So I was reading around like I do, and the crew out at seomoz gave me a great idea to whomp up and pass around to you.

No doubt many of you are seasoned blogging professionals.  This advice may not be so helpful to you.  But to those of you just getting started, consider this:  don’t let people comment on your blog.

You might wonder if this isn’t counterproductive.  Didn’t I, after all, spend several posts railing on the concept of building community?  I did, no mistake there, but if you’re too new to have a community, showing that you have no community makes your blog look weak and unprofessional.  So what they recommend you do is wait to add a comments section until you have one or both of the following:

1. At least one hundred RSS subscribers per day

2. At least seven hundred fifty unique visitors per day.

There’s definitely something to be said for keeping the lid on commentary until your audience justifies such a measure, though I’m not sure it’s the best.  After all, it does something of a disservice to your early readership, the ones you’re counting on most, to not allow them to comment on your posts.

There’s one more great blog function that we haven’t gone after yet, but it’s time to fix that–today, we’re talking about the community blog.  If there’s one thing that every blog should strive to do, in everything it does, it should try as hard as possible to build a community.

How do you build a community?  Well, we’ve tried to do that right here, so we can show you how WE do it.  Ever notice that, when you leave a comment here, or ask a question, we get back to you?  Maybe you haven’t gone back to that thread where you left a comment, but chances are pretty good we’ve responded to you.  Why?  Because that makes people feel connected, feel INVOLVED, feel like part of something bigger than themselves and their comments.

Like part of a COMMUNITY.

There you go, right there.  You pay attention to your readers.  If they make suggestions, take them as seriously as you can.  Respond to their questions and comments.  The more welcome your readers feel, the more they’ll feel like part of a community.  The more they feel like part of a community, the more they’ll click links, read articles, and do all those things that keep you blogging.

Every blogger goes through this at one time or another–that horrible sinking feeling that, deep down, they’re really just screaming into an empty room.

Sure, traffic comes and traffic goes.  There’s even a good indication that people are reading your stuff and clicking your links.  But sometimes, it just feels insubstantial.  Incomplete.  So what do you do?  Take your act on the road, of course–down the information superhighway.

I know, a little outdated, but the metaphor fits.  Go to other people’s blogs.  Comment on them.  Talk to people there. Build a community.  It’ll help, and here’s how.

1. Commenting on other people’s blogs makes you more credible.  Again, back to credibility–if you’re seen as a person who knows what they’re talking about, no screaming, no ranting like a loon at every opportunity, then your opinion, your WORK (I really don’t consider the occasional caps screaming, more like emphasis without bothering with italics) more seriously.

2. Linking to other people’s blogs helps THOSE people find you.  When you put up a link, it’s like acknowledging someone else’s credibility.  That in turn helps that blog by letting a bit of your traffic go somewhere else.  Don’t worry, traffic isn’t a zero-sum game–traffic ebbs and flows.  But in turn, that makes other blogs more likely to link to you, and that keeps the flow moving.

3. Comments and links help establish your role in the community.  Remember that thing we did on blog carnivals?  About how they give you a place in a larger community?  Well, chances are your readers read other blogs too.  And if they go to those blogs, and talk about YOURS, you become part of a larger whole.  It’s about adding your own voice to the larger community and improving the whole as a result.

So if you want to make your blog bigger, go give some other people some blogging love.  It’ll help them, and it’ll help you.

When you have a large community and fanbase for your site, some websites take the route of creating forums for their website. In these forums, users can discuss various topics pertaining to both your site in general or go off-topic in sub-forums.

This is a great way to keep your community centralized and hooked. Once a user registers in a forum, he or she may find themselves to be at home. They will visit every day and become further involved with the site.

It is important to remember that forums are not for everyone. If your site doesn’t get enough hits to get a few comments here and there, it’s probably not in your best interest to create a message board. However, if you’re absolutely sure that you have a following large enough that they will actively post in the forum, by all means get started.

Once you have created your forums, it’s a full-time job all over again. You need to moderate your forums to make sure that there are no fights, spam, etc. Choosing moderators can be a hassle too; will they be reliable? Before creating a forum, be sure to check out other forums first and actively engage in them. You will begin to grasp the idea of how a forum works and how to get things done.

My recommended forum software include: XMB, phpBB, vBulletin, and Invision Power Board.

Starting and creating a wiki is always something that is a hobby to most people. Popularized by WikiPedia, more and more people now are creating their own wikis. Then there’s the Million Dollar Wiki where a business or anybody at all can purchase a wiki page for only $100. For only $100 you say? Well, to most of us, that’s too much. So why not just make your own in 3 easy steps… for free. That’s where the WetPaint comes in.

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There are many blogs that are being made every minute of every day. New bloggers are making blogs for many different reasons, but their priorities are not right. Most new bloggers tend to try and make money online first instead of writing their their content or other important things. Here is a short list of how I think the priorities of new bloggers should be.

High Priorities

Writing Content
What’s a blog without content? That’s the main reason why your readers are visiting your site in the first place. Writing good quality content is the most important thing when blogging. Don’t forget to apply SEO! Being Part of the Blogging Community
The next most important thing is to be actually part of the blogging community. To be part of the blogging community requires that you communicate with other bloggers through commenting and joining blog directories like MyBlogLog and Blog Catalog. Other communities include StumbleUpon and Bumpzee. Read the rest of this entry »