{"id":154,"date":"2008-01-15T10:28:14","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T16:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pchristensen.com\/blog\/articles\/blogging-strategy-social-news-stats\/"},"modified":"2008-01-15T10:28:14","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T16:28:14","slug":"blogging-strategy-social-news-stats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/articles\/blogging-strategy-social-news-stats\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging Strategy, Social News Stats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Atwood gave the best possible advice for people who want to make a successful blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When people ask me for advice on blogging, I always respond with yet another form of the same advice: pick a schedule you can live with, and stick to it<\/em>. Until you do that, none of the other advice I could give you will matter.<\/strong> I don’t care if you suck at writing<\/a>. I don’t care if nobody reads your blog<\/a>. I don’t care if you have nothing interesting to say<\/a>. If you can demonstrate a willingness to write, and a desire to keep continually improving your writing, you will eventually be successful.<\/p>\n

But success takes time– a lot<\/em> of time. I’d say a year at minimum. That’s the element that weeds out so many impatient people. I wrote this blog for a year in utter obscurity, but I kept at it because I enjoyed it. I made a commitment to myself, under the banner of personal development, and I planned to meet that goal. My schedule was six posts per week, and I kept jabbing, kept shipping, kept firing<\/strong>. Not every post was that great, but I invested a reasonable effort in each one. Every time I wrote, I got a little better at writing. Every time I wrote, I learned a little more about the topic, how to research topics effectively, where the best sources of information were. Every time I wrote, I was slightly more plugged in to the rich software development community all around me. Every time I wrote, I’d get a morsel of feedback or comments that I kept rolling up into future posts. Every time I wrote, I tried to write something just the tiniest bit<\/em> better than I did last time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now before you dismiss this advice, two points to consider:<\/p>\n

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  1. Take a closer look at the end of the url: blog\/archives\/000983.html. 983! In 2006 after I really got into reading blogs, I dove back and read through Jeff’s archives, among others, and the post numbers are almost entirely sequential. Near as I can tell, he either has written or is approaching over 1,000 posts, so he knows what he’s talking about.<\/li>\n
  2. Take a look at the Technorati Top 100. He’s #73 and<\/strong> #85. (I think because you can get it at either \/ or \/blog)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Other top computer bloggers have done the same thing: hundreds of posts over several years on a variety of topics.<\/p>\n

    Now, I don’t need to be as big as Reg, Joel, or Jeff, but I’m sort of tired of being invisible. I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring and create an online persona, and here was my strategy:<\/p>\n