Five things I would do differently if I started blogging today

I started blogging here in January of 2004.  I didn't have a book guiding me.  I didn't have a mentor walking me through HOW to do it. It was truly on the job training (plus what I learned from other bloggers (Doug, Matt, etc.).  Sadly, my blog is screwed up.  It really is. 

The good thing is that I know that.  I've learned from it.  I know what I would do differently (things that I am doing differently at my other blog (Rethink(IP)).  I also have been able to use that knowledge for good...recently helping a quite famous author tweak his blog (which is currently receiving a zillion hits a day). 

So...what are the lessons I learned?

1.    Portability, portability, portability.  That is my latest mantra.  I see myself standing on stage like Steve Balmer shouting  "portability portability portability."  What ever am I talking about?  The future. Your blog needs to be set up with an eye for the future.  What will you do if TypePad goes under (or raises their price substantially)?  What will you do if your favorite blog program ceases further development? What if, what if, what if?  You need options.  You need a Plan B.  That Plan B is portability.

There are two main ways you give your blog portability.  (1) free your RSS feed and (2) get your own domain. Right now, most bloggers RSS feeds are provided by their blog host provider.  Whether that be TypePad, Blogger, etc.  What happens if you decide to move your blog somewhere else in the future?  Being that all of your RSS readers are locked onto your blog host provider's feed, you'll have to convince them to all open their aggregators and change your RSS feed to your new one.  What a pain.  [Note:  I did this well into my second year of blogging.  If you've been reading my blog (The Invent Blog) for a LONG time, you might check to make sure you have my most current RSS feed in your aggregator.  It is actually a pretty easy thing to do.  Try to subscribe to this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheInventBlog. If that is the feed you have in your aggregator, you're good to go.  If you end up with two Invent Blog feeds...you'll need to find my original (nip.blogs.com) feed and kill it.]

Thus, it is my opinion that the sooner that you get an independent RSS feed the better.  Separate your RSS feed from your blog's home.  That way your blog could be anywhere...and your readers will always find you.  The easiest way to do that is via a FeedBurner feed.  If you don't have a FeedBurner feed, do so right now. Portability is just one of the cool things FeedBurner lets you do.

OK.  So your RSS readers will be able to follow you wherever you go. What about your HTML readers?  If you have "blogspot" or "blogs.com" or "typepad.com" (etc.) in your blog's URL...not good.  That means that all of your old posts (and Google juice) are locked onto your blog provider's domain name.  Thus, if you ever switch to a different blog provider/software you can kiss your old links and juice good-bye. Thus, you need to immediately, if not sooner, go register a domain name and map that domain name ("domain mapping") to your blog. I now you can do that with TypePad blogs, but I don't think you can with Blogger blogs (if true, I'd avoid Blogger).  [note:  I haven't yet done this on The Invent Blog...and I dread it severely.  Losing 2 years of Google juice will be quite painful.  A move to WordPress is in the future....].  If you map your posts to your own domain name, no matter where your blog is hosted, or what server it sits on, your readers will always be able to find your old posts.  That is pure gold!

2.  Recognize that your readers aren't as nerdy as you.  What percent of your daily traffic comes via Google?  Guess what?  Most of those hits are from people who don't know what a blog is, let alone know what an RSS aggregator is.  If you EVER want to see those readers again you either have to hope they create a bookmark to your site and come back OR you need to make it as easy as possible to subscribe to your content.  That means e-mail. 

Do you have a way for your readers to subscribe by email?  I recommend FeedBlitz (which you can link to your FeedBurner account).  Get an account and place a subscription box on your blog TODAY.  Want to guess what percent of my readers get my RSS feed via FeedBlitz?  As of today, 48.1%.  Hundreds of people.  If I didn't offer email subscription how many of them would read it every day?  ZERO. 

3.  Closely related to #2 is the nice chicklets that FeedBurner and others offer.  These little buttons enable your readers to easily add your blog to their aggregators, whether they be Bloglines, Google Personalized Home Page, Yahoo!, Newsgator, etc.  Again, make it easy for people to subscribe.

4.   Stats.  If you are using the stats program that came with your blog host provider/ISP...chances are it is lame.  I recommend StatCounter. It is free and gives you a tremendous quantity of information about your number of readers and what they were reading.  Why stats?  See #5 below.

5.  Enable full RSS feeds.  Using the above techniques you can now see who actually reads your blog.  Thus, there is no reason you shouldn't enable full RSS feeds.  You can toss that excuse of "I want people to visit the HTML page so I can see how many readers I have" out the window.  Don't be rude to your readers just so you can see who they are.  If my aggregator loads your posts and I can only read the first sentence of your post...I'll be damned if I am going to go to your blog to read the rest.  I know of a number of great IP and LPM blogs who I refuse to read because of this.  Don't make me name names.  Don't be rude!

In summary:  make your blog portable and make it user friendly.  It is as easy as that.

I'll open the comments...feel free to add your own two cents.

[update:  See also Things I Wish I Knew When Starting a Blog]

Comments

[Matt]

You ought to shorten your web page title if you want readers to see your name. In Bloglines, for example, your feed shows up as "The Invent Blog :: Patent Blog of Patent Attorney / Patent Lawye"

[Nipper]

Matt:

Great point. Fixed. Thanks.

Steve

[Josh]

MultiRSS is a nice substitution for all those chicklets.

Relying on FeedBurner is no different than relying on TypePad for your feed. They both can change their terms of service anytime or go out of business. The same goes for email feeds like Feedblitz and Bloglet.

The only way to really immunize yourself from the portability dilemma is to host your own site or pay for a hosted service that isn't necessarily a Blog hosting service (i.e. turn to your local, or not so local, web hosting service that has been around for a while instead of a service like TypePad or SquareSpace, which may go under a year or two from now).

If you don't hire a web designer or other IT support, you'll probably have to end up getting your hands dirty as you delve into things like CSS, PHP, and (gasp!) maybe even unix commands to maintain and modify your site.

[Kevin Thompson]

Josh, your concerns about Feedburner are somewhat misplaced. They are very open about how to redirect feeds if you choose to or are forced to quit using them. Check out the support site at Feedburner for more, http://forums.feedburner.com/

[Brady]

I am a law student interested in patent/copyright law for music...does such a specialty exist? Are their firms that focus solely on this?

My prior short career b/f law school was as a musician; I worked for the University of Michigan as a staff accompanist (I'm a pianist) and then worked for the USAF Band for 3 years. Everyone I know in school is taking advantage of their undergraduate degrees, for instance in business or in computer science...why can't I?

Please let me know if you have any leads. My previous searches have been fruitless. Even my career services office has told me there is really no such thing.

Thanks

[Wandering Indian Monk]

Matt: Excellent points. I have found that having a long domain name also turns people away (like mine!). Your experience with this?

[nipper]

Great thoughts.

I agree...long names are problematic. You want your readers to remember your name...the longer the name, the harder it is to do that.

I'd also avoid using too many hyphens, weird spellings, and nubmers (l33t speak probably isn't a good idea). Save your creativity for your tagline (if possible).

/Nipper/

[Ernie the Attorney]

I totally agree about Stat counter. I started using it upon your recommendation and I'm very happy with it. Much better than the paltry (and inaccurate) counter that TypePad provides.

[J. Matthew Buchanan]

Steve -- great post - invaluable advice for people starting out. Dennis Kennedy has added his thoughts on the "what I would do differently" theme. (View his post here: http://www.denniskennedy.com/archives/2006_02.html#a001021 ). It's no surprise that he adds some great thoughts to the mix. I commented on Dennis' post with some thoughts of my own.

[The Mommy Blawger]

Where do you get chicklets?

[jhjkhk]

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[jhjkhk]

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[Wayne Mansfield]

Blogger allows your own domain name and I am having great fun working out what else I can do with customising the blog, now that I have control of the ftp process.

[blogan]

Google is great for being found. Including tags on your posts and pinging Technorati is another way to increase your audience.

I hold the opposite opinion as you re RSS with full text. I like descriptive post titles and a good start to let me know whether I want to go to the site to read the rest of the post. With long articles, full text makes navigating on my RSS reader (IE7) less convenient. If I was using a different RSS reader, I might agree with you.

[Uli Starke]

I prefer GOOGLE