Top-five things they don’t tell you about blogging…

Posted by Rebecca Muller, AIMS member and volunteer, and author of The Direct Approach blog...

I recently dipped my big toe into the blogging ocean after the forehead-slapping moment where I realized I’d been talking to clients about something that I hadn’t really made a huge effort to participate in. Sure, I comment on blogs, read books and industry news – but that’s not “practical” experience…

A lot of people speak about how easy blogging is, and in a way that’s very true. Setting up a blog with something like Blogger is easy. You can be up and running in about two minutes. It’s the “marketing” and “best-practices” parts that are a little more challenging.

Being one who can swallow my pride, I thought I might share a few things I’ve learned so far, recognizing that I still have a long way to go…

1.    Feedburner, although not all that intuitive at first, is your best friend. Don’t get your RSS (little orange button) subscription set up from anywhere else. (Feel free to read my post for a more detailed explanation of what went wrong and a good laugh.)
2.    Most “free” stats have additional tracking that you can turn on if you know how to find them. Really take some time to surf the admin settings in your account.
3.    Most free stats are usually a day behind and often aggregated, unless you pay for the additional packages – so don’t despair if it looks like there’s no one reading at first.
4.    Set up a Technorati account and claim your blog! This gives you access to more (yes, more) tools to help increase your blog’s visibility.
5.    Start taking ginseng – or something else to help you remember the multiple passwords and accounts you need to set up for tracking and tagging among other things…

Anyone can become a blogger, but becoming a respected and knowledgeable blogger takes a lot of effort and dedication. I don’t pretend to be there yet, but hope to continue to take cues and inspirations from my industry colleagues to get there one day. My advice to anyone thinking about starting a blog – yes, do your research, but then go for it! There’s no time like the present to learn a new skill.