First blog! - Blogging Success and Strategies

Wow. After a long weekend at a Cheerleading event, I am finally starting my first blog ever. I've always been interested in blogging, but never found the time, and let's be honest, I didn't know the first thing about the blogging world. Though, luckily for me, I was fortunate enough to secure an internship at Bluewire Media as a Digital Designer, where I worked on an e-book, 'How To Blog for Business.' I highly recommend checking it out! And feel free to admire the design work and cute little icons!

Getting back on track now, I didn't know it then, but this e-book would be incredibly helpful for my final semester of University in the subject, Enterprise 2.0. Though the goal here isn't to blog for business, the interviewees still provided a great insight. So let's get down to business, shall we?

The purpose of this blog, other than it being a required unit, is to get out into the online world, practice my writing skills and gain insight and knowledge in regards to blogging. I aim to incorporate my interests and immense love and passion for sport into my blogs if possible, and interact with like-minded people as well as those with different creative minds and opinions. Using the strategies I have learnt through research will hopefully guide in creating useful, engaging posts and gain readership.

Studying successful blogs really aided in this first post. I just have to stop myself from having too much fun and getting carried away! Darren Rowse, founder of ProBlogger, is a very professional blogger. His content and writing style are both engaging and useful. He mentioned in the e-book "The more you put in, the better the results, and that is pretty much like anything in life". Which is true, don't you think? The harder you work to gain that standing tuck, start a business, create that perfect final product, the better (and faster at times) the results. Stickability. I like that. That is 'so me'.

Much like Rowse, Copywriter Glenn Murray and Storyteller Jonathan Crossfield also have the same style blog - professional yet engaging, though their content varies, which provides a different experience. Murray and Crossfield also mention how persistence is the key...I see a common denominator emerging here!

Finally, Liz Strauss mentions in her interview and blog, Successful Blog, that "...one of the main ingredients of a successful blog is a voice and great content that only you can provide, because information is everywhere on the internet, though there is only one you..." Hence, why I'd like to find a way to emerge my interests within this blog. I'm a sporty final year IT/CI student who loves Marvel (seriously, give me Marvel or give me death), likes to cite the Green Lantern Oath while I eat kebabs, loves Lord of the Rings and has a passion for All-Star Cheerleading. Hopefully including that within my blog, whilst still keeping on track of the task can give me a voice that is unique. So with that said, here are my strategies:

The Strategies

- Keywords!

- Keeping the posts professional yet fun

- Study similar blogs

- Absorb feedback (I like to think I'm a virtual sponge)

- Be involved within the blogging community

- Keep at it, keep at it, keep at it

- Provide readers with a unique/interesting voice and great content

Pretty straight forward, right? Here's hoping with these strategies each blog improves. Practice makes perfect! (See what I did there? Sports talk. Nailed it.)

Thank you for reading! I look forward to your comments and feedback!