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Blogging is a lot of fun, and it is also a way of connecting with others through a form of promotion. You are choosing to show your thoughts and opinions for the whole world to see in a way that best represents you. But, most people go about it the wrong way when they start out blogging. They are chasing dollar signs and not pursuing their dream of freedom via the Internet. It is not a crime to want to make money online and to pursue doing so, but going about it the wrong way will only result in lost time, energy and money. I have put together 3 major tips that I think anyone starting out blogging should consider before taking the plunge.

1. Focus on a subject you love

Everyone needs a passion. Passion is a good motivating tool as well as fun. If you have participated in any outdoor sports, games, hobbies or arts for many years, you are probably dealing with a passion. Blogging needs to have the same passion. You should be able to blog without visitors, without pay, without recognition all for the love of it. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go after visitors, money or recognition, but you should have the drive to do it no matter what.

It gets said over and over again that you need to focus on a small niche in order to be a successful blogger. While I agree with part of that, I think it is more important to focus on a topic you are passionate about. If you like antique furniture or remote control airplanes, ,jewelry or whatever the case my be, focus on that subject. I don’t care if the topic has already been covered a thousand times and even seems supersaturated. Still stick with that subject. You can always carve out your niche in any subject and still remain passionate about it. At first the results might not show in a crowded subject but by being able to stay the course for 1-2 years, you will see the less passionate people fade away. This week marks my sixth month of blogging, and already I have seen quite a few bloggers come and go. The simple answer: they were not passionate about their subject.

2. Frequency

Blogging is habit forming and like beginning or ending any habit, it takes time and dedication. It is not easy to wake up one day and say gee I am going to start writing every day; the same goes for putting down the cigarette. My advice to everyone who asks me how to improve their blog typically goes like this: “Write a blog post every day for the next 30 days.” Sometimes I hear back from people, but most the time I never hear from them again. When I visit their blogs a week or two later, they still have the same posts on the homepage and nothing has changed, but somehow they still have time to drop Entrecards on my blog. This shows very little dedication. The whole idea for posting every day is to build the habit of doing so to begin with. It all starts with a first step.

I don’t think you have to post 10 times a day to have a successful blog, nor do I think posting once a week will lead to a successful blog. I do believe posting and promoting more often will help your blog grow quickly, but I think that it is all in proportion. If you are a gifted writer and thoughts flow like water and your posts end up being 1,000+ words each, then having a post every couple days is completely acceptable. If you like to post Twitter sized blog posts on hot topics of the day, then I would shoot for more frequent blog posts. At the end of the day, it comes down to finding the best fit for you and your time, then posting consistently and with diligence.

If time is an issue and you don’t feel like you can take the time to post every day, then take an hour or two on a Saturday or Sunday to write out the next week’s posts. I go in cycles when I know I am facing a busy week. In those cases, I will write out a series or string of posts to cover the week. If I have more time on my hands during the week, I will typically do posts day to day. I always have ideas ready to go for the next post at anytime thanks to my many pocket notebooks and Gmail.

3. Content

All you ever hear about is content, content, and more content. The truth is… it is true, content is king. I know not everyone here is a natural writer with gifting that publishing houses are actively looking for, at least I have never been contacted. But, each of us is more than capable of creating and expressing a complete thought, whether it is thought provoking, opinion, rift, muse, story or analysis (I am sure there are more). Take the time to think about what you are trying to say and let the thought ferment a bit. It is not a crime to let a half finished post sit there a while as you develop the thought and content. I have had some posts sit in my holding queue for a month or two before publishing them, usually with a lot of revisions. Take time to think things over and explore different stances and do all the research you can. People are looking for a lot of different things online often at light speed, so give them something worth their time to read.

Don’t worry about people stealing your content. Rarely do blogs above you steal your content without giving recognition. If your blog is updated frequently and you have your pings set correctly, search engines will know where the content originated. I never really go out of my way to fight blogs that take content without recognition (just a waste of time in my opinion), I simply don’t allow their links to appear on my blog. Normally, they get next to zero for traffic and are only doing it to get the ad revenue. Rise above them and focus on writing genuine high quality content.

Protect your image and brand by releasing content that is fully ready to be published. If your post has a bunch of typos and grammar mistakes, it will only reflect poorly upon you. I am the first to admit that writing is not my strongest point and knowing that I usually have my girlfriend (an editor) read over my posts before publishing them. If having a significant other as an editor is not an option, there are many sites like quickpostedit.com that will edit your blog post quickly and cheaply.

Conclusion

Be passionate and proud of what you are doing and remember why you chose to blog in the first place. I am a big fan of goals and making sure there is a why behind the reason, whatever that why may be. It is not easy to start a new hobby, and it takes time and work. If you pursue your passions online like you would offline, it will carry you through the times of uncertainty and doubt. If you don’t play rugby in real life, why would you choose to blog about it?

The ides of networking and using all of the different social networking sites to gain traffic and stature seems a little off to me. Maybe I am reading into things a little too much here, but I know for a fact that maintaining even a couple social networking profiles is time consuming. I am going to run a few hypothetical numbers here and see what you think.

Let’s propose that I spend 1-2 hours a day using sites like Entrecard, StumbleUpon, Sitehoppin, Digg, del.icio.us and so on. These are all great ways to get my name and brand out onto the open Internet market. But could that time be spent better elsewhere? I am willing to bet that spending 1 hour a day finding blogs just like your own that focus on similar niche topics would be much more worthwhile. 

What if you emailed each new blog or website you found and offered to swap blogroll links for the month? Or perhaps swap 125 avatars or maybe even blog posts… Would that be too crazy? I am going to run a live experiment here, doing just the things I am talking about. Each day I will spend the time to connect with at least 2 different bloggers. I know this might not seem as easy as using Digg or Stumble, but it will be easy to send similar emails and ideas to different bloggers.

Time spent actually connecting with others just like you would do volumes more for establishing yourself within your niche. If you aren’t ranking #1 or on the first page in a search, will Digg or StumbleUpon improve that? The people who will stick around and add the most to your blog are going to be the people who find you while searching for what they are looking for, not finding you by accident. Start small and build from there.