so just be prepared for that.

and kudos to those of you who can constantly update their blogs.

1. Get into some kind of blogging routine. Blogging is like exercise; once you start giving yourself excuses for not doing it, the whole commitment starts to unravel. Writing frequently even early on also gives you time to hone your own blogging style and is absolutely necessary to drive hits. Of course, once it becomes more of a routine and you have some sort of regular audience, taking short breaks becomes much less of a risk and it’s good to relax.

2. Utilize stumbleupon, reddit and similar services (and ask your friends to, too). If you’re a part of any other virtual community (i.e. livejournal), hype your blog there.

3. Leave lots of comments on high traffic blogs, and make them intelligent. If you start leaving good comments, people start noticing and start clicking on your link. I pulled a lot of readers this way early on.

4. Like everyone else said, send trackbacks

5. If someone gives you a chance for shameless self-promotion, take it! The Feministe Shameless Self-Promotion Sundays were very good to me. Also, if you read a post about something you’ve already written about, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to leave a comment about the post at hand and then include a link at the end saying “I also blogged about this over here.” I’m perfectly fine with it, and so long as it’s on topic (not random LOOK AT MY BLOG! spam), I’ve never seen another blogger complain.

6. Do blogroll link swaps with other baby bloggers. It benefits both of you, and let’s face it, if we weren’t all willing to link to other bloggers and give each other a chance, none of us would have successful blogs.

7. I also strongly recommend writing up a carefully considered comment policy early on.

8. Writing well always helps :) Good luck.

Another suggestion i have (and i forget to listen to myself sometimes) is it’s ok to be personal. It’s important to establish how much you want to disclose about yourself but once you figure that out, don’t forget to write some fun/personal posts once in a while… i tend to go on “i have to write serious, lengthy, deep posts” sprees and forget that it gets a bid tedious :)

Also, try not to define “success” in terms of traffic and comments. It’s hard to get established and sometimes those who read will not necessarily jump right in to leaving feedback – that’s not what is most important. What IS most important is that you’re writing and sharing – the blog is YOUR space afterall, try to get pleasure out of it because it’s something you love and are excited about, not how many people read/comment on it :)

I did the blogathon last summer and for 24 hours turned off comment moderation. The trolls couldn’t jump in fast enough when they saw that their comments didn’t need to be approved. That showed me that I will always need comment moderation even if it slows lively and respectful conversations.

Commenters who agree with your general position can change the tone of your blog and turn readers off even if nothing you say bothers them.

Take advantage of opportunities to meet your fellow bloggers and blog readers in person.