Comments on: The Top 5 Business Blogging Essentials

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:11:18 +0000

Thanks Mert. It definitely helps a lot to be mentally prepared – whether you’re launching a blog or just sitting down to write a new post. And passion, yes, passion is essential when it comes to writing.

By: Mert Erkal

Mert Erkal — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:01:58 +0000

Very nice post Melissa. I would start with mental preparation and commitment. Without them a blogger can not go anywhere. First you need to find the passion within you, decide which topic to blog about, and define a small niche within a large blogging topic. Mert Erkal’s last blog post..The Roadmap To Become A Blogger

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:25:36 +0000

@Mitch, I’m actually pretty excited about the upcoming WP release because for the first time it will allow people to manage everything from inside the dashboard, once it’s installed. I have a feeling that the plugin choices will depend on the plugin creator — i.e. if they make it compatible with the new version of WordPress, then you should be able to add any of them. I don’t use automatic upgrade because I can do updates from my hosting provider but it’s certainly something to look into

By: Mitch

Mitch — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:08:54 +0000

See now, Melissa, you just told me something I hadn't known about WP 2.7; that's great news, although I'm going to reserve judgment until I see which ones it's offering. If Automatic Upgrade isn't one of them, someone should definitely complain. Mitch’s last blog post..Book Writing Series Step Two - The Planning

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 23:20:14 +0000

@Mitch, I meet a lot of bloggers who don’t know how to install or use plugins and I always try to stress how they can improve a blog’s functionality and make it more attractive to visitors. My hope is that with the next release of WordPress, which will include plugin uploads from the dashboard (so you won’t have to FTP) more bloggers will embrace them.

@Blog for Beginners, You are absolutely right – making regular backups is an essential and something I’ll try to cover in a future post. Thanks for adding that to this list!

@Norhafidz, Traffic and great content just may be tied. On the one hand, if you’re not getting any traffic, your content is basically irrelevant. On the other hand, if you’re getting tons of traffic, it will just go to waste if the content is no good. The two pretty much go hand in hand, though that may depend on the blog’s purpose and the blogger’s goals. You make a good point though

By: Norhafidz

Norhafidz — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:05:49 +0000

Melissa,
Great stuff, well written 5 essentials but I still believe traffic is the most important factor because there is no point writing when no one’s reading

Norhafidz’s last blog post..I Changed My Tagline and Blog’s Title

By: Blog for Beginners

Blog for Beginners — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:34:12 +0000

Those are indeed the essential tips for any blogger. You've pretty much covered the basics and if there is one thing I could share is to backup your data less anything unexpected occurs. I' would have lost my blog when someone hacked into my account not too long ago. I could imagine the worst if I'd not backed it up. It may sound trivial but you'll never know how critical it is to have a backup copy. Yan Blog for Beginners’s last blog post..20 Reasons Why I Choose WordPress

By: Mitch

Mitch — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:50:53 +0000

Great stuff, Melissa, and right on target. Especially talking about plugins; there's just so many of them that will give you so much functionality that, if they're being ignored, people just make it hard on themselves. Mitch’s last blog post..Book Writing Series Step One - The Concept

By: Melissa Donovan

Melissa Donovan — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:55:05 +0000

@Peter Lee, I tried to boil it down to the five basic essentials. In the coming weeks, we’ll look a little deeper into each of these, plus talk about more, but less essential, tasks. Thank you for visiting and commenting!

@Sire, Well you see, structuring content falls under number five, and yes, that is an essential. If you don’t have killer content, the rest is all for naught. There will be future articles about how to craft posts and write content that compels, something that’s always fun to explore. Thanks for stopping by and joining the conversation Sire

By: Sire

Sire — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:35:22 +0000

Not what I expected at all. I thought it was going to be more along the lines of how to structure content, punctuation and the rest of the blurb that comes when writing blog posts. Instead you went to the very internal basics of blogging which is in itself very important.

As for updating WordPress, it is a cinch if you use the automatic upgrade plugin.

Sire’s last blog post..Bloggers, Overworked And Underpaid