By 
Blogging is one of the best greatest inventions that we have created. When you think about blogging and the desire of people to let out their voice on the Internet, you then realize the true potential blogging holds. People blog for various reasons but in the end they’re letting out a piece of their mind and putting it online for everyone to see. Go through this article and learn more about blogging and what it means to blog.
Use the correct spam filter for comments. If you require registration to comment, a CAPTCHA on the registration page is usually sufficient to keep spammers away. If you allow anonymous comments, an “advanced CAPTCHA,” that is, one that asks the user for “the number of hours in a day” or something similar is usually enough. Avoid services like Akismet, as these produce lots of false positives.
Blog about what you are most passionate about. If you are passionate about your blog topics, you will ultimately draw your readers in and your interest in the subject will show through. Readers will want to hear what you have to say about the topic because you will be knowledgeable and passionate.
Everything you do can end up being the subject of a blog. Take notes when you are away from the computer, if you stumble across an idea that may translate into a post. You want to always keep your eyes open for subject ideas. Writing is the easy part, it’s coming up with the initial concept that usually leads to writer’s block.
Make sure your posts don’t elicit the “It’s too long so I didn’t read it” response from your readers. Studies show that people stop paying attention more quickly when reading on the web than they do when reading print. For this reason, try to keep posts under 300 words or so. Some types of posts, such as scholarly articles, don’t suffer from this loss of attention of much as others, so know your audience.
Refrain from using blog designs that are similar to MySpace. This means using extremely busy designs that have too much content on your screen, too many animated graphics, etc. Having these busy designs makes it extremely difficult for your readers to read your blog. As a result, they’ll likely leave.
If you can, you should make use of a custom WordPress theme. In today’s time, readers have the ability to recognize themes that are very generic in nature. Using these generic themes are just fine as long as you change up your header design so that it is more unique.
Make sure that you are blogging for the right reasons. If you are looking for some quick money, this is not the way to go. Blogging should be more of a hobby. If it becomes something that you start to dread, your writing will not be very good, and you will have less readers.
Read other blogs in related fields. This will give you an idea of how others are blogging successfully, and may give you ideas on how to improve your own blog. You may also find people willing to guest blog on your site. Remember not to plagiarize the content of other blogs.
Take time to read over your blog. This step tends to be ignored quite often. You have to be the first reader. Whenever you have some free time, try reading some of your older posts. It can really help you see what you can do to improve with your posts in the future.
To increase traffic to your blog it is a good idea to vary the format of your posts. A page of text doesn’t usually appeal or attract visitors. It’s best to mix things up a bit. Post a video, add some links to other places on the net that will inform and entertain your readers or consider a photo set once in a while. Variety in your presentation will keep your visitors coming back.
Since so much of the blogging going on these days is being done by teenagers and young people, parents must be extra cautious when it comes to their children’s blogging activities. Some teens naively give out personal information on their blogs, such as phone numbers, locations and even their names. This can lead to real trouble, so parents, stay involved!
Try using features or excerpts on the homepage of your blog. If you made a different home page for the blog, you are not required to only list posts. Try using a single or double full posts on the page. This can help your reader remained focused. This can also help with clutter on your blog.
Whenever possible, you should try to include some first hand narration on the topics that you are talking about. This will make your audience feel closer to you, which will make them want to come back and read more from you. This is a powerful and easy way to make your blog excel.
Try to get your readers to keep reading content, even after they finish reading a post. Following your post area, try creating a retention zone. This can feature some related posts or some links for other strategic posts. Once they’ve finished reading your post, you want to try keeping them around. Your hotspots can help you with this too.
Use tabbed zones for recommended articles. The sidebar area is also of critical importance. This area should contain tabs that will take a reader directly to the most popular topics and posts on your site. That will allow everyone to see the things that are available, which can boost click rates on specific articles.
When you blog your voice leaves its mark on the internet. So if you wish to blog then get started as soon as you can, because you want your voice heard. Use the information that you learned from this article as well as any outside information to help you create and manage a successful blog.