50 Habits of a Highly Effective Blogger
BlogWorld Las Vegas last week was awesome. I met a few celebrity bloggers like Mark Cuban, John Chow and Matt Mullenweg (founding developer of Wordpress) and attended many great sessions about blogging, podcasting, videocasting, SEO and social networking, etc.
I especially like this one session with Denise Wakeman, Rich Brooks and John T Unger on the topic of Blog Design Basic. Their presentation made be stop and think and start evaluating myself as to if I am really doing everything I am supposed to as a good blogger. 
I want to list out all the great blogging tidbits that Denise, Rich and John discussed and have added a few of my own.
This is a checklist for me and hopefully for you too.
Here you go… a highly effective blogger would …
Know Your Mission
1. Know and present your blog mission in the blog
2. Know the niche of the blog
3. Know who is your target audience
4. Want to add value and always help target audience
5. Be or become the expert of the niche
Let Your Personality Out
6. Be authentic
7. Be honest
8. Use first person “I” throughout the blog instead of 3rd person tone
9. Post a picture of himself/herself in the bio
10. Have clear blog tagline
11. Always remember the readers’ want is more important than what the blogger’s want
Don’t be a Lone Ranger
12. Network with other bloggers
13. Create Blogroll – Create links to favorite blogs
14. Submit blog to blog directories e.g. http://blogcarnival.com/bc
15. Submit blog to news aggregators and allow them to discover the blog. e.g. www.pingoat.com
16. Set up Google Alert and be aware of who is talking about you
17. Actively participate in commenting other on blogs and leave intelligent, appropriate comments and
trackbacks.
18. Allow comments on blog
19. Accept comments which could be negative at times
20. Delete inappropriate or spam comments
21. Respond to blog comments and establish relationship with readers
22. Pay attention to readers by closely monitoring popular blog post and keywords search (using tools
such as Google Analytics)
Blogging habits
23. Blog regularly and develop a time budget for blogging
24. Read other blogs regularly
25. Use permalinks when linking to previous posts that are related to current post
26. Love to blog and truly have fun blogging. Blogging should not be a chore.
27. Develop a blog title that catch readers attention
28. Develop blog post keywords to help readers to find the blog
What do you blog about?
29. Focus on blog mission/niche
30. Always ask “What benefits or values am I providing my readers?”
31. Always ask “Would my readers bookmark this page that I am writing?”
32. Give credits to other bloggers and websites
Design & Usability
33. Limit the number of categories
34. Make is easy for readers to find exactly what they are looking for. e.g. Posts about personal
development
35. Produce a readable and organized content with white space, short sentences, bullet/number list
and paragraphs
36. Provide side or pages with links to most popular or top posts
37. Limit the ad placement
38. Include Must-Have Pages such as:
-About Page
-Archive Page
-Contact Page
39. Include ‘About’ Page with:
-Photo
-Short Bio
-Links of References (if available)
40. Include ‘Contact’ Page with:
-Contact Form (avoid spam)
-Phone
-Fax
-Postal Address
41. Add features or buttons only when it serves readers or help with blog goal
42. Make RSS Subscribe button prominent and make it easy to spot
43. Make search field easy to find
44. Limit the number of social bookmarking buttons
45. Provide drop-down menu when there are a high number of categories
46. Create blog design that complements the rest of the personal or company brand.
Technical Stuff
47. Have your own domain name for your blog
48. Understand blog performance and how fast the content loads and ensure that main content
loads first.
49. Stay on top of or at least aware of the latest and greatest blogging updates or software
50. Conduct regular maintenance checks of the blog and make sure all the links & buttons are working
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