Building a successful blog

After you have set up your blog, how do you make it a success? Well, first a blogger needs to figure out how to measure success.

There are many ways to do so. Some measure success by the number of visitors. Others may measure success in dollars and cents. The truth is that few bloggers make any money from their work and only a small percentage ends up with enormous readership. But then again, most bloggers don’t start their blogs for fame or fortune. Each blogger decides for him or herself what success means. That said, here are a few tips for creating a successful blog.

Meet the Neighbors 

Almost every blog fits into some online community. It pays to be an active member of the blogosphere to which you belong. If, for example, you blog about art, it’s a good idea to read and comment on other art blogs. Add the blogs you read to your blogroll, and send a few polite emails to certain bloggers letting them know you have started a blog, perhaps with a link to a post of yours you think is particularly good. One good way to find blogs similar to yours is to search on Technorati (www. technorati.com).

Find Your Voice 

In short: Be Yourself! Every blogger has his or her unique voice, and this should be cultivated and used at all times. Write about what interests you and inject some personality into your posts. Even if you are writing about something as arcane as tax reform in Mongolia, it helps to have personality in your writing. One of the biggest differences between blogs and traditional media is that the former have lots of personality, which is probably why so many people enjoy reading them.

Keep it Current 

One of the quickest ways to lose readers is to not post anything new on your blog. That doesn’t mean you have to post 10 items every day, but you should try to post regularly and fairly often to keep readers coming back.

Make It Interactive 

Encourage readers to comment and be involved in comments yourself. You will find your readers have interesting perspectives that you may have overlooked, and by encouraging readers to be involved, you are much more likely to build a readership that has a stake in and regularly visits your blog.

Offer Something Special – One surefire way to build a successful blog is to offer something no one else offers. While many blogs comment on reports from traditional media, much rarer are the blogs that do original reporting. If you can, try to offer readers something they will not find anywhere else. Onnik Krikorian of the Armenian blog Oneworld Multimedia (http:// oneworld.blogsome.com) regularly posts interviews, translations, and his stunning photographs, none of which is found anywhere else.