1) Blogging isn’t Easy – Doing it well and being successful at blogging isn’t easy. Anyone can setup a blog and start blogging it’s pretty easy, the hundreds and thousands of blogs that litter the net prove it’s easy, most of those blogs are so bad they make my eyes bleed.

2) Practice doesn’t make you perfect – It won’t make you perfect, nobody is perfect, but practice will make you better but only if you learn from your mistakes. If you don’t learn from your mistakes you will be doomed to keep making the same mistakes over and over and never improve.

I have lost count of how many blogs and web sites I have designed, looking back a lot of them weren’t that great but I can see that each blog and web site did improve over time. The next blog or web site would be better than the last one. I just kept practicing and i got a lot better but not perfect.

One way to help ensure committment is to write about something you are genuinely interested in. Blogging should be at least partly a labour of love..other wise it becomes too tedious and you’ll probably give up.

Cheers

I think No 4 is a bit extreme. If you would scrutinize the comments you get on your blog that way, then it would be better to go the no-comments route. And why would anybody go to a contact form to suggest something to you after reading a post? I think it would be better to make the suggestions related to a post in the comments. It will add to the post and other commenters can learn from it. Moreover it is quicker for the commenter.

Unless maybe you prefer it behind the scenes so that others will not know that it is a commenter’s suggestion?

John

#5 is really essential, in my opinion. Blogs take tons of practice. Writing isn’t something a lot of people do on a regular basis anymore. Strange, but true.

Once you start writing a blog you realize how long it’s been. It can take a lot of time, and practice, to find your voice. And sometimes it just takes a while to figure out what you really want to write about.

I’ll stop by a poorly written blog one time. That’s it. A well-written blog leaves you wanting more.

Writing groups like The Red Dress Club are also really helpful to get your writing in better shape.

-Kris

Bloggers Rock !!

However, the above points are well explained.

– Ranjith

Wonderful comment there. You don’t need to go “niche” as long as you don’t plan to make any money from your blog.

However, if you intend to make money, there is no way you can succeed in 2011 and beyond without a niche blog unless you are some huge Hollywood celebrity or something.

@Nick

“The Elements of Style”- Ah, yes. The classic

And so agree with the “keep writing and writing” to get better. Yes, that is good advice as long as you have some guidance or are constantly critiquing and getting better. Otherwise you’re just banging your head against the wall. Two of the best books that helped me are:

The Elements of Style and On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Non-Fiction.

Check them out if you want to better your writing. Excellent share 🙂

About the latter, I’m really glad you say that because I don’t get very many comments! Don’t know why. As to writing for practice, I guess you’re right overall, but it’s still true that after 100+ posts, I do find it a lot easier to write: it just comes more easily and faster, so I guess I did learn something through plain practice!

The one thing that bothers me most is this concept of “niche” blogging. I don’t feel comfortable in a niche, my interests tend to fly about, from politics to economics, from big events in the news to cooking recipes, from books to contemporary art. How does one accomodate this? I did create 2 other blogs that are however linked in to the main one so that I can stuff away my flash fiction pieces and my cooking recipes, all in one place – in case anybody is interested in seeing short stories or recipes all at a single glance.

But the “niche” concept? It reminds me of “genre” in literature: this is a society (and a market) that tags you, that pushes you into a niche. All through my working life, that’s what happened: your job specializes you. You get good at doing just one thing.

To me blogging was a golden opportunity for (intellectual) freedom and to write about whatever I wanted without worrying about someone else’s oversight and pushing me into a niche. By the way, in French, a niche is a dog’s house…

I would love to know whether others feel constricted in their “niche”? Do you?

About the number 5: I think experience is always important. You only have experience when you practice.

However, not every comment is worth approving. You see good comments in here and I like responding to them. In a recent guest post i did for another blogger, I got a lot of comments and only a few were even worth replying to.

Most people commented to get a link. it’s obvious when you read through the comments. Sad thought is that the blogger accepted all comments as well.

It’s up to you to decide how you want your readers to respond. There are many blogs that do not have comments and still have a healthy reader base (zenHabits.net) for one such blog.

I know this because I thought I could make a huge amount when I started blogging myself.

I disagree! As a reader I love to read comments, if you as an author delete them or edit them because you don’t like their opinion. I won’t visit your site. I am sorry sometimes I wish I can see all the comments good and bad ones ( and I am not talking about spam like).

Thank you for leaving a comment.

Yes Irfan, I do agree that Darren does accept great content only. The thing is that, he doesn’t post often as he used to. Look at the blog. It’s mostly fueled by guest posts. If Darren posts, it’s mostly about his upcoming projects or something behind the scenes.

What I wanted to say is, people do not remember your blog because you run it. They come to your blog for the valuable content it provides.

@Marty Weil

I don’t say that affiliate marketing is not a business model. What I meant is, having Google adsense or selling ad space is not a very viable business model to make a living from your blog.

Agreed, there are top blogs making money this way. But they need to constantly push their page impressions higher to make more money as their ad price depends on number of impression.

Now imagine if you get paid 100$ for 1000 impressions instead of 10$ for 10000 impressions? This is the main difference with having your own product/service rather than relying on ad sells and also adsense.

@Chiara

That’s exactly what I meant. You see I countered what might be Daniels thought pattern.

I strongly believe that there is only so much of information we need. Rest of them comes from experience of “doing things”.
If you don’t act and simply sit there trying to soak up every bit of information, you are not going to get anywhere. Action is more important here.

@Jim Cooper

Exactly Jim.

@John

Yes John. Practice makes perfect as long as we are willing to put the effort into it.

If you practice doing the tango the wrong way a thousand times, guess how you will end up doing it? Unless we take feedback and correct ourselves, simply repeating our actions does not guarantee any success

For those who are navigating the blogging world for the first time, it is hard and you have to get some experience behind you before you can compete with the professionals.

No one is going to improve if they don’t practice writing. Practice does make perfect, because in that statement there is implication of the feedback loop you mention. Practice implies a desire to improve.

In my case, I started blogging about 5 years ago. When I started, I wasn’t very good. Am I a great writer now? No. But I am a heck of a lot better than when I pressed that publish button on the first post.

Sure, if someone just facerolls the keyboard, never taking care to improve, then they won’t. I suspect though that most writers and bloggers are not in that category.

To say a blog is not a viable business model, is interesting.

A business is a Business.

Just like when I search the internet for blogging tips. One site will say one thing, another will completely counteract it.

I like your tips, though. 🙂

But i do not agree to your 3rd truth: ‘blogging is not about you’. Let me correct you in other ways, it’s not about all niche blogs should start posting about themselves on their blog. It depends on the niche they are blogging and as you mentioned ProBlgger. Let me remind you buddy, Darren still advise their guest bloggers to give your voice to your article for ProBlogger.

-Irfan

This is an awesome post. This ugly truth is the reality which most of the bloggers forget and think it is very easy to move up and make $$$$.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge yaar 🙂

By performing good keyword research, writing excellent content, and monetizing your blog, you can make a good amount of money. You will need enough content to make the business model viable to bring in the search traffic necessary to attract advertisers.

While creating content isn’t always as lucrative as some other methods of making money online, it is passive income and will build over time. As with any business, it takes patience and determination to make it through the early months/years.

I am not saying it’s not possible. Those kind of stories are very rare. See any top blogger in your niche and they would say how hard they hard to work till it made any money for months or years.

While it is certainly possible, I suggest that we take inspiration from such stories and not be overly into such stories. Strike a balance. That is the key