A friend of mine from Newsvine sent me an e-mail, asking about blogging and specifically:

…what do you think is the best way to get a blog to where yours has gotten so far? Or any other suggestions you may have.

I was surprised that anyone was asking for my advice on blogging, considering that we have so many reasons to be humble. But I know a lot more today than when Andrew and I started the blog, and thought that there might be some insight on building a decent blog. After starting with three things, I moved to five, then six. I finished my reply with seven things that have gotten us to where we are.

Here they are.

1. Original content is the most important thing you can have on your website. One original story a week beats 50 link posts. That is no lie. Yesterday, I posted “Standing on the Bridge to Dependence.” After I stumbled it to all my Stumble Upon friends, I finished the day with almost 2000 hits to that post. If that had been just a link to another article and a line or two from me, it would not have worked. People can get link posts anywhere, but they can only get your opinion from you.

   That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for link posts on your blog, but don’t make them the meat of it. Make them the french fries to your Angus beef burger. Build the blog around original work, and use link posts to inform your readers about things you find interesting, but didn’t write.

2. You have got to make friends. I mentioned Stumble Upon above. There are some great people there who appreciate good conservative writing. It is also the best site for driving traffic to your site. But you have to do more than just meet people on social sites like SU. You have to reach out to other bloggers. Send them e-mails telling them what you like about their site, for no reason other than to give them a compliment. I did that before and found that people really appreciate it. Make sure you let them know about your blog, but don’t make that the point of the e-mail. Tell them that if they ever need anything to ask, and mean it. They will probably send you an e-mail, letting you know about a post they just finished. Go read it. If you like it, make a link post about it.

   There are a ton of people out there just trying to get noticed. Notice them, and they will notice you.

   Also, reach out to the top tier bloggers with e-mails telling them about any new articles you posted. A great format that I use mimics the suggestion made by Kevin Aylward at Wizbang. Check that post out. It is how I approach every top blogger when I offer my work. It’s how Ace noticed me.

3. Read blogs about blogs. I have subscribed to all kinds of different blogs about blogging. Every weekend, I go through the RSS feeds and read the posts that I think relate to me. Stuff like finding writing ideas, writing headlines, and new stuff like how to better use Twitter. Start with ProBlogger, Dosh Dosh, Copyblogger and … tell you what I just did. I created a Netvibes account and imported my blogging RSS feeds into it. It is a big collection but I don’t want to miss a great idea from a smaller blog, so I have added feeds as I have found them. If you want it, go to Netvibes. The login is duane -at- allamericanblogger.com and the password is Reagan. Do with it what you will. Personally, I use Google Reader, but to each his own. Those sites are just as important as the political sites. They should be a part of your routine.

   Read the old articles too. There are some great posts in their archives about writing. I have found them to be very important.

4. Site design has to be original. Andrew has designed ours to emphasize the copy. You can see that the writing is the focus of our blog. Other blogs have different ideas, but our theme is clean. We want a very clean site. And that is mainly due to Andrew’s efforts. If it weren’t for him, I would have all kinds of different widgets and gizmos embedded in the sidebars. You can find great ideas on site design in the blogs on blogging, which is another reason to read them regularly.
5. Plan for the long haul. This is gonna take a while. When we started, we had nobody reading us. If we had 50 uniques, it was a good day. I remember the first day we had 1000 unique visitors. It was all because Ace at Ace of Spades HQ linked to an original article I had written. Man, I was ready to go out and celebrate that night. But it took months to get. We still have days where it looks like the world forgot us, but then we have days like yesterday. It just takes time. Stick with it.
6. The sixth thing is surprisingly tough for some. If you make a mistake, correct it. If you screw up, say you are sorry. If you do something wrong, make it right. It’s called being human. I wrote that China has oil rigs off the coast of Key West. Turns out that is an urban legend. I noted as much on the article that made that claim. Better to correct it myself than be made to look a fool by someone else.
7. This one is the most trite, but true. Write. As often as you can. Every time you write something, you get a little better at it. It’s true. When I started writing on Newsvine, I found my positions and ideas under attack. I learned to write in a way that minimized that, which is why you see so many links in my articles. Not only that, but the composition has improved from when I started. Reading my stuff from two years ago opened my eyes to how my writing has improved.

I know that there are many other things that I have learned in the past year about blogging, but these were seven that really popped into my head as I was replying to my friend. Some of the first things I read when I started blogging were John Hawkins’ thoughts on building a successful blog. He has some good ideas there as well.

What have I missed? Is there anything you think I should have included in the post, or are there some things you have learned that you think are worth mentioning?