The 5 rules of blogging and why you should follow them:

1. Don’t fire in all directions

– find a niche and expand on it It’s just like in the movies

– the bad guys fire in all directions and don’t hit anything. The protagonist aims carefully and shoots only once, but does it right.

2. Provide regular content but be merciful to yourself

You’ll hear many people telling you that you have to post often in order to engage your audience.

You’ll hear advice to never sacrifice quality over quantity too.

Both of these are true, but let me add something of my own: Post regularly enough but don’t strain yourself too much.

Match your own pace.

3. Speak the language of your niche & audience without sounding fake

Different niches have different slang. Words like “business angel”, “cha ching”, “joint venture” or “WFOE” are natural to the business blogger and a technological terra incognita for the blogger who’s into internet memes and popular culture.

4. Image taken from PresentationZen

You are a part of a community – act like it Blogging is rarely fit for lone wolves.

You are a part of a whole ecosystem and it’s good to navigate through it and communicate with the others inhabiting the internet forest. Other bloggers in your field are not your enemies.

You are competitors for the audience’s attention, but you can draw knowledge and good practices from each other.

5. Surprise & Conquer People love surprises and gifts.

Think of ways to engage your audience even better and surprise them in a good way.

There are many options to do this, ranging from more easy to do to fairly difficult and time-consuming.

A Freebies post or even a whole section is a good way of bringing surprise and giving benefits to your reader base.