Learning from the Founders

Blogging has got quite complicated since Justin Hall, the pioneer of blogging started his first blog in 1994. Blogging complications have even grown since I started blogging in the spring of 2006. When I started I was satisfied with a generic blog template, wasn't worried about SEO or keywords or traffic or advertising or even promoting. I was blogging simply because I could blog and that's what made it such a novel experience. I went back to visit Justin's blog which is still quite active to take a look at how the pioneer of blogging actually blogs. I noted a few things:

• Justin has no fancy header, no fancy design, no real use of colour and in short uses little of what most bloggers consider necessary in a modern blog.
• His background is plain white, with black font. The most notable addition colour is the multiple links in every post.
• Pictures are kept to a minimum both is size and number.
• There is no indication his blog is listed in any directory or blogging network at all.
• There is no advertising at all.

Other than that his blog is mainly written without benefit of colour, embellishment, or widgets. Justin appears to update his blog at least a couple times of month which is fine to keep the search engines happy and since he isn't using advertising obviously is not worried about traffic. I couldn't find an Alexa ranking for Justin's blog but it is coming in with an impressive PR 6. You can bet I will be checking out some of his technique! Now his blog has been around since 1994 or 16 years so that in itself gains PR and definitely that is something to consider with your own blog. The longer you go beyond that magic 3 month period the better Google is going to like you providing of course you are consistently adding new content.

This is one resource that many new bloggers overlook. If you aren't checking out successful bloggers blogs then you are wasting an incredible resource! It works in your favour to anaylize what it is they are doing to make their blog successful. You will not be able to analize what goes on behind the scenes but you can make an educated guess. Should you mimic them? NO! However, you can borrow from them those ideas that you find appealing. It could be the layout or colours or theme or the general theme. Don't worry about their posting frequency as newer blogs need more posts until they get established whereas a 16 year old blog has stood the test of time so can get away with one or two posts per month. In particular pay attention to what successful bloggers do not do.

Garden Gnome
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