The Makings Of A Great Blogger

@Akhila - I think that the interest comes after time. If you continue to promote your blog, comment on other people's blogs, and forge relationships with bloggers then you eventually get readers.

I make sure each of my posts at least offers some takeaway to the reader. And, I actually don't write with the aim to be controversial on my personal blog. It just so happens that some of my opinions are controversial. I built my blog following by talking to people on Twitter, commenting on other blogs, and being a part of the Brazen community. =)

Hey Alexander,

Great question! I know there are so many blogs out there that will help with writing skills. Any Google search will give you a bunch.

Furthermore, reading helps to develop writing skills. I always notice that my writing is sharper after I finish a book or read a lot of well-written blogs.

Hope that helps! If you would like to talk further about this, message me.

Great post, Jamie. I had a conversation about this recently with my mother, who is trying to start a blog for her business. She said she wasn't sure she'd always have enough to write about.

I like to refer to it as looking at life with the eye of a blogger. I.E. good photographers see the potential for photos wherever they go; good bloggers recognize the good posts in their day-to-day activities, as you were describing.

Good writers are also good readers: if you don't have anything to say, then you're not connecting with the world enough. Need inspiration? Read some of your peers' blogs and write a post as your thoughts or reaction to one of them. Read an article or book related to your topic and talk about ideas that come up from that. You have to be informed in order to be informative.

And of course, that was me above - forgetting to sign in.

I think the great thing about the blogs I read when I first started blogging is they were not constrained by so much advice, there wasn't any advice. These people were not prompted by anyone. No one was making "rules blogging" or giving advice on what to do and not to do. It was just people blogging their heart out on whatever topic, with most of the topics coming from their lives, or their inner creative soul.

On some level the blogs were much better then, or maybe it's just the sheer number of blogs started now prevent one from finding the great ones so easily, now they all seem the same because eighty percent of the people who start blogs are all listening to the same people telling them how to blog, and giving them what I think is misinformation on things like "you must have a niche, and so one and so forth.

I think living a life is very important to blogging, and what seems to be happening now is that people use blogging as part of their life as if it is like a class one must attend and their is a curriculum for that class.

For the large majority of those thinking of blogging I suggest go for it, do not look back and do not look for advice of any kind until you have established what you feel like doing with your blog, and where you want to go with it. After a time you will figure out if it is just going to be a pleasant addendum to your life, like my blog is, or a serious part of your career - as it is with some people. You don't have to be any kid of authority or have a specific subject in mind if you want to write...just write.

Write what you want and your audience, when it comes will be genuine and more likely to stay. They will be your audience, not one which came because you wracked your brain looking for what most people want to read.

Every time I think about sitting down to write a blog, more than "what?" I think about "why?" Why blog, what do I hope to achieve from it. I'm very pragmatic when it comes to doing things. I briefly maintained a LiveJournal way back in the day, but found it too cumbersome and fruitless to constantly update everyone on my latest goings on in life. It's a huge time sucker and I'd rather spend that time out with friends or learning something new.

I can see the potential value in maintaining a professional blog. However, unless you really work at promoting it to bring it out of obscurity, I wonder if there is really any gain to be had on it. Unless of course you are a writer, then it makes total sense to build and maintain an audience that you can redirect to your latest work with ease.

For the rest of us though, I still question whether it is really worth it. Building and maintaining a blog is enormously time inefficient. My decision is still out on this one though. I'm still hoping to come across an insightful, data-backed-up post somewhere about the actual efficacy of blogging and why/when it does/doesn't make sense to do so.