Pick the right name. The name you choose must be clear and fairly easy to remember, as well as give a clue to what the blog is about. If it is about your company, then use its name or that of a specific product you want to promote.

Write an introduction. Most blogging sites allow for an “about” section or info box. Use it to properly introduce your blog and its writers, so that readers will know what to expect.

Write clear headlines and posts. Have you ever tried doing a web search for one topic and getting a totally different result than expected? Your reader may face a similar dilemma if your headlines are misleading and your posts are ambiguous. A blog must be able to sustain the reader’s interest, so try to be entertaining but straight to the point.

Avoid long posts. If you have no intention of boring your reader or cause computer-related eye strain, then it is best to keep blog posts short. Leave long articles to printed material, or put up a separate site for them.

Update often. Give readers a reason to check back regularly. This will also help boost popularity for your blog as it gains followers, particularly in its early stages. Three or four times a week should be enough to keep your blog fresh.

Simple is better. When it comes to your blog’s design, a simple layout is vital to highlighting its content. Be sure to have links to your archives, most recent posts, categories and tags on the side bar to allow the reader to easily navigate your site. Having all of your posts on the front page without links can pose the challenge of tedious scrolling, and lose your reader’s interest altogether. When you can, avoid cluttering your site with irrelevant widgets or ads that may confuse your reader.

Build links to build readership. Perhaps more tragic than a poorly-written blog is a well-written one that practically nobody reads. Once you have put up your blog, spread the word to your network. Take the time to read related blogs and leave relevant comments, along with a link to your blog. Also, use links in your posts to either refer readers to your previous posts or direct them to other sites that are relevant to the topic.

Interact with your readers. Reply to readers’ comments to add to the discussion. More than posting often, knowing and responding to your readers can increase your blog’s chances of rising up the search ranks, as it raises the likelihood of more people linking back to your site.

Manage readers’ comments. Keep an eye out for spam posts and remove them quickly, as some may be distasteful or annoying to your readers, or just not helpful to your blog at all.

Place ads strategically. Sure enough, many readers would rather avoid ads and visit ad-free blogs. But if you absolutely must host ads on your blog, take the time to plan and research proper ad placement. You don’t want to crowd the homepage with ads and leave little space for your content. If done properly, ad placement can enhance your blog and make it reader-friendly.

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Business
If you are an entrepreneur or a member of your company’s marketing team, blogging about business activities and projects can also help you reach potential clients. It will also give them a rare behind-the-scenes look at what makes your business work, as well as lend a personality to your company that customers can more easily relate to and, more importantly, remember.

Profession
Are you one of those “people of myth” who are actually passionate about what you do for a living? Then blogging about it can be a way for you to keep the fire burning. Whether you’re a novice still learning the ropes or an accomplished expert at what you do, there is a good chance that your voice will echo through cyberspace and reach someone who can appreciate your take. Who knows, your blog may even help ignite the passion in others to become better at what they do.

Home Life
Taking the flip-side of the topic of work and the workplace, blogging about your home life can be just as interesting. It may take a bit of reflection and a whole lot of whimsy, but you can turn your home experience into a blog that is exciting and even useful. Just try outlining your home-related activities, like doing the groceries, fixing a jammed door, or rearranging your furniture. Any one of these can lead to a how-to article, a product review, or a before-and-after feature. Just imagine an astounding number of people from all over the globe going online each day to search for practical topics, such as defrosting a freezer or where to find the best home entertainment system for the family. Maybe you can help them sort things out by being the example.

Hobbies
Many bloggers have taken their hobbies, collections, and leisure activities to make helpful and sometimes profitable blogs. For example, a blog site put up by an enthusiastic traveler to a foreign country to update his family and friends on his activities and whereabouts, can grow into a fun travel blog that other people may also enjoy reading and get travel inspiration from.

Name a hobby, and there would probably be a number of blogs expounding on it. If you are interested enough in arts and crafts, mobile phones, comics, figurines, motorbikes, or carpentry, that you are able to come up with many subsequent topics within the theme, then you should, by all means, blog about it.

Simply put, you can blog about virtually anything! In fact, many bloggers keep their blogs going by keeping to a combination of related topics, like travel and photography, or fashion and red-carpet events, or gadgets and gaming. Even if you are a casual blogger who tends to write on a hodge-podge of topics, the next time you ask “What is there to blog about?” you can take these cues to come up with your next post. Just remember, if you want to sustain it for more than a couple of casual posts, the topics you choose to blog about must definitely be those you really, really like.

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1. Subscriber Population: 1
Maybe in the early blogging days, bloggers find no problem in putting up their site intended for just one person, maybe a loved one or family member. It does sound romantic, doesn’t it? But when you think about it, what’s the point in blogging if you don’t want more people to read it? You can just send an email and avoid the search engines finding you.

2. Loading… Please… Wait…
When you have high-speed broadband, the latest computer equipment and best optimized web browsers at your disposal, chances are, you know just how fast the internet can get. Then it’s no wonder a slow-loading blog is such a turn-off.

3. Clutter, Clutter Everywhere
A possible cause of a slow blog is unnecessary clutter. Oftentimes, clutter happens when a blogger is a little too excited in putting a blog together. A widget here and here, picture slide show there, video here… just prevents readers from enjoying an otherwise great blog. When you want readers to focus more on what you are writing, keep distractions to a minimum. Treat widgets more like accessories that accent and add to your content.

4. Pop-ups
Who likes them? Certainly not the readers who would have been eager to know what you have to say today, if not for those dreaded pop-ups.

5. Poorly Written Posts
Some readers may disregard an error or even find incoherent writing a bit funny, but more often, grammatical errors, misspelled words, and hanging sentences get in the way of communicating your message. Take the time to check your writing, or if you’re serious about getting it right, brush up on writing skills with online tutorials.

6. Bad Layout Design
When your blog is better known for its giant header than what it is all about, maybe it’s time to consider a layout revision.

7. One-Word Comments
While a page-full of comments saying “nice” or “interesting” may be flattering enough, one-word comments are dubious. It leaves you guessing if those who left the comment were sincerely pleased by your post, or they’re just after the opportunity to post a link back to their site.

8. No One Linking Back
You may blog with the intention of reaching everyone, but nobody seems interested. The solution may be a matter of choosing more relevant topics or telling more people about your blog.

9. Recurring Apologies for Not Posting
Imagine asking someone to visit you at home and you’re not there. Of course, it’s different with a blog where people can check any time of the day. But when you have taken the time to promote your blog, be sure something new is there to see and not your latest post again from two months ago.

10. Embedded Music or Videos on Auto-play
Maybe you just love music or like the sound of a random video playing in the background, but those embedded media set to auto-play on your blog may be causing readers to switch off their speakers—for good.

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Personal Details
If you are one blogger who tends to be more personal than necessary, then you should stop right there. Your main audience may be family members and friends you actually know and trust, but keep in mind that a blog can easily be viewed by strangers. Putting out too personal information out there can put you or your family and friends at risk. You never know who is reading your blog to steal that information for fraud or other illegal activities. Breaking into your house when you’ve announced you’re on vacation, for instance.

Blogging Other People
When writing about other people on your blog, it pays to be extra careful. You don’t want to reveal any information that they themselves may be uncomfortable sharing. For some bloggers, it may be better to avoid blogging about other people entirely. For instance, take those people who use their own blog to vent about people they resent. Unfortunately for them, it is only a matter of time before those resented people discover the blogs and find out what these bloggers think of them. Some cases could lead to heartache, broken families, and estranged friends, while others may spur serious lawsuits. You would do well to avoid the trouble altogether.

Blogging Other People’s Work
While posting a review or reaction to what other people have written or originally published online is okay, copying entire articles or blog entries to post on your site is not. Just like in journalism and book publishing, plagiarism is a definite no-no in the blogging world. Doing so will not only damage your blog’s credibility, but also be a cause of dismay from other bloggers who have put in honest effort in their posts, and worse, prompt legal cases filed against you. When you want to re-post parts of an article to your blog, be sure to ask and obtain the permission from the source first. Then in your post, cite the source properly and link to its site location. Don’t forget to add your personal take on the topic to make it relevant to your blog. Better yet, just let that other post inspire you to create an original blog entry on your own.

Don’t Air Out Dirty Laundry
In line with blogging other people, avoid blogging about sensitive personal or family problems. Such issues are best dealt with offline. If you must, reach out to someone you know you can trust and confide in, but preferably not on a blog.

Off-Topic Posts
Finally, for those who put up their site with a theme in mind, just stick to it. There may be more leeway when it comes to mostly-personal blogs, but if your reader has come to expect useful posts on gadgets, for instance, a random entry about how cute your cat looks while it naps might do more harm than good. While some blogs are devoted to light, silly topics and actually thrive, such mindless, unrelated posts in a supposedly dedicated blog may be off-putting for readers who have very little time and attention to spare.

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Consider this “tradesman-like” nature of journalism, and assume that writers, in general, write on topics that the public want to read about. Relevance and urgency are what makes news what it is. When the Internet entered the equation, however, with its speed, convenience and ever-growing reach, news leapt from off the printed page to become more relevant and urgent online, leaving traditional journalism gasping for air.

Journalists behind major dailies and periodicals have taken heed of the trend, bringing broadsheet, tabloid, and magazine content online. The more visionary ones have put up blogs early on. Yet in the advent of the blogging age, when blogging tools have been made available to just about everyone, journalists are suddenly in competition with… well, everyone. On some occasions, newsworthy happenings are spread like wildfire by bloggers even before news editors hear about them. In some instances, the blogs are the news. When you think about how blogs are permeating the reading habits and overall consciousness of the public, then there is little wonder on how blogging is killing traditional journalism.

Think about it. On instances where an online newspaper allows readers to post comments on a news story, reading the comments on an online piece tends to be more interesting than the news item itself. That is when the read becomes meatier and maybe even more entertaining. On a blog where the writer has every freedom to express an opinion, and where comments are less stringently managed, the discussion becomes more entertaining and somewhat full-bodied, involving the reader more than ever before. Suffice it to say, the impersonal nature of traditional journalism is losing its readers to the more interactive and personal blog.

Those taking the side of traditional journalism may argue that its reliability and accuracy will insure its survival. But accuracy is not necessarily what blog readers are after; take the success of numerous gossip blogs, for instance. Yet more than the lure of gossip, readers are taking to perusing blogs to help them form an opinion, if not readily subscribe to those already presented by bloggers. Even the most discerning readers have a good chance of finding blogs written by the experts whose advice used to appear exclusively on periodicals. And the best part is getting it for the price of nothing more than a few mouse clicks.

Moreover, as technology has evolved to offer many ways to entertain rather than simply inform audiences, a quirky, upbeat blog, with any number of photos and the occasional embedded videos, may already have the upper hand over the straightforward, formal style characteristic of traditional journalism. The creative freedom alone opens up infinite options on ways to engage a curious reader.

The kind of advanced web tools readily available to bloggers are perhaps some of the most important advantage points of all. Some blogging sites enable bloggers to automatically send out alerts of their posts upon hitting the publish button, wasting no time at all in promoting the piece “hot of the press.”

Also, imagine a readership built on links strategically placed on other sites all over the Internet. While it may have taken years for leading publications to build a following, an interesting blog can easily match its circulation in unique hits in a matter of months. Newspapers and traditional media may be hard-pressed to find ways to market their stories as easily with traditional means, except, of course, when enlisting the help of bloggers.

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