How to Be A Good Blogger?

When asked about ‘who’s a good blogger?’ honestly I can’t answer. Coz to me every blogger blogs for her own reason. Some bloggers are really hungry for traffic, especially whom blogs for MONEY and some others just blog for fun or for themselves and they don’t care about their blogs traffic.

If I’m asked to make a blog review, other than asked by the owner (some friends asked me to give a look at their blogs for the purpose of placing ads, etc.) I give up my white flag. I enjoy reading others’ blog and I don’t have so called ‘blog yang tak disukai’ nor ‘blog yang menyampah’, etc. Blogging is free (except who’s paying for their own domain & hosting, like me!) and I don’t bother to ‘hate’ or ‘dislike’ them. Kalau tak suka jangan baca.

But nowadays I don’t have plenteous time to spent reading blogs on my PC, only using my N95, and it doesn’t encourage me to leave comment (itulah kenapa saya tidak berkomentar lagi). You know, N95 has no QWERTY keyboard, sakit jari I!

But among the blogs I love to spend time on, (other than Mukhtar Suhaili’s that I mentioned in the interview with Supermummy)

I admire the concept in this blog, which is very simple and neat. White foreground with minimal graphic is so attractive for my eyes. (Is that why I choose white as my background?)

When I read for serious topic, e.g. parenting, I need a ‘my-eyes-friendly’ blogs, white background with black colored text. Unless just-for-fun and when bloghopping I don’t mind how the blog looks like.

This blog has very wide topics, all related to parenting. Even if it does not receive lots of comments (I even never leave comment there) but I think it has a lot of readers from its Alexa ranking of 941,343 (as of today). Not so popular but at least she has readers.

But unfortunately I don’t know the blog author. Even if she (I guess) writes about ‘her family’ but I don’t know her. She doesn’t even mention her name and protects the blog’s properties, but as long as she has good contents, I really don’t mind. And she even get the first ranking in Google when you search ‘parenting blog’. Not bad, huh.

In a nutshell, a very good blog, talking about personal experience in a very intelligent way.

How to have a blog that attracts more and more readers? I went to several friends’ (they’re really my friends, not merely blogger friends) blogs and read how they want more readers to come to their blogs. Sorry I have to say this, but this is one of ‘syok sendiri’ symptom. It is OK if you write whatever you like and don’t anticipate for traffic to come, but if you do, don’t just scream in your blog calling “Please read my blog!”, unless you’re a celebrity blogger like RedMummy or Sultan Muzafar.

What you have to do is:

1. Be unique. Read other top bloggers’ blogs and see what is their uniqueness. You can indicate a top blogger by the Alexa ranking, how many comments, followers, and so on.
2. Read other’s blogs and leave comments with your blog URL. People won’t come to you blog if they don’t know how to find you.
3. Don’t tiru-tiru other’s style of writing. Be yourself and you’ll be surprise how good the feeling is.
4. Don’t copy from other sources. Write you own opinion, unless what you copy is according to your niche. Example, you’re writing about recipe and you copy all cooks and chefs’ articles from all over the worldwideweb. This is good coz your blog acts as one-stop-for-all.
5. Credit your sources, if you do. The source will be feel so appreciated. And maybe be one of your regular readers.
6. Have passion on what you write about. When you enjoy writing, readers enjoy reading.
7. Treat comments from others with respect, and if possible try to respond to every comment you get (sometimes I fail to do this cos I blog from WLW and it is scheduled, I’m so sorry..)
8. If you regularly make posting, it will encourage reader to return.
9. When you blog, it means that you are exposing yourself for critism. So, before posting anything, ensure the fact, if it is a heavy topic.
10. Consider blogging in a niche. This will help to retain ‘regular reader’s.
11. Don’t shout about it again. It makes you look desperate.
12. People read blog in their leisure time and to find information. Give what your readers ‘wants’. This is reflects point no. 1.

You can consider my points if you don’t want to be a ‘syok sendiri’ blogger. Hehe. It’s OK if you don’t mind if nobody reads your blog. But if you do, especially if you’re new to blogging world, you have to make some efforts to sell yourself rather than waiting for the reader to come.

To me, being a good blogger is subjective to the blog owner. As long as it meets the blogger’s objective, it must be good.

*This entry is specially written for Yoyooh  second week challenge

Tagged as: baca, blog, blogging, blogging guide, buat duit blog, foreground, mukhtar suhaili, n95, panduan blog, placing ads, qwerty keyboard, saya, suka, white background, white flag