• This week I’m going to share some things I’ve learned about blogging. I’m not an expert, but I think that so many of you that visit here don’t have a blog, read many other blogs (at least not cheapo personal ones, but of course maybe you read news etc. similarly) or know some of the funny and interesting things that go into writing and publishing online. Like I said, there are ten thousand “How to write a Blog” experts out there and I’m not one of them. I just thought it’d be fun to share some stories with you.

One of the hardest things to deal with on a blog is time. You can throw on a lame outfit and I might tell you it’s “so last year”, but in this whole wide world of social media, things can be “so five seconds ago”. Especially with everyone wanting to be a world famous Twit (person on Twitter). To avoid that, I’m not a super huge “guess what just happened in the news” writer.

The concept I struggle with is how my audience uses my blog. Ironically today some friends of mine were using my blog to remember what we did or didn’t see at ACL in 2006. I was thrilled. I know that not everyone even looks at anything other than the first page. When I first started blogging I was told to keep a very few (5 or so) posts on the front page for you to peruse. I at the time had 10 or more, since I thought I could make you scroll down and maybe realize something that you’d missed. Or throw a comment my way, even if it was jsut because you were bored (I’d take it!).

I also assume you know that the sidebar on the right has a search option, with only-within-this-blog parameters. You can type “buttface” to see if I ever called anyone that here (I checked, I haven’t). I’ve been reading a great blog called Soapbox Included that is telling me to do a better job of pointing you in the right direction, but I am limited by using a free site (see previous post). If you want to see snow, you should know I have a category called “Photos” and one called “Park City” and by using that bar on the right you should be able to find me skiing down a mountain.

However, it did give me the great idea to include on my main “Who’s Going Softly” page -that’s a typical About Me if you didn’t check it out- some of my all time favorite or even most popular posts (coming soon). For the record, things about zombies, and the ones I did on Joe Rogan, tattoos, and pumpkin carving have the most hits of all time. Don’t say random doesn’t work.

I’ve been here for three years recapping events and telling you about places and things I’ve seen. I’ve stayed away for the most part from the “what I think about what just happened” kind of blog. There’s plenty of that out there.

• Read Chapter One: Spam
• Read Chapter Two: Relevance
• Read Chapter Three: Rants
• Read Chapter Four: Direction, Success