Hello! I've been thinking about starting a blog and write about something I know quite much about, or atleast im intrested in ;D, computers. But there is ONE problem. I dont know how to write a blog ( I know, its silly ). What kind of articles does the readers like? Is it like the new AM2 motherboard is out, here is all about it? (News) Or discussions about my self etc. Or could it be, tomshardware.com have tested AMD and Intels new monster processors, here is the results? The goal of my blog is to get a lot of visitors each day, and to have fun marketing it and writing my articles! But as I mentioned, I dont know what kind of article that a blog contain, atleast not the big blogs. Give me some examples of what a computer related article can be about. Best Regards!
Check these sites out http://www.engadget.com/ http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/ http://techdigest.tv/ http://arstechnica.com/index.ars http://www.betanews.com/ http://www.technologyreview.com/index.aspx http://www.gizmag.com/ http://www.techeblog.com/ http://www.ministryoftech.com/ http://www.ohgizmo.com/ http://www.gadgetspage.com/ http://www.shinyshiny.tv/ http://www.gizmodo.com/ http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/ http://www.ubergizmo.com/ http://www.igizmodo.com/ http://www.gadgetizer.com/ http://tech.cybernetnews.com/
There are many factors involved... if you're writing an all original entry blog, adding a personal touch, being witty and funny, creating a personality for yourself, can all be very helpful. Brand yourself. Hire an artist to draw you in character form. This way you'll get a lot of long term traffic from bookmarks and etc. I, personally, don't have the time to be a writer so I fill thousands of blogs with RSS content on autopilot. Also, keep SEO in mind when writing your blogs and their titles, categories, and the title of your blog. Find a good keyword and work it into your domain if you can.
Well what I would recommend is that you write different reviews on computer products, something that would be especially great (and could get you free hardware and software in the future... if your lucky) is if you bought and reviewed some of the newer products. You could also write some software tutorials, I enjoy reading those.
Ok, but if I dont have the money to buy the newer products, shall I look at sites like tomsharware.com for reviews and write about their reviews? Or is there a way to write a review about something that I havnt tried?
Having myself drawn in character form is a great idea! I always forget about the power of logos and images for this sort of stuff.
@donkevlar: "If you're writing an all original entry blog, adding a personal touch, being witty and funny, creating a personality for yourself, can all be very helpful." That's probably the most important aspect of 'blogging. You need to establish a 'house style' of your own. Ultimately, you will draw from other styles, but you have to be your own guy. If I might offer some advice, then here's an excerpt from my 43 things article on being a better 'blogger: Most of all, you must enjoy 'blogging. Without that, there's no long-term to be had...
if you're at a loss for word, then write like you'd talk. imagine you were talking to someone, and write down the words that you'd say to them. if at first, you're lacking in inspiration, check out the tech blogs mentioned and model after their structure.
Thanks a lot for all the answers! They will be useful. But I have another question, how do I start the blog? Shall I just write an article as i've been writing in that blog for two years, or shall I introduce myself etc? And I tried blogger.com, but I cant find where to get categories. Is there another free blogging webpage out there wich accepts adds, wich u can recomend me?
A mission statement (what you mean to discuss, what qualification in such matters you might have, where you hope to take your audience over time et cetera) and a brief introduction would do. It's as well not to disclose everything about yourself. A little mystique is a good thing...
Hope I'm not too late in throwing my £0.02 in I rarely read computer related blogs. Purely based on the fact that I'm not too interested in them. What I do like from computer related blogs though is what I can get for free. I want my PC to be protected and I want it to run efficiently. But I know nothing about doing that. I don't want to spend loads of money on programs that I simply do not know how to use. I would really appreciate a blog that explains in simple terms what to download, why and what to do once I have it. But that's just me As for how to build it up, a personal touch and a personality goes a long way I find. My soccer blog started as a hobby but people quickly began visiting and it's turned into something big for me. I didn't mean for anyone to read it really. Just to kill some time and give me something to do. As my audience got bigger, I blogged more for them and less for me. I think it's important to realise why you're blogging in the first place and when you're successful, keep reminding yourself of the formula that got you to that point. People will come back and get to know you and what you like, dislike etc and others will try and personally knock you for holding certain views. That can be hard to deal with I find. But what I always find helps me is that I don't withhold information or don't skimp on links when creating an article. I want the visitor to know all he or she can and so I will provide as much information is necessary. I will give links to media articles, other people's views and even previous articles that I myself have written. But I will never give a link out to a place that's helped me compile a list of statistics or similar. I need my articles to at least have a bit of uniqueness about them. And that's all I can say... a quick ramble. Feel free to disregard!
Blog for you and for your audience. Clearly what you write has to have some value, otherwise no-one will read it. And you must find it interesting to write, as this enthusiasm will be important. Affers has some really good points. I echo pretty much all of those points. I have found the same with my blog http://www.spyreview.co.uk which now brings in 300 unique visitors a day regularly.
Haha Spyreview what a cool site! Thats just to funny BTT: I will submit my first serious article and my resource of all data soon, when I'm done so you can see if its legal to take that much information from a site, and see if I need to mention my source to make it legal, or if I can just skip it. It will be done in a hour or so. And I think I figured out a smart idea for getting some visitors. You can make a post on a forum related to your topic, not saying that the site is yours, but saying that you read an interesting article about xxx, and you recomend it. If its news for them, they will probably like it, and might come back. Is it a good idea? Regards