101 Ways to Improve Your Blog

Posted on June 24th in Blogging — 20 Comments so far. Got something to say?

Not much to be said in the ways of description here, but this is 101 things (in no particular) that you can do to improve your blog. Not all them might apply to you, but chances are you’ll learn something.

1. Quality content. Always, through and through. Nothing is better. Period.
2. Write more.
3. Respond to your readers emails.
4. Email your readers.
5. Read the blogs of those who are more successful than you, and those not as successful.
6. Learn from your mistakes.
7. Respond to comments.
8. Share the link love.
9. Track visitors with an analytics app.
10. Use said data to better the user’s experience.
11. Expand your vocabulary.
12. Guest post. Get friends to return the favour, too.
13. Rant. Get angry and tell your readers about it.
14. Use a platform such as WordPress to administer.
15. Comment on other blogs, both popular and not.
16. Report news, any type. Break the story.
17. Write link bait, but not too much.
18. Write to be read, not for a quick buck.
19. Stop trying too hard, be yourself.
20. Redesign, realign, refresh. Resomething.
21. Write something interesting.
22. Write about your ideas, no matter how crazy they are.
23. Use Twitter to your advantage. Update with new posts and occasional plugs.
24. Post in forums, asking for reviews.
25. Put your blog’s link in your signature. Emails, forums, you name it.
26. Put your feed’s URL there too.
27. Submit to directories for websites, blogs specifically, feeds, your niche, etc…
28. Write a list.
29. Share your experiences.
30. Teach your readers something you know.
31. Submit your teachings to tutorial directories and databases.
32. Apply to every single CSS gallery you can find.
33. Write at night, write in the morning. Find your best time and create a routine.
34. Use WordPress’ automatic posting feature to free up some time.
35. Invest in your blog. Spend money on advertisements or backlinks.
36. Write the Ultimate How To Guide on something.
37. Make a joke. A play on words. Lighten things up.
38. Don’t be serious for a day.
39. Avoid jumping into something that has already been covered.
40. If a tree falls in a forest and no one blogs about it, did it happen? Find that tree (a metaphor for an event, of course) and blog about it.
41. Use similes, metaphors and other figures of speech to enhance your writing.
42. Write something deep and meaningful. Be a philosopher for a day.
43. Find your personal cure for writer’s block.
44. Be social. Post to Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, StumbleUpon and more if you think you should.
45. Be happy, be sad, be angry. Just don’t always be the same.
46. Help your friends out.
47. Check your Alexa rank, Technorati rank, FeedBurner subscribers and traffic stats every day. Twice. Okay, a million times.
48. Make a name for your self.
49. Proofread.
50. Spell check.
51. Don’t publish a post until it’s immaculate and is something you are proud of.
52. Make an Asides category, for posts that aren’t as important and are only a couple of words, to be featured in a sidebar or footer.
53. Personalize your blog with info about you, and link to what you read and all your web profiles.
54. Don’t jump on a bandwagon for no reason.
55. Keep your politics to yourself (unless you’re a political blogger) to avoid loosing half of your readers.
56. Don’t be difficult for no reason.
57. Don’t let things slow down when you go on vacation.
58. Send emails to blogger you don’t know, get to know them.
59. Exchange links.
60. Dust yourself off after falling. Getting hacked, downtime, inactivity.
61. Read lists like this made to help you.
62. Submit other stories to social bookmarking sites, not just your own.
63. Write something for print.
64. Take a break. Blogging can be stressful at times, so don’t let it get to you.
65. Don’t sweat the small stuff. A tiny drop in readers won’t affect anything long term.
66. Start a discussion in your comments with your readers.
67. Advertise offline.
68. Put your links in your IM names, and sign out and in every now and then.
69. Get traffic, because the more people see your site, the more likely it is you’ll find new readers and return visitors.
70. Release a free WordPress theme.
71. Write a code snippet, plugin or script that will help people and get you links and traffic.
72. Write a really nerdy post.
73. Learn about SEO, and how Search Engines work.
74. Work hard on your site to rank on the first page for a difficult term.
75. Rank #1 for your name.
76. Ask for help. Get assistance for your code, design, writing, you name it.
77. You can always improve, no matter who you are or how many people read your site.
78. If you get knocked down, come back up better. Write your best stuff after downtime and problem times.
79. Don’t let your self be treated poorly by your host.
80. Have enough bandwidth to get dugg.
81. Let your host know if you’re about to get dugg, just in case.
82. Learn about web servers and how they work so when there’s a problem you know how to get it fixed.
83. Keep your software up to date, especially security updates
84. Don’t try to be better than you are.
85. Don’t try to be worse than you are.
86. Write for the web. Use lists, bold, italics, images and headings to break things up.
87. Help someone with what you do.
88. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get 10,000 readers in your first month.
89. Remember that 99% of people start off slow and grow.
90. Keep in mind that if you keep it up, you’ll be much better in a few months.
91. Leave your ego at the door and treat everyone equally.
92. Treat everyone equally, until you get to know them that is, then you can judge all you want.
93. Do something no one has ever done, and do it well. Set the bar really high.
94. Participate in events you can do with your blog.
95. Use your blog to promote something good.
96. Get hands on with the code of your blog, the back end and the front end.
97. Leverage high traffic days and use them to your advantage.
98. Reflect. Write about how you go to where you are.
99. Don’t let others make the mistakes you did.
100. Be in it for the long run. Don’t plan on quitting or selling out any time soon.
101. Last but not least, quality content. Did I mention that yet? Oops.

Leave a comment

• 

  Adnan
  June 24th, 2007 at 10:19 AM

  WOW awesome article Connor, and Dugg.
  Check out 101 Blogging Resources for Resources that will help your blogging!
• 

  L3ggy
  June 24th, 2007 at 12:40 PM

  WHOA thats loads. When i read the title i was like ooh yeah as if but whoa. Good work Connor.
• 

  Marky
  June 24th, 2007 at 1:33 PM

  Another great post from the one known as Connor. I’m liking it :).
• 

  Alex Mould
  June 24th, 2007 at 3:45 PM

  Nice one!
• 

  cherries
  June 24th, 2007 at 5:00 PM

  Wow! I still haven’t read this but wow.
  That’s a lot, I’m going to either bookmark this and read it later… actually, I’m going to read it now
• 

  Naresh
  June 24th, 2007 at 5:04 PM

  You lied! Your twitter said “over 101″ This is only 101. Well..actually 100.
• 

  Goob
  June 26th, 2007 at 1:53 PM

  Amen to #49 and #50!!
• 

  jez
  June 27th, 2007 at 3:57 AM

  great list, need to bookmark, or even better print it!
• 

  The Personal Development Blog
  June 27th, 2007 at 7:30 PM

  That is quite a list. Lots of good points. I bet you spend quite some time on that one
• 

  Connor Wilson
  June 27th, 2007 at 7:34 PM

  You’d actually be surprised how quick it came. I wrote it all in one sitting, but there were times where I had to stop and think. Unfortunately this blatant link bait didn’t do much in terms of Technorati or social media traffic.
• 

  iZaP
  June 30th, 2007 at 5:38 PM

  # Apply to every single CSS gallery you can find.
  ^
  thats a good one… all of them are =D ill spend some time on improving my blog :> its not launched yet xD
• 

  Nathan
  July 1st, 2007 at 3:36 PM

  I like rule number 64. Although, I guess I should start to take it slightly more seriously if I want anything awesome to come out of it ^_^
• 

  gorstone
  July 27th, 2007 at 9:34 AM

  I totally agree with the point about visual design. Actually, first I had opened a MBL account and wasn’t using it for the messy green colors. But from all the advice of probloggers, I had to start using it again. I did find your blog through it, so; Yes, its very useful. I don’t care if they don’t improve the look, but please don’t deteriorate the quality.
  Also, please tell me how do I install the top commentators widget and the ratings at the end of the post.
• 

  Web designer Fredrick
  November 15th, 2007 at 3:29 AM

  excellent post to improve blog. i really found so many valuable points like Quality content, Respond to comments, Read the blogs of those who are more successful than you, and those not as successful, Submit to directories for websites, blogs specifically, feeds, your niche, etc…are great in improving blog.

  really wish to say a heartfull thanks to you for this wonderful timely post.
• 

  Nick - Supaproofread
  June 30th, 2008 at 9:16 AM

  Totally agree with the 100 - especially proofreading and spell checking your posts. Always annoying when someone has blatant errors in their work and you know that they haven’t read over it.

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