If you follow these commonsense principles, and keep in mind what’s already been said, you won’t go too far wrong. A good post on a blog will be:

1. As short as possible, but no shorter. You should aim to put as much information into as few words as you can. Some posts are as short as 100 words; 300 – 400 is more common. By the time you get to 700 – 800 words, you’re getting into a large-ish post. Make sure you’re not waffling. If several important points need to be made, you might go as far as 1000 – 1100 words.

Any more than that, and unless you’re a very skilled writer, the sound you hear won’t be one hand clapping, it will be one reader after another snoring!

2. Informal and conversational, but no swearing! And while you’re at it, leave the jokes to the professional humorists. It’s not easy to be funny, especially in print. Just stick to a good professional style, without sounding too formal.

3. On topic. Focus your post on a particular topic and stick to it. Don’t ramble far and wide, or try to cover too much. Save it for another post tomorrow or the next day!

4. Informative and accurate. If you’re setting yourself up as an expert, be sure to check your facts and assertions. On the other hand if you’re stating your personal opinion, be sure to make that clear.

5. Easily understood. For a lot of readers, English isn’t their first language, so keep it simple and clear.

6. Designed for humans, not search engines. In other words, don’t go overboard with keyword optimization and h1 headline fonts at the expense of content, substance and ease of reading. Remember, search engines are a lot more sophisticated these days. If humans appreciate your posts, and visit often, search engines will too.

7. Updated regularly. Don’t let your hard-won audience drift away for lack of fresh material. Incidentally, updating your content with regular posts, and archiving your previous material, will help to increase your visibility and search engine ranking.

8. Checked for grammar and spelling. I should also say check your punctuation, as so many people get it wrong. And vary your words, instead of repeating the same ones over and over. Use a thesaurus to find a synonym.

Also, use a higher-impact word occasionally. For example, instead of saying “very,” repeatedly, see how “hugely,” “enormously” or “tremendously” look in its place. And be especially careful about “its” versus “it’s.” The one with the apostrophe is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” If you mean “belonging to” use “its.” So “it’s a fact” is correct, but “see how ‘tremendously’ looks in it’s place” is incorrect.

9. Made available through RSS feed. Including your blog’s content in an RSS feed will increase its readership (“its,” note!) and help drive more traffic to your site.

Technorati Tags: blog posts, Blog Tips

But not just any old blog will do. Because right now, the Internet is full of blogs that get traffic only from the author’s friends. Obviously, this isn’t going to help you much if your purpose in reading a book on Web 2.0 is to create an exciting income flow!

To have a blog that hundreds of strangers will visit, come back to and recommend to their friends, and to ultimately turn this traffic into sales, there are a number of things you need to do and features you need to include.

You need a high quality blog to attract fans to your website, and high quality website articles to create a traffic!

1. Quality posts: Providing quality posts is an absolute must. Have something worthwhile to say, say it well, and above all give value to your readers. Without this foundation, your blog’s already in deep dudu. More on what makes a good post shortly.

2. Good looks: Today’s successful, Web 2.0-style blogs have an attractive, polished appearance — and preferably, a theme that matches their subject matter. Are you writing about sports? Then a sporty look will be great. Single parenting? Look for something that shows an adult interacting with children. If your subject matter is travel, or great vacation spots, look for something scenic or recreational. Just be a bit restrained; don’t match a dark, Gothic look and feel with a blog on fun-filled retirement for healthy seniors! And if you’re not sure, it’s best to err on the side of conservatism and professionalism. You can still show style and flair.

Note that the better blog providers give you a wide choice of templates, which are often customizable. Good looks also extend to having a layout which is easy to read and pleasant to visit. So make sure your elements don’t overlap, use a normal font face and size, skip the up-tempo music, and do away with the scrolling marquee!

3. Being well organized: Web 2.0 and blogs were made for each other. Things like tags, categories and archives integrate perfectly in both environments. Indeed, people expect these things nowadays, and mark you down if you don’t feature them.

4. Quick loading: At a time when people tap their foot in front of the microwave, muttering “C’mon, c’mon!” don’t expect them to wait for a slow loading blog. However, this normally won’t be a problem if you host with a major provider.

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, traffic, website traffic