One of our favorite bloggers is a girl named ”Redneck Mommy.” Check out her instructions on how to be a blog superstar!
When I first started blogging four years ago, I had no clue what I was doing. None. My vast experience as a blogger could be summed up quite literally as a blog lurker for two months. Which, you know, darn near made me an expert.
Heh.
I had no expectations when I started this blog. I had things I hoped for, mostly finding a reader or two who would snicker at my jokes and remind me that life indeed does go on even if one’s son drops dead unexpectedly in the middle of the night but other than that, I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing.
I just did it anyway because it felt good. Like s#x, but without having to worry about getting knocked up. Again.
I’ve learned a lot, mostly through trial and error over the course of time when it comes to the ins and outs of blogging. But I’ve never blogged about blogging because (yawn) meta-blogging is so not my thing. Nobody reads an instruction manual, so why write one?
(My apologies to the people who actually earn their livings writing instruction manuals. Also, my sympathies.)
But recently, I’ve received a plethora of private emails asking me if I had any tips for a shiny newbie blogger dreaming of success in the big bad bloggie world. I admit, this is rather novel to me. Most of the time I just get a tonne of emails from horny losers asking if I will send them a picture of my boobs.
(The answer to that question is generally no. FYI.)
It seems that since I’ve won an award or two, and landed on a list here or there, my readers have confused me with someone who is a professional, someone who actually knows what they are doing and someone who doesn’t spend most of her days surfing the net in hopes of finding a funny cartoon to read.
Silly chickens.
However, I am nothing if not a people pleaser so I thought I’d share with you my vast wealth of blogging knowledge. Here’s your chance to either mock me or click away to someone who actually wrote a real post.
You want real advice, please direct your attention to Problogger. See? Even the name is more professional than Attack of the Redneck Mommy™. Which, leads me to my second tip: Don’t over-think how your are going to christen your corner of the internet. Don’t bother with a google search. Heck, if I had done that, I would have missed all the fun of people accidentally finding my blog instead of the rat farmer in Alabama they were looking for.
Try to find interesting blog fodder, say, the opposite of writing a post about how to be a better blogger. Don’t have anything of interest to write about? Well you should do what I do in times of blogging blankness. Write about your boobs! Or better yet, write daft posts about dying your cooter hair blue.
The internet is over-run with thoughtful, well-written posts. It’s over-rated. Don’t be afraid to be the google perverts’ best friend. This way you’ll know your blog really reached out to touch someone.
Nothing you write can ever come back to bite you on the ass. The internet is shielded from reality by the blood droplets of geeks everywhere. It is a magical force field.
So if you want to write a post about your mom, she will never find it and subsequently disown your arse for the following two years. You want to chronicle a lengthy and troublesome adoption process as you endure it? Go right ahead. I promise, the case supervisor in charge of determining your family size will never discover you called her a soulless bureaucrat sucking the hope out of good parents everywhere.
Go ahead and feel good about calling your psychiatrist an insecure fruit loop before he has rendered his professional opinion about your ability to function as a responsible parent. He’ll never find it. And if he does, he won’t be pissed at all. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy having their s#xuality questioned publicly now and then?
Other bloggers will warn you not to over-share, but personally, I’ve developed a taste for toe jam. And when someone tells you not to publish anything you aren’t willing to have your arse kicked over, they clearly have never endured the joy of that particular experience.
I say grab a bulls-eye and bend over. Let the fun begin!
For the love of bloggers everywhere, remember that every blogger started out with the same origins. Just a lonely geek behind a computer screen hoping someone would find and read their blog. Except Dooce. Heather Armstrong is the exception. She fully popped out of her mother’s vagina with a huge internet readership. Her family still talks about it at holiday get-togethers.
And if you believe that I’ve got a chicken over here that shits out gold eggs. Email me if you are interested in purchasing her.
Having said that, just know, if you don’t have at least one hundred daily readers, you are clearly failing and not contributing anything of worth to the blogging community. Screw quality and originality. The only thing that counts for anything here in the blog world is the number of readers you can brag about.
The most important blogging lesson I can teach you, is always remember you are a STAR. Do not let your husband, your wife, your in-laws or your children forget this fact. Screw house cleaning and family time. You have a blog to update dammit, and twitter followers waiting to hang on your every word.
You must never disappoint them. It’s the price of blogging fame. Didn’t you know? Once you hit 50 readers a day you have to trade in your life and any real life obligations you may have for more server space. It’s the law.
My last tip of the day? Read Mr. Lady. She has a great section on her blog called techstalk where she dumbs down the actual intricacies of blogging. Ftp, platforms, bedazzled vaginas er, blogs, you name it, Shannon covers it. And she makes it readable. She is hands down one of the best writers on the internet.
(And no, I’m not just saying that because she occasionally lets me sleep with my face buried in her boobs, although that doesn’t hurt either.)
There. My blogging advice to you all. I feel pretty good about this post. I mean, not only did I directed you to a couple of actual pros thereby successfully shirking all responsibility for the success of your blogs, but I managed to mock blogging in general and avoid folding the laundry this morning.
That’s how a blogger does it.
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