The #1 Secret To Successful Blogging

There's really only one secret to successful blogging, and it's something that's true no matter what you do: You just have to buckle down and do it.

If you're starting out, this is the primary goal for, I would say, your first month. Just Sit Down and Post To Your Blog. Maybe not every day, but five days a week. Do that for a month.

Of course, as you work through that first month, you're going to come up against a major barrier: What Do I Post About? To answer that for yourself, resist the urge to read everything you can about blogging, and concentrate on just getting your words online. Don't worry about "finding your niche" or "monetizing your blog" or "search engine optimization." Because if you quit after a short amount of time, none of the rest will matter.

Do, however, take advantage of the wonderful information other fantastically established bloggers have made available DIRECTLY TO YOU FOR FREE that can give you an infinite choice of things to write about. A couple of good places to start, if you're feeling particularly uncreative:

Lorelle's 101 Ways To Create Original Content.

ProBlogger's Declaring War on Apathy.

Liz Strauss's How To Beat Writer's Block.

Individuals beginning blogs are, I feel, the most likely candidates to quit after a couple of days. I've known some people who have done just that. Me included (although I started up again a few months later.)

So, let me revise my original suggestion, and shorten your initial goal: schedule yourself to update your blog Monday-Friday for two weeks. The key is to get some information onto your site. Don't worry if it isn't good, or correct, or whatever. Give yourself permission to write garbage. Deleting your posts about your cat or what you ate for breakfast can come later.

(Of course, resist the urge at all times to write about your cat, or your friend's cat if you don't have one.)