Listography - Top 5 Tips for Bloggers

This week's Listography is one for the bloggers. Whether you're new to blogging or an old hand I want your Top 5 Tips that you've learned so far on your blogging journey.

And don't think that just because you've only been blogging for 2 months that you have nothing useful to pass on. It's amazing what you learn in those first months and it's also very easy to forget those early lessons once you've been doing it for a bit longer.

So no excuses ok?

My Top 5 Tips for Bloggers are:

1. Remove Word Verification.
The amount of times I've left a comment and then closed the window before that bloody box comes up I can't tell you. It's a blight on your blog. Get rid of it.

2. Join Twitter.
Pre-blog I used to scoff at people who were on Twitter. 'What a f*ing joke' I would think smugly,'Who on earth cares if Mary_358 had scones for breakfast?' What I didn't realise is that you can actually have conversations on Twitter. That you can banter and joke with people you have forged strange online friendships with. Twitter has also become my Google. Want to know what to use instead of cornflour in a recipe? Ask Twitter. Want to know how to get a raisin out of a child's nose? Ask Twitter.
And I haven't even touched on the promotion of blog posts and traffic it will send your way. Go sign up.

3. A Little Word about Design.
When you start blogging you will pick a theme and think your blog looks amazing. 6 weeks later you will start twiddling and tweaking with the design. You will spend approximately 495 hours trying to make it look 'just so'. You will fail. If you get serious about blogging, want to love your blog every time you look at it and have some spare cash or a wealthy aunt then hire a designer. I used Violet Posy. She's tops.

4. Put Some Effort into Your About Page.
Posts come and go but your About Page is there to stay. It will probably be the most viewed page on your blog so take some time to do up a good one. (Note to self: About Page needs an update.)
Michelle at The American Resident wrote a post of top tips on this recently.

5. Be Nice.
It's a lovely little community we've got going on around us - it would be nice to keep it that way. That doesn't mean we can't enter into debate or make some controversial comments, but it's worth stopping to think about whether what you are about to say is something that you would say face-to-face to that person.
So let's all skip through the tulips together shall we?

So there's my Top 5 Tips for bloggers. Now all you have to do is write your own Top 5 on your blog, then come back here, link up below and then make your way through some of the other entries until your brain explodes.

Looking forward to reading them!