Research in the Internet: Blogger’s Handbook

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20. March 2009

6 Important Considerations for Future Bloggers

Since more and more people manage to leave their desolate years as “non-bloggers” behind and open the door to this fascinating New World, I thought: why not provide these cheeky contemporaries with a handbook?

Let me start this new series with some basic considerations.

Why is it recommendable to get into blogging? Most of the web authors, for example, want to write about their spheres of interest. There are, however, other reasons, too. You can read about them in the recently published survey-of-the blogosphere (Vermessung-der-Blogosphäre).
After having clarified this, you should decide what target group you are writing for. An enterprise blog will be different in design, choice of articles and features from and aiming to attract the attention of other readers than Sarah’s Moon Rabbit Blog (Mondkaninchenblo) wherein she talks about the well-being of dwarf rabbits.
The next step should be to select a platform for the blog. Due to its simplicity and huge congregation, WordPress will certainly be a wise choice for many users. For those who lean towards extravagance, however, it might make sense to consider other systems, as well.
Now, I wish I remembered what was the internet page where I read … A web address that is easy to remember and right on the topic is worth a lot. That is why you, ladies and gentlemen, should think hard before you decide how to call the new experiment. Having to change the URL later mostly has undesired side-effects. For example, search engines have to adjust to the blog anew, which means the popularity you had is gone.
In my opinion, the most important thing is to write an article that makes you proud of yourself. Why else would anybody bother to waste time on reading the article? Your article has to be unique, new, useful and full of controversial material. Also, it should reflect the author’s nature.
Everybody likes to read something by an authentic author who is capable of selling his interests with credibility. Well, and there is something else, too: before your blog will conquer the world, you should collect a few articles in order to make a head start.
Set yourself a time limit. It must be clear how much time you spend every day on writing, maintaining contacts, etc (for instance a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of 2 hours). During the initial phase, you mostly spend more time building up and advertising the blog.
Also, you can find interesting information on what is the best time of day for a new article to go online. According to Sichelputzer, the best time for publishing your articles is in the morning. Many readers start work by reading their favourite blogs. And even the day of the week is relevant. More demanding articles are better published at the beginning of a week. We publish our Radio Philosophy automatically, which is certainly the easiest way for a series of articles.