their owners’ poor management or inability to effectively maintain the site and communicate with their followers. To help ensure that you keep your blog active and popular, here are a few tips to make yourself a better blogger.
1. Go in with a Game Plan
So many bloggers begin with ideas of grandeur, but soon find that they have no real structure or organization for pushing their ideas forward. If you want to be a better blogger, go into blog ownership with a game plan. Lay out what you want to accomplish with your blog, where you want it to go, and what you want it to become, and then do it.
2. Follow the Golden Rule of Blogging
The Golden Rule of blogging is to “treat the visitors to your blog as you would want to be treated.” It’s as simple as that. Being respectful to your visitors, replying to their posts in a timely fashion, and making their visit as easy and effective as possible are important aspects to winning loyal followers. Unless your site is devoted to being rude and disrespectful, or acting this way is a part of your site’s mantra, it is important to remember the old adage, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
3. Communicate Properly
A large part of enforcing the Golden Rule is by understanding how to effectively communicate on your blog. Sure, you’re busy and you may not always have time to respond to every comment or question immediately, but by making your best effort to respond constructively to as many visitors as possible, you can help keep your site visits high and your word of mouth popularity spreading.
4. Look Ahead
With the blogosphere constantly changing, it’s important to keep your eyes on the road. Just keeping pace with the competition probably won’t win you that lion’s share of visitors for which you might be hoping. Being constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest when it comes to the subject matter of your blog can help keep you at the forefront of your blog topic.
5. Don’t Lose Sight of the Goal
It can be difficult when you get into the meat of your blogging activities not to get lost in the monotony of posts, replies, and updating of information. It is important to keep your larger goals in mind, and not become stranded in the swampy bog of your blog’s menial, everyday operations.
6. Provide Reliable Information
Try to make a habit of posting only the best information related to your blog topic. By staying current and posting reliable information, you will hopefully build a loyal group of followers and the quality of your blog will bring people back time and again.
7. Be Devoted to Your Topic
While you don’t necessarily have to love your blog topic, it can certainly help to have a strong interest in the subjects upon which you write. By being devoted to your topic, you can increase the likelihood that your subject matter remains consistent as well as get more enjoyment out of spending time working on your blog.
8. Present Information Effectively
Clear, concise writing, with a proper balance of information and graphics, and an easy to navigate structure can help keep your blog popular. There is hardly a bigger turn off for those visiting your blog than to be lost in a jumble of text and poorly placed links and graphics.
9. Develop a Routine
While not every blogger needs a set schedule when it comes to updating and maintaining his or her blog or blogs, at times, having a routine can help keep you on track. Having some structure to your blogging activities can be especially helpful if you are maintaining more than one blog.
10. Persevere
Being a successful blogger probably won’t always be an easy path to travel. It will take time and effort to create your blog and build a following. Making it a habit to understand this and persevere through the hard times might just be what it takes to raise your blog above the competition.
Your Effective Habits
What are some of the habits you adhere to in order to make your blogging effective and successful?
About Tom
Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers to succeed in search and social media marketing. Kristi Hines is a 
It’s amusing how often I receive requests from people seeking advice which blog platform to use as they start their blog. Of course, the platform is dependent on many factors, e.g. do you want to email content for it to be published, do you want control over how the layout appears, etc. They don’t think that way; they want to create a blog for whatever reason and want ideas of a platform. I think the platform is the last question to answer, not the first.
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Love all the ideas in this post. Here’s just a few that I use
1) Keep a list of topics: I think by keeping a list of topic ideas at all times you actually will never run into the issue of running out of things to write about. At anytime, I’ll have a list of about 25 ideas.
2) Write every day: You don’t have to publish every day, but doing a little bit of writing every single day will keep your chops up. Also, when you dont know what to write about you’ll have some archives to refer to.
3) Build relationships with people: To me this is one of the most important qualities of an effective blogger. Continually building relationships will ultimately be the the thing that propels you to the next level.
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Hey Tom good to see you here. It’s look like you take guest post campaign. You really created a good list and I already follow some of it will try to follow all of those.
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A good habit I have got into is to break my day into:
blogging
marketing
product creation
I like to do all 3 each working day.
Andrew
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So we can expect a really informational post on your daily activities then?
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A habit is something you can do without thinking – which is why most of us have so many of them. ~Frank A. Clark =)
I want to develop these habits and think!
Thanks!
I need to get in the habit of a game plan before I start my blog. I guess I “fire, ready, aim” so to speak. Great Post !!!!!!
Cool list, and it makes all golden sense to me, but there’s one vital point missing that’s sort of the mantra of my blogging experience.
Treat your blog like your extended body. Make your blog so epic with all your personal awesomeness and one-of-kindness that people have no other choice but to eyeball you
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Perseverance! This can be the hard one to follow. When you are just not increasing traffic or readers/subscribers, it can be disheartening! But, you are right – keep on truckin!
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I quite agree with you with the ten habits that you listed. In my opinion, we need to be humble when blogging. This is a good habit that we need to have in order to survive in blogosphere. We should retain humble when writing the content or leaving the comment in others blog.
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Amazing article. I agree that all those habits do and should exist in every blogger.
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I appreciate this list and think I am doing a reasonable job with most of them. My biggest problem is that I really haven’t had a plan overall. My blogging seems to be working out OK, but I clearly recognize that there is room for improvement.
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All your points were great I especially highlight point number two. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Appreciate every person that adds value to your blog when they leave a great comment.
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I would add
Don’t be afraid to write an occasional post outside your target area of interest. People have many interests and not hyper-focused on one idea.
It will make your blog more interesting and your readers will think you are more interesting.
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Keep it interesting.
I would go with number 5, don’t lose sight of the goal. No matter what happens, a blogger should keep on doing he/she do. With perseverance, the goal would be reached.
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A great list by guest author Tom. I especially like the line, “Unless your site is devoted to being rude and disrespectful, or acting this way is a part of your site’s mantra…..” I like it when blog owners reply to my comments, it makes me feel like I’m an actual part of the place and am wanted there. Sometimes when you first start something it can be exciting, and as time goes on, the excitement an newness of running a site/blog can go on a downward spiral fast. Reading articles like this one can motivate you to get back on track. Thanks!!!
I think #5 – Don’t Lose Sight of the Goal – has got to be one of the easiest traps to fall into. I’ve caught myself more then once. I like to keep at least one, but no more then one other thing going on in multitasking.
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I believe that #1 (Game Plan) and #10 (Perseverance) and directly connected. You can continue to revise your Game Plan over time but if you don’t stick to it and if you don’t Persevere and work at it on a daily basis then all the other items may be futile.
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if you are a blog commenter i think best way is this you should have to read the whole post and make a relevant comment which is really real.
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In my opinion “3. Communicate Properly” and “6. Provide Reliable Information” are the most important points. Blog articles should be written in such a way that the reader feels that article writer is talking with him. Reliable information is important not just for blogs, but for every website. It persuades visitors to come back for more info and you can make a strong and regular audience for your blog.
Think… Plan… Decide… Execute…
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Great information and tips. The most important concept of blogging is to write about the reader. Help them solve their problems, address industry trends/challenges, be more successful. It’s never about you (the writer)—it’s always about them. That’s how you develop a following. Share valuable information without being self-serving and trying to sell. People ask me all the time “Why would anyone care about what I have to say?”—the answer is simple- because you are focusing on them.
Susan
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I just had that realization about a game plan a week ago. I was just generating content working on my blog but… where was that going? nowhere atleast not really targeted at all.
So I started writing things down that I want accomplish with my blog and what new project I want to start.
Yes, so true blogging is surely not easily earned money. It takes tons of discipline cause you are essentially on your own.
Thanks for the motivational article!
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I really like number 2. Treating your bloggers with respect is def. a great habit to get into. It’s what keeps your readers coming back week after week.
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I think that is a good list, and I know you kind of touched on it with developing a routine at number 9, but I think the most important thing of all is to just keep posting. I run into so many blogs that have not had a post in years. All they are doing is just wasting space at a datacenter. Also, although I think it is good to try and stick to one topic some of the best blogs out there (well the ones I enjoyed reading the most) kind of lurch around between topics a bit!
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… Communicate Properly.. I think this is indeed the most important thing. I have seen blogs where I only could wounder about the person who posted it. There are so many uneducated bloggers out there that it is not funny anymore. They give out false data and false concepts in a language that only would do in the restroom and not even there. Sometimes it is really a disgrace. If you obey only this one rule you will make it with your blog. I hope that lots of bloggers will read this post and that they will have a cognition to the better.
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From my experience the habits of a person definitely are a make it or break it in terms of weather the person will succeed or not. For me at least, one of the best things to do is being consistent, and to get things done. It is far too easy to do nothing, than to do something. At least that is my take on it.
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Persevering is really important. There are probably a lot of blogs that have disappeared which may be doing quite well if only they stuck it out a little longer.
I’ve always thought that the lifeblood of a blog was the comments that people left. The more comments you get the more alive your blogs appear. The thing is that comments do not appear out of nowhere. If you’ve just started a blog don’t expect to write lots of posts and to have comments magically appear on those posts.
You have to let people know those posts are there and there are a lot of social media sites that can aid you in this. It’s also a good idea to comment on other peoples blogs, as good well structured, informative comments will encourage others to visit your blog.
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I always think of my reader before anything else, and I strive to provide them very comprehensive information, that is accurate, and also highly useful, with many resources and step-by-step guides that I hope can really help them to achieve success in their online biz, valuable content I think is the crux of any blog and readers will come back time and again for more.
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Thanx for the awesome article!
I think I more want the readers to get into the post, as I provide latest and relevent information. Can you post some more good and effective habits?
Happy Blogging!
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I would say that habitual, to the point of obsessed, content generation about interesting and relevant topics that a set of dedicated people tend to read online.
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