Tris Hussey found a nice list of (too many) tips to improve your blogging from Make You Go Hmm:
- Provide more, not less, original content in the blog entries.
- Find things you are insatiably curious about and write with full-on passion.
- Rather than make 10 so-so posts every day, make 3-5 really good ones.
- Can’t find the solution to a problem in the search engines easily? How-to/fixes/solutions make great topics.
- Give away something once in awhile.
- Start blogging about subjects that aren’t already being blogged to death, or write about them with a fresh perspective.
- Pay a professional if you suck at graphics and design.
- Don’t use too much Flash.
- Don’t slap a bunch of flashy banners and buttons (no matter how small) all over the place.
- Use a smaller, less gaudy logo.
- Make sure at least some content (not logo, not header, not advertising, etc) shows on every webpage without browser scroll
- Provide consistent navigation.
- Do include a byline and author bio so it’s clear to readers who wrote the content
- Always disclose conflicts of interest
- Clearly mark or define advertising placement
- Don’t cripple the RSS feed.
- Liberally blend with descriptive text: pictures, screenshots, audio (podcast), video and any other items that will help keep the readers interested, informed, enlightened and/or entertained.
- Keep an open dialogue with commenters and two-way trackbackers.
- Don’t let flamers destroy the community.
- Are you having fun?
- The last tip is probably my most favorite: don’t be afraid to write something and not publish it.
These cover a lot of ground, and they don't make sense for all bloggers, but they give a positive way to think about blogging. I like the focus on passion in a few of these.
This post violates #1. Generally, I do try to abide by that rule in general.