100 tips for improving your blog in 2010

I think this is honestly the best post on blogging I have ever read. Seriously, I think I'm going to make a whole post about it... (just not today - the snow prevents me from doing anything constructive - just call me Southeastern Rail).

This is like an overview of a lot of your best Top Ten posts. Lots of good things here. :)

Oh my! What a wealth of information you presented in this post. I've bookmarked it to refer to again but will likely print it off just in case. You brought up a lot of ideas that I definitely am going to work with. Thanks so much for the link to pingdom.com. I've been working on decreasing my blogs loading time so was surprised to see it is working. Over the six blogs I came in a 9.7 sec, 26.3 sec, 7.9 sec, 3.4 sec, 5.7 sec and 2.3 sec. The highest load time is for my gardening blog so I'm looking where I can make a few more changes. I'm also going to take your advice to lower the image optimization a bit more. Again thanks so much for all the great tips! It is very much appreciated.

Thanks for the feedback guys, let me know if there's anything you'd like me to elaborate on in a future post.

Laura, there is a fairly high quantity of new tips in this post - I tried not to derive from earlier posts for every point. Hopefully it's useful!

Love all the great tips! I have just added a blog to my website and you have given me some great insight and practical tips. I am thinking of offering a monthly giveaway as a way to give back to my readers and customers.

Wow. This is one of the best lists I have seen so far. One question though. Can you give any advice to a new blogger in town? I've been busting it recently and it just doesn't seem to pay off. We are looking into CMF ads but its slower to do something like that when you run a multi writer blog.

Welcome Sue.

Hi Mike - are you talking about the blog you linked to in your comment? If so, I see it's only been running since January 1st, 2010. The best advice I have right now is to continue writing content for the time being. Search engine traffic is the best way to get readers, but it doesn't usually come in too quickly for a new blog with a small amount of content. As time goes on, you will find that you get more search engine traffic.

In the meantime, if one person from your blog would be interested in running the account at CMF Ads, that would be one way to do it. You could still join the forums over there to meet other bloggers and discuss techniques. Adding your blog to CMF Ads can be done later using your forum login - it doesn't have to be done immediately. The whole site is built around the forum login, so you can start by posting on the forums and gradually start to use more of the site. If you do add your blog, you'll find there are a few ways to get new readers that are very cost effective. Happy to help if you need any further advice.

Ya I keep seeing stuff about the CMF ads. When I get back in town I plan on checking it out more. Thanks for the info I appreciate you looking into it. You mentioned search engine traffic. Looks like its time to get on top of that SEO.

Hi Ben,

I have to say this is probably the best list of tips I've come across so far. I've been blogging for around 2 and a half months now and I've gotten some great advice over that time.

One thing that I'm struggling with though is that my blog is a fact-of-the-day blog and so purposely has no niche as such. This is difficult for obvious reasons. Do you have any extra advice for people like me who don't necessarily post on a specific subject?

Thanks again for some truly great advice.

Hi Dave, thanks for stopping by. A big issue with blogs is that they often rely on one person - if that person gets busy, there may not be any new content for a while. Try and form a small team of writers who could help to source content for the site. This would help to keep the site running in the long run while taking some of the pressure away from you.

The main thing is to accept your blog for what it is, and don't change it to something totally different if you get bored or run low on content. I'm not suggesting this will happen to you, but it does happen, and it's worth being prepared. So if you want to try writing about things on a more specific topic, there's no reason why you can't start up a second blog. Just make sure you have some idea of how much time to spend on each blog. I have several blogs, most of them don't get updated more than a few times a month, but in total that adds up to a lot of content across all of the blogs.

It's a good idea to join CMF Ads if you haven't already done so - there's a great community of bloggers there. And the ads are really affordable. Hope to see you there.

Thanks very much for the advice Ben. I had considered CMF ads before and probably will again but I'd like to build some some more content before I make the jump.

As far as the content is concerned, I've found a way to keep that fresh I think.

Since most of my search traffic is based around people who've heard a fact and want to check it's validity I've decided a good way to go is to look through unanswered questions on the various Q&A sites out there, find one I'd be interested in writing about and then post the answer both on my blog and on the site. Hopefully that will attract some more traffic too.

Thanks again.

Whoa, Ben, this is such an exhaustive post, good job! It took me some time to go through the whole post, but it was well worth the effort, newbie bloggers all around the world will thank you for this.

Hi Ben,
It's my first time here and just crossed over from the comment you left on my blog. These are very practical tips. Worth bookmarking though but it seems that this page isn't powered with social networking tools. I could have tweeted it for you.

Have a great day!

Thanks Calvin.

Mathdelane - thanks for the comment. Why not tweet it manually? I keep widgets and social links to an absolute minimum on my blogs, as it keeps things clutter-free and ensures my blog loads quickly.

Thanks for this comprehensive list. I'm giving a company a presentation about blogging today, and this has given me some great inspiration.

Wow, what a list. I'm fairly new to blogging so it was an interesting read. Lots of tips for when I'm a little more established.

Kathy, Fiona, thanks for stopping by, glad you found the post useful. Please do come back :)

Great list Ben! I actually think it's important to not write daily. I mean there are many bloggers out there that simply do that but as you have mentioned ultimately your content will suffer.
The better way is to write articles and have a posting frequency that you feel works. Even if you are busy.
I agree with your point that you shouldn't flood your blog with guest posts. I mean guest posts are important but if you solely rely on guest posts than there truly is no reason to have your own blog. Guest posts are a great way to get new ideas and content to your blog but they shouldn't take over your blog.

Ben, this was an awesome post and since you broke it down into nice categories it was easier than reading 1-100 tips. And was thorough in information.

I try to get inspiration on what to write from the local news. Our English version newspaper is full of hilarious and mainly useless stories but they are great source for having an entertaining blog post.

And I agree to not get caught on social forums, especially ones like Digg, Reddit, etc. They so inundated with clicky people that you will spend a lot of time trying to get "in" than writing good posts for your blog.

Julius, sapphire, thanks for your comments - glad you enjoyed the post.