Checklist: best practices for effective blogging

<ul>
        <li>Choose your blog name carefully — If you use a name other than your organisation’s name, make sure it fits in with your organization in some way. Changing your blog’s name is like starting all over – so choose the name carefully.</li>
        <li>Create an “About” page about your organization, purpose of the blog, list of contributors and any other key organizational information.</li>
        <li>Keep your design simple; do not clutter your blog. You want to focus on content. Don’t add flashing icons or music, and choose two or three colours and a simple layout that is easy to follow.</li>
        <li>Post often. It will take time for your blog to become known in the blogosphere. The more you post, the more comments you make on other people’s or organizations blogs, the more your blog will become known. If posting often is not possible try at least to be consistent and organize a “posting schedule” so your readers will know to expect new posts every couple of weeks or once a month or whatever schedule you decide. Erratic posting looses readers.</li>
        <li>Write quality content that readers can benefit from.</li>
        <li>Try not to make your posts too long. Remember people are reading on a computer not on paper. If you need to publish a long document you can setup a separate page on your blog for documents which you can link to.</li>
        <li>Revisit old posts. If you are writing on an issue important to you, return to other posts and build on them.</li>
        <li>Get to know your readers. Treat them like friends even those who do not necessarily agree with you. If they return they return because you are reaching them in some way.</li>
        <li>Do not force people to register on your blog in order to comment. Most people won’t bother and just go away. Keep your blog open and use comment moderation instead.</li>
        <li>Read other people’s / organizations blogs and make comments. This will help to publicise your blog. By building relationships with other bloggers, whether locally or internationally, you create a community that will support you in your advocacy and campaigns and you in turn can support them.</li>
        <li>Publicity is important which means you need to register your blog on a blog directory, contact other bloggers who you feel will be sympathetic to your cause and inform them of your blog or even a particularly important post. Bloggers are generally helpful — if you ask for help they will respond so do not be afraid to ask for support.</li>
        <li>Change your blog in response to changing needs, audience, political climate and just because sometimes it’s nice to change the layout and colors in your home. </li>
        <li>Do not use technologies just for the sake of it. Use appropriate technologies. If your bandwidth is low, then do not use video. Use a podcast if you believe audio is the best way to communicate a particular piece of information.</li>
        <li>Support other blogs by adding badges and banners or cross-linking relevant posts.</li>
        <li>Include a “Contact Me” form in your blog or give your email address in your “About” page so readers can contact you. Always write out your email address to avoid spammers. For example. Me@yahoo.com should be written “me at yahoo dot com”.</li>
    </ul>