Shots Across The Bow

Two Years and Counting...

While I was away last month, I hit my 2 year bloggiversary. I knew it was coming up, but other events drove it out of my mind until today.

I started this blog on January 23, 2002. I knew I had something to say, but little did I realize exactly how much, or how long it would take to say it, and here I am, two years later, still blathering on about all kinds of stuff.

I couldn't decide how to mark this occasion. Should I give advice to newer bloggers? Brag about my hits? Recount some of my better pieces? Promise new and exciting developments for the future?

How about all of the above?

My advice is short and simple.

1. Write what excites you! You'll hear a lot of writing instructers tell you to 'write what you know.' Bull! You never learn anything new that way. If you look at maintaining your blog as a daily grind, as drudgery, then you're writing about the wrong thing.
   
2. Don't write for traffic. There's easy ways to bring traffic to your site (like blogging about Janet Jackson's breast) but like a Chinese Dinner, it doesn't stay with you for long unless you pander to it.
   
3. Don't just write for yourself. Words are for communication, not masturbation. You have something to say, otherwise you wouldn't be doing this. Say it so that other people hear and understand it. They may not agree with you, but you may give them a new perspective, and that's what it's all about.
   
4. Experiment! Try new things. If you write technical stuff, try a humorous piece or two. If you write politics, try a how to column. You've got the greatest gift a writer can have, a free test audience.
   
5. Don't censor yourself. Mediocrity is boring. Be opinionated! Tell everyone exactly what you think. Don't provoke controversy, but don't avoid it either.
   
6. Don't fight your natural style. The blogosphere is big enough to encompass everyone from linkers like Reynolds to thinkers like Den Beste. You may post once a week or 20 times a day. The key is quality.
   
7. Post consistently. Once you develop your natural style, help your audience find you by maintaining a regular schedule.
   
8. Spell check. That's the one tool I wish MT had, as I am a horrible speller, made worse by my typing style. (Biblical 101: Seek and ye shall find) Nothing harms your credibility faster than excessive typos.

Hmmm. Looking over the list, I can see quite a few of those principles I've violated. Good thing I'm not getting paid for this.

Now, on to bragging about hits. As y'all may have noticed, some time ago I took down the hit counter I had installed here. I was getting frustrated because it wasn't growing as quickly as I wanted it to. I had a choice to make. Either I changed the way I wrote in order to draw more hits, or I had to ignore the counter.

I compromised. I dropped the counter from the main page, but started tracking traffic through the tools provided by hosting matters, but on a monthly, not daily basis. At the same time, I experimented with different writing styles, and different posting subjects. I've been much happier since then, particularly when I looked at my year end numbers. As of 1-23-04, I had 103,422 unique visitors. That's not huge, but it isn't insignificant either. By comparison, for my first year, I had just under 24,000 unique visitors, so I saw 400% growth in unique visits over the year. And the trend is positive, so I must be doing something right.

As for my better pieces, I'll let y'all decide that, but here's the one that was hardest to write.

There are some new developments for the future of this sight that I am excited about. I do plan on redesigning the site, giving it a facelift, and using more of the capabilities of MT. And, even more exciting, sometime in the near future, blogging will become part of my day job. I can't go into any more details than that, but the next couple of years are going to be very busy and very interesting.

Finally, I'd like to thank all the folks who come here day after day to read and comment on what I've written. I'd write this stuff anyway, but it's a lot more fun carrying on a dialogue than reciting a monolog. I hope the next year is as much fun to read as last year was to write.

Posted by Rich at February 6, 2004 12:11 PM | TrackBack