Tips for getting readers for your blog

Writing a blog requires little or no learning curve. If you can type, you can blog says Priya Shahan, an ezine publisher at EbizWhiz Publishing. “Blogs have taken publishing out of the domain of those who know HTML and designing, to make this powerful tool available to the rest of us.”

But Priya is so right that not all blogs get readers. For that you have to write about something worth reading. She provides some excellent tips to follow if you want to pick up readers in an article at webpronews.com.

Priya Shah’s blogging tips

• Stay on topic. Opinions are fine, but unless you’re the CEO of Microsoft, very few people will want to know what you ate for breakfast. If you started your blog to air your raves and rants about the latest movie you saw, better mention movies in at least every post you write.
• Write in a conversational tone. Forget what your English professor taught you. Write the way you speak, or you’ll end up sounding uptight and unnatural. And no one reads tightass copy… even from the CEO of Microsoft.
• Be opinionated. Your blog is not a company brochure or a press release, but a way for people a.k.a. your target audience, to get to know the real you. The worst sin you can commmit is to bore your readers. Most people respond better to an honest airing of views than pleasant platitudes. And if you get a few rude or nasty comments in response to your posts, just accept the fact that you can’t please everyone.
• Be funny. Infuse your posts with your natural wit for a better response from your target audience. And if not everyone appreciates your particular brand of humor, read the last sentence in the point above.
• Stay informed. If you’re writing about your profession, you’d better know what you are talking about. Word spreads at the speed of thought in the blogospere and if you’re trying to become an authority on something you know very little of, prepare yourself for the brickbats.
• Stay current. Write about the latest developments in your field. No one wants to read stuff that has been around for along time, or that hundreds of other bloggers have chronicled.
• Update frequently, but don’t burnout.

Most blogs die because of blogger burnout – bloggers trying to update too frequently. Stick to a publishing schedule that is humanly possible for you. If you’ve just updated your blog and find a story you want to share, save it for later. …[D]on’t post just because you think you have to stick to a schedule. Going a few days or even weeks without posting is fine if you really have nothing worth sharing.

I understand lawyers, especially you guys in the big firms, are told to act like lawyers (whatever that means) and to be careful about what you say, especially if it is, God forbid, to the public at large. But lawyers can publish some excellent blogs that demonstrate their legal acumen while at the same time attracting a large following.

You may not be able to go as far as none lawyers but follow a few of these tips and you’ll be surprised how fast your readership will grow.

In addition to her full time job Priya Shah says she is a Blog Maniac and that Blog Brandz is the legitimate offspring of her affair with the blogosphere.