Old School blogging starts at an early age!

If I had a penny for every time somebody asked me:  “Shark, how do you become a successful blogger?”  I’d be a successful blogger!  The truth of the matter is that there’s no real formula for success except a lot of patience and hard work.  Sure, you could become an instant hit on the internet, like Charlie Sheen’s Twitter account, but those kind of success stories are few and far between.

My observation on how to become a successful blogger is as follows:

• CONTENT, CONTENT AND MORE CONTENT.  Like a real estate agent espousing the famous quip, “location, location, location,” so too does a blogger need content, content, and content.  I should add “relevant” to the front of that.  Most successful blogs on the internet have interesting content, whether that be a political pundit writing about the coming collapse of Medicare, or somebody taking pictures of famous celebrities and using Microsoft Paint to draw funny faces on them; either way, these blogs are visited because people enjoy the content.

• POST EVERY DAY.  There’s nothing worse than visiting an interesting blog and seeing that it hasn’t been updated since 2007 or something like that.  This is a real tragedy if the blogger’s archive contains golden nuggets of wisdom and social commentary.  It almost makes you mad to find a brilliant mind that stopped producing.  Granted, the blogger might have died, but if he or she just stopped updating their blog, I wish they would either post something to that effect, or just delete their blog altogether.  That reminds me, I have several blogs I need to delete, my bad.

• HAVE MULTIPLE CONTRIBUTORS.  The reason why this blog is destined for success, I hope, is the fact that we have a variety of contributors with differing thoughts, styles, and opinions.  In fact, if you came to this blog and didn’t notice that we were different people, you’d think the blogger had a multiple personality disorder or at least ADD or OCD.  What other person would write about Texas Tater Twisters one day and post poetry about a well the next?  Having multiple contributors also ensures that the content is varied, and takes the stress off one person having to post every day.  It really is hard coming up with fresh things, and with multiple contributors I can take a breather knowing that somebody will post and keep the blog rolling.  It’s very comforting to know that.

• VISIT OTHER BLOGS.  A successful blogger is a voracious reader of other blogs.  Reading what other people are writing about helps you to formulate ideas of your own.  This is particularly useful if you are suffering from writer’s block.  When visiting other people’s blogs it’s also important to leave commentary.  It’s not only polite, but the blogger gets a real sense of accomplishment from knowing that somebody actually took the time to read what they had posted.  Leaving commentary also means that some people might read your comment and click on your link back to your blog.  I don’t know how many times I’ve found a great blog just by reading the excellent commentary left on somebody’s blog and following the commentator back to their blog.

• BE PROACTIVE.  This follows what I previously posted about commentary.  Be out there in cyberspace, join forums, link clubs, chat, post and be proactive.  Nobody is going to find your blog unless you make yourself heard, or you utilize excellent tag lines or eye-catching topic titles.  Twitter is also a great place to get new followers fast, but be prepared for a possible spam storm or an information overload.