Karine Joly, www.collegewebeditor.com

She started blogging in 2005, and had about 3 readers. Now 7000 visitors per month. 1000 subscribers. So, what make a great blog? The readers!

Suddenly – her slides started advancing automatically… but she held it together and eventually got it fixed (it was vista).

Back to the presentation:

1. Don’t start a blog without a plan.
2. Define your rules of engagement. (how often will you post – should be regular)
3. Select your platform wisely. (wordpress rocks – my opinion, but she did not disagree)
4. Help your reader find your posts easily. (domain, permalinks, tags, internal search, good post titles)
5. Make sure your readers can engage with your content. (comment friendly, reply to comments, use comments as starting points for future posts)
6. Help your readers come back often. (Update frequently, allow subscriptions-email and email, don’t hide the feeds, meet your friend- Feedburner)
7. Start conversation, monologues. (Bring in other points of views – comments/interviews/media, make the stories worth reading)
8. Plan carefully the online coming-out party. (Get content up first, Blog roll, write about posts from other bloggers, post relevant comments, email other bloggers)
9. Promotion-think outside the blog. (Online and off)
10. Check your blogs vitals often. (site and feed stats, Use this info in some of the posts)
11. Listen and take part in the conversations. (Read similar blogs, see what others have to say to you)
12. Keep it up! (Avoid burnout, Respect your readers)