Phil Gyford is a bit of a celebrity in the blogging world. He set about the task of creating the Samuel Pepys Blog, a site where an entry from Samuel Pepys diary is posted each day. Started on 1st January 2003, this is a blog with another six years of diary posting to go!Phil has put together a list of his top tips for us:
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* Decide on a theme.
If you want to create a site focused on a particular subject then stick to it - if you start a weblog about breeding tropical fish but occasionally can't resist commenting on politics you may turn off tropical fish fans. But there are no rules and you don't need to have a specific topic at all.
* Consider your audience.
If you're writing on a particular theme decide whether you're writing for people who already
know about it or those who are new to it. Thomas Mahon began writing about tailoring assuming his audience knew nothing about the subject. So he educated people, publicised his business and increased his sales enormously. He could equally have decided to write a weblog just for tailors - news, gossip, techniques - which would have been very different but no better or worse. If don't have a specific theme you should still think about your audience - who you're writing for changes the tone of your writing.
* Behave like you're in public.
It's tempting to feel you're writing privately for a few friends or family, particularly if you're just starting out. But remember that anyone in the world can read what you write. If you write about a person imagine you're saying the same thing to their face. If you write something that's very personal and revealing about yourself consider whether you'd tell everyone you know. This isn't email or a letter but publishing to the world. If you want to write something angry or personal consider saving it, unpublished, then re-read it the following day before deciding whether to publish or not.
* Connect to the rest of the weblog world.
You don't need to trade links with other sites, but do link to weblogs you like. Post comments on the weblogs of others, or quote their posts and write commentary on your own site. Weblogs can feel much more like part of a global conversation than traditional print writing, which is more of a broadcast, one-way nature. So join in the conversation!
* Don't worry about the size of your audience.
If you find yourself obsessing over every slight rise or drop in your readership ask yourself why you're writing. It's more satisfying to write what you're interested in, rather than what you think people want to hear. Most weblogs have very few readers and that's just fine. Write for yourself, care about it, and you'll find your audience.
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