By Over the past few months I have had a steady stream of e-mails requesting tips about how to start a successful blog. As many of you know, I have been keeping this blog going for over five years now and I without a doubt have learned a lot about blogging over the years. So I have decided to go ahead and put a posting together that outlines some of the things I think can help someone thinking about starting a blog about Korea. Blogging now has really changed compared to when I started when there was only a handful to now there being literally hundreds of K-blogs available to read. So it makes much more difficult for people wanting to start a blog today to stand out compared to before. So hopefully these tips can help everyone looking to start their own K-blog to stand out from the rest.
- Provide Regular Content – What I often see happen is that someone starts a blog and they are able to keep it going for 2-3 months with almost daily postings, but when they don’t receive a huge readership or page views in those opening months they then lose interest in the blog. Keep in mind that very rarely will a new blog in its first few months ever become popular, especially with a K-blog. The readership for English language content about Korea is limited as it is and there is now a plethora of K-blogs out there that really makes it difficult for good blogs to stand out initially. However, if you stick it out and continue to provide good, regularly posted content on your blog, you will eventually begin to draw a readership. I think a really good rule of thumb is to at least provide one quality posting a day when starting out with your blog.
- Provide Quality Content – Notice my emphasis on quality in the last posting because if you are just re-posting information from newspapers with no thoughtful analysis you are not going to entice many readers to want to come back to your site. Blogging is about providing opinions so don’t be afraid to put your opinion out there, however makes sure it is a thoughtful opinion. For example do not just type up on your site that, Person X is a total idiot who doesn’t know anything without providing sound logic and reason why the person is an idiot. It is the same for issues, don’t say you support an issue without sound logic to support your opinion. The more you provide thoughtful opinions the more creditability you will create for yourself even with people who may not agree with you. For example my writings on the Korean War have gained much attention because of my efforts to provide detailed quality content for readers. My writings have become popular enough that I drew the ire of the Associated Press’ Charles Hanley, been contacted as a source for mainstream media journalists, have had articles published in journals & newspapers, and was even invited to give a presentation to the Seoul Rotary Club. Over time that is the type of creditability that quality well researched postings can do for you.
- Respond to Comments – Blogging is about engaging people and discussing topics in an open forum, so make sure you are engaging people. Commenting is the single best feature about blogging because it creates an interactive environment for readers to engage the writer. When starting a blog you must respond to comments. If someone is taking the time to respond to you in the comments section than definitely take the time yourself to respond. As the blog grows this becomes harder to do, but other commenters are able to engage. I get so many comments now on the ROK Drop I can’t possibly respond to every comment, but when I was first starting out, I responded to just about every single one.
- Comment on Other Blogs – When getting started as a blogger a really good way to build creditability with other bloggers is by providing thoughtful comments on their blogs. Most blogs allow you to have a link back to your site on your name like I allow on the ROK Drop. So if you have something thoughtful to say other readers may click on your name to check your site out. However, make sure you are not spamming other blogs with comments in the hope that people will click your name to check your site out. You can get a few more links this way but not long term readers. When I first started blogging I spent a lot of time commenting on other blogs, which unfortunately due to time constraints with running this site and working my day job has greatly reduced my ability to regularly read as many blogs as I used to.
- Respond to E-mails – Much like with comments, I didn’t get much e-mail when I first started blogging, but I always made sure respond. However, now I get lots e-mail plus an incredible amount of spam. It may take me a while but generally I respond to all the legitimate e-mail I receive. By engaging with potential readers any way you can will only further increase the regular leadership on your site.
- You Don’t Know It All – Many readers will read your site to learn something new, but that doesn’t mean you cannot learn something from readers. Don’t be so self conscious to not admit that many commenters know more about a subject than you do. I have actually modified my opinions over the years due to great reader feedback which causes me to reconsider the way I thought on various issues. This is why I continue to believe that commenting is the most useful feature of blogging. Take advantage of this to not only educate readers, but educate yourself.
- Spell Check & Re-Read Your Posts – I am guilty of this from time to time as well when I only have a limited amount of time to type something out, but it is important to spell check and re-read your postings. If every posting on the site has misspelled words and bad grammar than that could leave a bad impression with readers, especially first time visitors. So make sure as you see mistakes or as readers point them out to correct them on the site.
- Get Your Own Hosted Site – The vast majority of bloggers including myself started off on free blogging sites. I switched over to WordPress and found my own webhost back in December 2007. To this day I wish I had started off with WordPress and hosted my own site back when I first started blogging. By hosting your own site your blog will look more professional just because you have your own URL and freedom to customize the site any way you want. This is also a sign to readers that you are blogging for the long haul since you committed to buying your own web space. Also if you start off with a free site and then decide later to host your own site you could lose many comments and some postings when making the switch like I did. Most importantly you will lose all of your page rankings with the various search engines. When I switched from a free hosted site to hosting on WordPress I lost about 75% of my site traffic because I was no longer indexed on search engines and all my links from other sites were broken. It took well over a year to get back to the same level of site traffic.
- Encourage RSS Subscribers – If you look at the top of my webpage you can see the number of Feedburner RSS subscribers I have along with links to subscribe to the site. I like RSS because once someone subscribes that means they will most likely be a regular reader. I have read articles before about discouraging RSS subscribers because those readers do not count as page views on your site since they are going through a reader. This drives down your page stats, which than effects your search engine rankings. This is true, but on my site I am more concerned with attracting a regular, committed readership that is interested in reading what I write. If you are interested enough in the site to subscribe through RSS than I consider you a committed reader and that is what I am looking for. By the way if you haven’t subscribed to the site yet, what are you waiting for?
- Stick with Your Theme – There is nothing worse about reading a blog and then it suddenly the blogger begins posting on an entirely different subject. On the ROK Drop 90% of the postings are Korea related with about 10% military and random topics just to mix things up a bit. I now use the ROK Drop Forums to put most of the miscellaneous topics in now. So when people come to the ROK Drop they know they are getting the best information available on Korea every day and not a collage of postings on topics they may not be interested in. So if you are starting a new K-blog at least make 75% of your postings Korea related because that is probably why readers came to your site in the first place, to read about Korea.
- A Successful Blog Will Not Happen Over Night – It is very unlikely that when starting any blog much less a K-blog that you are going to have instant success unless you post nothing, but porn. However, if you want a serious K-blog to be successful you have to keep on posting and posting regularly and work slowly but surely to build your readership. All the bigger K-blogs out there have been blogging for a long time. If your blog isn’t getting as many page views as you would like after 6 months don’t give up and just keep providing regular, quality content and slowly you will continue to build your site’s readership. Don’t get discouraged.
- Learn to Use Social Media – Social media is a great way for people to find your site. So make sure to have some kind of link such as the Share This function I have on my site to make it easy for people to share your posting on these social media sites. On this site Stumble Upon and Twitter has been easily the two social media sites that bring in the most traffic. I have a WordPress Plugin that leaves links to all my postings on my Twitter page for people to follow. Some of you may have a big Facebook following for example so use that to bring more readers to your site. So figure out what social media works for you and cultivate it.
- Use Blog Listings to Promote Your Site – There are plenty of listings out there to promote your site with. The most well known blog listing for Korean blogs would be The Korean Blog List. If you haven’t already get yourself listed on sites like this.
- Learn About SEO – Search Engine Optimization is an important part of blogging to learn. You need to write clear titles for your postings that when someone is searching on Google they have a good idea what your content is about. Also providing Tags on your posts also help search engines find your content. If you use WordPress there is plenty of Plugins that help in regards to SEO.
- Get Other Bloggers to Link to You – If you write quality content other bloggers will eventually link to you. However, some bloggers like myself don’t mind courteous e-mails asking for links. If you can believe this I have actually received an e-mail before rudely asking why I haven’t link to their blog. If you send me a nice e-mail I will add your blog to my site, but keep in mind that not all bloggers are like me, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
- Have Fun! – This is the most important factor with blogging. Blog because you love it and are having fun. If I wasn’t having a great time blogging I sure wouldn’t be doing this for the past five years. If you really enjoy writing, your blog will show it and readers will appreciate it as well.
So this is just a quick run down for all you new bloggers out there to help you get started with your blog. There is plenty of other minor things that can be done to improve your site, but remember persistence and regular, quality content is what will make you stand out from the rest.
If anyone has any other tips to share feel free to add them in the comments secton below. Thanks.
3:37 am on August 27th, 2009 1
Agree with you totally on these tips. That's why you're the big poppa out there.
4:43 am on August 27th, 2009 2
Excellent work here.
One of the big obstacles to being considered a good K-blog (by me anyway) is lack of originality, and you've alluded to that here. It doesn't do any good if all you do is repost newspaper articles or copy what others *cough* have already written two days ago.
6:05 am on August 27th, 2009 3
I've been blogging for 8 years, and I think your advice is spot on.
I would add that if your blog *is* going to have multiple topics, let folks know that from the start, and if you have a major shift, work with it. When I left Korea, my web traffic took a dive, but I have found a new audience in folks interested in two other topics I write about: reenacting and life advice. So, as a result, I tend to post about those two topics on a regular basis, while still occasionally mentioning the odd bit of Korean news sometimes.
7:30 am on August 27th, 2009 4
Have you changed the default font the past two days or is my computer screwy?
The text on the main part is small but readable. The text for recent comments isn't.
It might be my computer. ???
8:57 am on August 27th, 2009 5
I would also add that no blog is totally worthless…it can always serve as a bad example.
Which is why I keep plugging away. Someone has to set the (low) standard on which all others can measured.
And being the yin to ROKDrop's yang gives my blog meaning and purpose.
9:23 am on August 27th, 2009 6
I believe it was me….somehow I must have zoomed out in the View menu. Zooming in has it looking like it always has…
10:00 am on August 27th, 2009 7
It's worth adding, too, that everyone will have a different idea of a "good" blog. Some people have slice-of-life blogs that document the things they see and do every day. I find those valuable, and used to read through them a lot to find out what people are doing in the classroom. But, they'll often get, like, three hits a week. Your tips are good for creating a blog looking for a larger audience, though I can still appreciate the small-time bloggers who just write for their family back home. The tricky time comes when you try to transition it into something bigger . . .
10:08 am on August 27th, 2009 8
I like to think that my blog is a happy medium between the two. I still write with an audience in mind, but I don't really let it completely dictate my content, either. Then again, I have found new audiences by the variation in my writing, such as how I now get a lot of hits from folks looking into 20th century reenacting.
10:45 am on August 27th, 2009 9
Excellent post – and great advice for newer bloggers to follow.
Knowing both who your audience is (Google Analytics is great for that) and what they want out of your blog is important. In other words, why does someone read it? For advice, for information, for humor, because you're a friend, etc.
11:54 am on August 27th, 2009 10
The reference to who your audience is, is quite important. Since the majority of us are providing personal opinions about daily happenings, you need to find a balance between your posts. On the one hand you want general enough stories so that people not in Korea can relate to the tales but also be able to provide some helpful/useful information for those here or intending to come here.
As per originality, if someone else has already written about it (regarding something in the news) link em', there's no shame! But also provide some well thought out comments on the subject matter.
Since, most likely, you won't be lurking and thieving all of your posts work with this premiss: if you're going to complain, at least make it humorous for the rest of us! ha!
1:20 pm on August 27th, 2009 11
If I'm the big poppa out there than the Marmot must be the grand daddy because he has been blogging much longer than I have.
1:24 pm on August 27th, 2009 12
It must have been your settings because I haven't made any changes on the site and it looks fine on my computer.
1:31 pm on August 27th, 2009 13
John, you can take comfort in having one of the best banners of any K-blog. Very nicely done.
1:44 pm on August 27th, 2009 14
Yes you are right that a "good blog" is subjective and that is why I believe page views is not a good way to measure if a blog is good or not. Posting nothing but Korean celebrity articles or porn would get me a lot more page views than I do now. However, posting nothing but these types of articles would not give me the type of committed readership or creditability I am looking for.
Writing blogs strictly about your time in Korea are also valuable but difficult to get big readership with outside of your circle of friends and family. The best blog of this type I used to read daily was the Korea Life Blog which is still one of the best blogs about living in Korea I have read.
3:48 pm on August 27th, 2009 15
A lot of bloggers are too thin skinned.
3:52 pm on August 27th, 2009 16
I really like the ROK Drop because Jon is responsive to his readership base, and he never crosses the line when giving his opinion of things.
I was reading the Korea Life Blog in Australia before coming here 3 years ago, and it was the inspiration for me to start my own.
One thing I want to do is to move to a host and get a proper address….. but I dread the effort and loss of readership. If I never want to make money off the blog, does it really matter?
3:53 pm on August 27th, 2009 17
[DELETED BY ADMIN - Take the personal attacks elsewhere]
3:56 pm on August 27th, 2009 18
You got a great blog John. One of the best in Korea. Very refreshing.
4:27 pm on August 27th, 2009 19
I was considering expanding on something I suggested in a comment to an earlier topic by writing an article in the Forums sections, but I guess this would be a good place to do it.
In my earlier comment, I mentioned that change would be coming to the world of blogging in the near future. Let me narrow that down to sometime next year.
Those of you who read Stars and Stripes may have noticed they have a section they title AP News. A month ago, I notice that if you scroll down to the bottom of any one of those articles, you will see a link that says "Click here for copyright permissions!" in small print. That brings up a page with several options for the reuse of AP copyrighted content. One of the listed options is POST, which it describes as, "Post all or part of this article on a web site, intranet, or blog." That link brings up a page with three options:
If you go back to the Stars and Stripes AP News articles, it appears that they may be using the free-with-AP-ads option, as the articles appear to be accompanied with AP specific ads. However, it is obvious that most bloggers who excerpt content don't do that.
The .ICopyright agency that presents the licensing options appears to be independent of, but contracted by AP News. Part of their site cites the topic on which there is still much ambiguity; the fair uses exemption. The fair uses link tells you how it is defined in copyright law – like I said, very ambiguous, but something I believe will have to be hashed out with the changes I see coming. From what I understand, besides the four criteria listed, a big cleaver in deciding fair use or not is if the excerpted material is used in a for-profit vs. non-profit publication. Hence, a blog site that obtains revenue from Google Ads and such may be considered a for-profit publication.
All well and good, but why haven't you heard much commotion about this yet. I think the signs have been appearing for some time, but they haven't come to a head yet. Many newspapers are in economic trouble and have been threatening to put their foot down and insist on being paid when others reuse their content. AP seems to be taking specific technological steps to do just that. On the AP website, there is a link to "Associated Press to build news registry to protect content."
These initial tools may just provide a means for AP to ensure compliance of those with temporary licenses to use AP content, but it is almost definitely a first step to coming down on those who ignore licensing requirements all together. Think of a mash-up of the anti-plagiarism software used at universities and Google's search engine scouring the Web looking for blocks of text. And all other content producers will not be far behind.
So the message to bloggers whose content is made up, in part, of cut-and-pastes from news publications; start doing more original research, analysis, and exposition, or be prepared to pay up.
As a person with an academic interest in the evolution of information technology and media, this stuff is fascinating to me. I intend to follow it closely. I might even decide to blog on it
.
5:13 pm on August 27th, 2009 20
I think this is an overlooked key to most people. The blogs I find most value in are the ones that have an open comments section. Sure, such sections can turn into a flame war (I've been guilty of participating in those) zone in which people regularly come just to fight.
Like the Korea Herald forum – for those who can remember it. That used to be a pretty good community, but it couldn't survive 2002 because too many people made it a bitter, personal battle ground.
But, unless it goes to extremes like that, a good blog can become a community where people with different perspectives, experiences, and history on the topics discussed can be seen.
A healthy comment section can be a draw in itself.
5:21 pm on August 27th, 2009 21
Good point about comments. GI Korea usually doesnt comment to everyone. That is a good thing. Many comments are dumb, pointless or come from known trolls like "tom" or "Dr U". However, GI Korea don't just delete them. Good for GI. I don't like the trolls, but I think they add some interesting comments (usually anti-USA).
Other blogs make it their life to shoot down every comment they don't agree with. This is why some blogs are so lame. Actually a bunch of the blogs represented on this comments thread would fall in the lame catagory.
10:02 pm on August 27th, 2009 22
Respond to this:
When will you learn the difference between "then" and "than?"
10:06 pm on August 27th, 2009 23
It depends on what your goal is with your blog. If you are happy with the size of your readership now and expanding it even further is not your goal than keeping your Blogger site is fine. Keep in mind that setting up a hosted site is getting easier and easier now. If you go through Blogs-About which is my webhost they can move and set up the site for you on WordPress. However, Blogs-About is more expensive than other webhosts which will hardly help you with anything. So you get what you pay for.
10:26 pm on August 27th, 2009 24
Maybe if you didn't write trolling comments yourself, you wouldn't get deleted.
By the way, in reference to your comment about my blog, I think you're thinking about someone else – I never complain about being fat, because I'm not. I also don't have a Korean lover, and am not married. I assume that either you're thinking of someone else or just spouting rubbish in order to attract attention.
11:00 pm on August 27th, 2009 25
I agree. That is really a great blog.
12:01 am on August 28th, 2009 26
Jon. Just use "then" at all times. That way you will be right about 95% of the time.
http://grammartips.homestead.com/than.html
THE LORD HAS SPOKEN.
2:48 am on August 28th, 2009 27
Speaking of spell check, there is a good program Spell Check Anywhere (SpellCheckAnywhere.Net) it adds spell check to all programs.
3:02 am on August 28th, 2009 28
The Firefox browser has a built in spell checker. But a spell checker won't identify the incorrect uses of then's and than's.
3:22 am on August 28th, 2009 29
This post was great and very helpful. At the end you suggested requesting other blogs to link to you so I was going to ask you. Then I noticed you already did. Thanks!
12:25 pm on August 30th, 2009 30
I too enjoyed this post,along with the onslaught of recent content. Very helpful indeed. Although my blog does leap around top-wise from time to time, I appreciate the link and hope that the amount and the quality of my Korea posts (along with my various peer-reviewed articles and reviews in the Korean studies journals) keeps people coming back to my blog for more original North Korea and PRC-DPRK relations content.
8:10 am on October 29th, 2009 31
[...] he has put up a list of what makes a good blog. This list borrows from a similar list by RoK Drop only less serious. I decided I would put my blog to the test by matching my blog against the [...]
9:55 pm on November 19th, 2009 32
[...] of my favourite Korea blogs, ROKDrop, wrote a great post awhile back with tips on how to create a successful blog. It’s geared toward K-bloggers, but the advice still remains relatively universal. If [...]