I celebrated my first blog-iversary yesterday. (Isn’t that the coolest word my fellow WANAmate, <a href="http://livrancourt.com/" target="_blank">Liv Rancourt</a>, made up?)

Today I want to talk about eight things I’ve learned about blogging over the last year.

<b>1.   </b><b>You don’t have to be an expert on something to blog. </b>

Be yourself.

Write as if you’re sitting on the front porch talking to your best friend.

<b>2.   </b><b>Blog often.</b>

It’s a cliché, but blogging is like gardening. Think of your blog as a plant in that garden.

For a garden to thrive, you must tend to the plants daily. And water.

If you only water a plant once every two weeks, it will shrivel. Unless, of course, your garden is a cactus garden and then maybe water once a month will work.

It doesn’t work for blogging.

A blog needs lots of consistent attention to thrive and grow.

<b>3.   </b><b>Change things up. </b>

Unless your blog has a very specific target market, offer a smorgasbord of content.

But maintain consistency. If you normally blog on Mondays, don’t skip.

Your readers expect certain things on certain days.

For example, guest blogger posts from Chicken Wrangler Sara about life on the Miller Farm on Fridays.

<b>4.   </b><b>Try your best to spell words correctly and use proper grammar.</b>

I have misspelled words and posted typos over the course of the past year. Not on purpose, though. I happen to be my own worst copyeditor.

I’m never offended when someone catches a mistake. You shouldn’t be either.

I thank them profusely and sing praises for the day they were born.

That’s the beauty of electronic publishing. Mistakes are easily fixed.

Wordpress provides a handy button called <i>edit</i> for fixing the mistakes when a reader emails alerting me to a typo.

<b>5.   </b><b>When writer’s block happens, push through and blog anyway.</b>

Sometimes the muse hides and no amount of pressure can coax her out of hiding. A <em>w</em><i>hat am I going to blog about?</i> panic creeps in.

You can’t let it stop you from blogging.

Grab a chocolate bar or a handful of M&amp;Ms. (It helps!)

Then head over to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/" target="_blank">YouTube</a> and do a topic or word search.

Or do a Google topic or word search for graphic images.

No words necessary when you post videos or graphic images.  

That’s what I do and those posts prove to be some of my most popular blogs.

<b>6.   </b><b>Let your topics set themselves naturally.</b>

I’m talking about the writer’s pantster vs plotter argument for bloggers.

I started out with a plan for what topics to post on what day. (I tend to be a little on the OCD side that way.)

Didn’t work.

Instead I’ve discover I’m most comfortable rambling about the same things I’d talk to my friend about. (See #1 above)

<b>7.   </b><b>Treasure every person who takes time out of his or her day to stop by your blog.</b>

Respond to their comments.

Acknowledge their tweets or FB comment about your blog post.

Tell ‘em you love ‘em. Regularly.

<b>8.   </b><b>Relax and have fun.</b>

It isn’t only about vast numbers of readership.

Whether you have a small group of regular readers or zillions, I found that if you blog like nobody’s watchin’ (kinda like dancing like nobody’s watchin’) - you really can’t go wrong!

[caption id="attachment_2367" align="aligncenter" width="224"]<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/me-blogging-webpage5.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2367" alt="me blogging-webpage" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/me-blogging-webpage5.jpg?w=224" width="224" height="300" /></a> Me blogging when I THOUGHT no one was watching except Toby. He's the humpback whale looking object reflected in the mirror.[/caption]

Now you go blog and join the fun.