maybe that’s something else to mention for newbies: get some kind of web stats reader. stat-traq for wordpress is awesome.

Quality of content should surely rule over quantity when it comes to producing a blog you want people to read.

That’s all well and good, but for search engine placement, I find that every day is better by far. I’m talking for a standpoint of “more traffic & better rankings”, balancing that between humans and machines reading your site. As proof, I’ve gotten to the point where things that I write today are fully indexed by Google tomorrow.

Tim, this list is great - exactly what I was looking for.

Oh good! I figured there were probably a lot of people that would benefit from it. Glad to hear it.

Tim, this list is great - exactly what I was looking for.

Garrett

most bloggers are glad to trade– the key is to not be an asshole about it and assume automatically that the blog in question will give you a link. if i find a blog i love i’ll immediately drop an e-mail to the author and let them know that a) i like their work, b) i will be linking to them in my blogroll and c) a reciprocal link would be appreciated (but is not required). i’ve got some really cool linkbacks this way, and i typically (within reason) reciprocate if someone asks me, too.

but, don’t be upset if they don’t reciprocate & don’t be all petty and remove their link — it’s really no biggie in the long run.

just started playing with WordPress, and it’s pretty cool. What theme are you using?

I started with the default or “Kubrick” theme. Basically, I just moved the sidebar over to the other side and modified the header. Everything else was just a much more minor edit. Although there are like a million of them and they definitely add up.

also, i know a lot of people expect like overnight success when they start one of these things, but it takes a loooong time to get regular readers.

Agreed… all these techniques together pay off much greater over the long run. If you do this stuff every day for like 6 months is probably a minimum. I’ve been doing it about 2.5 years which I think is ultimately the biggest “secret” to my “success”

also, another advantage of wordpress is it automatically sets you up with an rss feed. here’s mine, f’rinstance:

http://www.snant.com/fp/feed/

Also, one other item I think I should have added has to do with how comments are displayed on your site. Some people still use services like Haloscan, which host comments for you remotely. This is stupid because ideally you want to have comment saved right into the page they are about. This way, the text from people’s comments adds to the amount of keyword/content available on each of your pages. With Haloscan, you’ll never benefit from all this extra text drawing more visitors to your site

To those of you who don’t have a working RSS feed: get it fixed! (I’m looking at you, Garett Kelly).

My favorite point was: “20. Write great content!” When taken in the context of your whole post, this puts reading other’s content and writing your own together in the symbiotic relationship that we could call intellectual growth. The times in my life that I’ve grown the most were those times when I was attempting to tell or teach others about something. If there is no other reason for someone to blog, intellectual growth is reason enough. However, merely reading and writing is not enough. There must be a tension or anxiety to add value. Read, think then write.

The days of the modern newspaper are numbered.