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I used to think of blogging's reactive nature as a flaw in the medium. I've changed my mind, though. I've come to believe that being a literary parasite is no bad thing. I'd argue, in fact, that parasitism is blogging's most distinctive and probably its most valuable feature.

Bloggers blog for a host of reasons, but what sets blogging apart as a literary form is that it offers a writer an easy way to document his or her responses to their day-to-day reading.

One of the cardinal rules of web writing is to avoid large blocks of text. There are plenty of excellent web writing guides that exhort you to break up your text, using bullets, numbered lists, quotes, paragraph breaks, images-- anything, anything to avoid creating an intimidating wall of dense, impenetrable text.

Blogs work because they're simple. When we
clutter up our blogs with a zillion widgets,
features, and add-ons, we're destroying an essential part of what makes blogs worthwhile.

It's OK to be yourself; at some level, it is a cult of personality: people are reading not only because your content
is useful to them, but because they like you. It's normal to inject a regular dose of yourself into the conversation.

But like Tabasco sauce and other powerful seasonings, a little YOU goes a long way. A really long way. Write accordingly.

If you haven't posted anything new to your blog in a while, don't waste our time with apologies. Just write! The best apology is new and improved content. Maybe with a wee bit more consistency this time, though.

I find meta-blogging -- blogging about blogging -- incredibly boring.

Yes, exactly like this one.

The problem with Top (n) Lists is that they become
a substitute for critical thinking,

A blog without comments is not a blog.

2. No Author Photo

• It offers a more personable impression of the author. You enhance your credibility by the simple fact that you're not trying to hide. Also, users relate more easily to somebody they've seen.
  
• It connects the virtual and physical worlds. People who've met you before will recognize your photo, and people who've read your site will recognize you when you meet in person

Your posting's title is microcontent and you should treat it as a writing project in its own right. On a value-per-word basis, headline writing is the most important writing you do.

Descriptive headlines are especially important for representing your weblog in search engines, newsfeeds (RSS), and other external environments. In those contexts, users often see only the headline and use it to determine whether to click into the full posting.

4. Links Don't Say Where They Go

Generally, you should provide predictive information in either the anchor text itself or the immediately surrounding words. You can also use link titles for supplementary information that doesn't fit with your content.

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation

8. Mixing Topics

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

Optimizing Site Structure

Highlight Your Best Content

Until September of 2007 my homepage was the most recent posts from my blog. While that helps to promote new posts on the blog, it is off-putting to people new to my field. If you create a popular blog, make sure that your homepage is appealing to people new to your field. Guide them through the learning process, show them where to start, and highlight your best content. If your site grows into a business re-invest to create tools, add forums, and other interactive features that keep people coming back to your site.

Fix Page Titles

Many blog content management systems place the site name ahead of the post name in the page title of individual blog posts. It is best if your page titles start with the most relevant information first. There are numerous Wordpress plugins that make it easy to change the structure of your page titles. A couple popular ones are all in one SEO pack and SEO Title Tag.

Use Push Marketing After Launching Your Site

Being Remarkable

If you are new to internet marketing, read Seth Godin's Purple Cow to understand how to create remarkable ideas. Links are nothing but a citation. If you are remarkable the links will come, but not without a little push marketing first!

Sharing Social Proof

• Comments: If your site gets many comments people will be more likely to participate in the discussion. You can bold your "leave a comment" line or feature recent comments in your sidebar to encourage more comments. Replying to comments makes people more likely to leave additional comments. Some bloggers partner up, commenting on each other's stories to help make their blogs look more active.
  
• Subscriber stats: If you have hundreds or thousands of subscribers you may want to publicly display those stats.
  
• Borrow Authority: Ask authoritative people in your industry for feedback or input on a project prior to launching it. If they feel ownership in the idea they not only lend credibility to it, but they may also help you market it for free.
  
• Publicize Your Publicity: If you or your blog were featured in the mainstream media displaying a "as seen in" section on your site helps build your authority.

Add Interactivity

People read blogs because they would rather read them than read a whole book at a time. Including pictures and video in your blog posts, and breaking up big chunks using bulleted lists makes it easier to consume (and share) your site.

Show Your Bias

Having a consistent original bias and voice makes it easy for others who share your biases and worldview to trust you and spread your message. Most (perhaps all?) popular political blogs are heavily biased.

What matters is that the user experience is that of immersion in comprehensive treatment of a topic, as opposed to a blog-style linear sequence of short, frequent postings commenting on the hot topic of the day. It doesn't matter what software is used to host the content, the distinctions are:

• in-depth vs. superficial
  
• original/primary vs. derivative/secondary
  
• driven by the author's expertise vs. being reflectively driven by other sites or outside events

If you're an expert who wants to live from adding to the world's knowledge, you must go beyond the mainstream Web model of single page visits driven by search traffic. It's easy enough to build a website that freeloaders will use, but that shouldn't be your approach. You must change the game and create content that's so valuable that business users are willing to pay for it.

You should also focus on material that lower-ranked content contributors can't easily create in their spare time.

Both of these needs are met when you produce in-depth content.

In his rant the other day about the slow evolution of PR, Stowe Boyd said:

The whole point is that the people formerly known at the audience — the edglings, as I call us — are participating in the blogosphere, and if individuals within companies want to, they can participate: as individuals. Companies don’t blog, or converse: people do.