Gdovin.net

To be honest, when I first got started blogging I had no idea what I was getting into! But, now that I have blogged but, now that I have done it for a while, I want to share some of the best blogging practices. I think that blogging is a growing trend and I want to advise new bloggers what the best practices are.

1. Write What You Know
If you don’t write what you know then your posts sound phony and then people will loose trust in your site and you will loose readers.

2. Write About What You Like
This is probably the most important part because if you aren’t enjoying blogging then, you will just be going through the motions and won’t enjoy blogging at all. However, if you write about what you like blogging can be a lot of fun!

3. Stay in Tune To Current Events
If you know there is going to be a big event, and would be of interest to your target reader or just a lot of people then it would be a good idea to do a post about it. People are more likley to look for current events than anything else which could help boost your readership.

4. Don’t Write Attack Posts
This is a simple concept that can save a lot of fighting by simply not attacking other bloggers because that causes Flamewars and makes everyone involved look bad and make the reader want to look else where to read.

5. Fully research the Topic, Then Write
Writing without researching occurs a lot in blogging especially when people are writing passion-driven articles and the writer does not think to investigate the other side of the argument. I am not claiming that I do this on every post I write, but I do if I am unsure about a topic or facts. Not research is yet another error that can cost you readers.

6. Accept and Listen to Feedback

I highy reccommend having a feedback email address or contact form on your site so readers can send you feedback because they will give you suggestions and feedback that can help you refine your blog and also help you be a better blogger. Sometimes, the feedback may be tough to reader but, if you work through all that and take all the feedback with a grain of salt, you will become a better blogger in the big scheme of things.

7. Write in Your Own Words

Many people try and use over-complex vocabulary and flowery language in their posts to seem more sophisticated, but, I think blogging is a lot more enjoyable if you use your own writing style because readers will pick up on that and will feel like you are reading it to you instead of some rich author and makes your blog more appealing to the everyday reader.

I already explained my distaste for radio, because it is outdated but, there is one thing that I dislike even more than radio, that is satellite radio, because very few people still listn tro terrestial radio so, why would people want to pay loads of money for satellite radio? Satellite radio offers subscribers commercial-free broadcasts that can be listened to anywhee, while terrestial radio is limited to a certain area and have numerous commercial breaks.

Although there are some benifits to satelittle radio,  there are two major fees involved with becoming a satelite radio subscriber: first, there is buying the reciever  which can be anywhere between $40 and $300, then after that there is the month subscription fee which can be anywhere from $6.99 to $18 each month, depending on how many channels you want.

I cannot understand why people would pay loads of money when they can get similar services for free!  Services like Pandora is an alternative to music radio and podcasts are alternatives for talk radio. If you are not able to access the internet, then you could just listen to bought music on your ipod. As fazr as i’m concerned, there is absolutly no point in paying for satellite radio  and because of the current economic crisis we have experienced SirusXM has filed for bankrupcy protection because people have been cutting back on frivolus spending. I do not think this will last nearly as long as radio and is just a passing trend.

RSS feeds have made reading news so much easier and simple and now Google Reader can make it even better. Google Reader is basdically a web-based RSS feed reader that allows you to read any feed where ever you can get an internet connection or even offline access through google gears. Another great advantage is it gives you a “river of news” where it shows all the articles from your RSS feeds from oldest to newest. You can also read your article in the same river style by the category. Google Reader also tracks what kind of feeds you like to read and suggests new feeds that they think you would like to subscribe to, along with “Packs” or collections of a certain category of feeds. I love to read google reader feeds it has become a part of my daily life and hope you all consider utilizing another great Google service.

A few days ago, PC Magazine announced that they will no longer produce a printed magazines. I believe that this is for the best and that many other print media companies will do the same. The fact is, that printed media is not worth the effort when people can release internet media like blogs for much less money.

Print media requires so much overhead between the printing costs, shipping costs, cost of buying supplies to print on! All those fees are not needed with online media all you need to do is buy web hosting and pay people to write content and manage the website. That is a major savings and allows anyone (even me) to become a journalist in their own right. In hard economic times like now where money is tight and many companies are on the verge of bankruptcy,  it could save the businesses a lot of money by going web only and eliminating their print operation.

As for the consumer, the biggest advantage is that most online media outlets don’t require you to pay anything, online media relies mainly on advertisement for revenue. In addition, online media lets you read the news anywhere and does not require you to have to hold the media in your own hands. Plus there is no need to have to store or dispose of it because it is all hosted on the internet and you can just close the webpage!

In conclusion, online media is both more cost-effective for the producer and the consumer and is easier to be read. Print media requires too much overhead and unnecessary things that can be avoided by moving to all online media.  I believe that especially now in these tough economic times, many media producers will move to online and do away with the unnecessary print media