5 Tips for Starting a New Blog

wrote my first serious blog on my old web site in 2007, which I dubbed "The Introverted Entrepreneur." I kept at it pretty consistently for two years, after which point I ran out of steam and quit. That was better than I'd done with The Black Pawn, my quasi-political blog in 2005 that lasted about three months and produced a total of nine posts. At present, I've been writing three posts per week on two different blogs. Needless to say, I've learned a thing or two about how to write a blog and stay inspired to continue writing a blog. 

1. Write ahead. Don't launch your blog until you have enough posts written to last you 90 days. When you've written ahead, blogging is fun. When you're under pressure to write something to keep your blog from going stale, it becomes an obligation, a ball and chain around your neck.
2. Get an RSS reader and start reading other blogs regularly. Coming up with new blog post ideas will be a piece of cake. Google Reader is a good one. Make a habit of finding new blogs on the internet and loading their RSS feeds into your readers.
3. Comment on other blogs regularly, particularly blogs written by people you know. Whenever you comment on a blog, you have the opportunity to leave a back-link to your blog. This will give you a little bit of SEO benefit each time you do it. It will also draw people to visit your blog. Bloggers appreciate comments on their postings. This habit will reciprocate.
4. Embrace guest blogging. Invite people to write posts on your blog, and offer to write guest posts on theirs. Most topics are too big for a single blog alone. If you write on a truly interesting topic, you will often find yourself having things to say that don't fit within the context of your own blog. Other people will appreciate guest posts, as it relieves them of the need to produce content. If you make a habit of doing this, you'll find yourself getting good offers for guest posts on your blog.
5. Learn how to pick the right keywords for your blog post titles. The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is your friend here. Start using it and practice regularly. People may be searching for answers to questions that fall within your area of expertise. Do this well, and the search engines will send you new readers.

If you do these things consistently over time, you can't fail. Persistence and practice are the keys to blogging, just like anything else.