1. Outline before you start writing – a few points will do

Jot down a few points before you start writing.

Many articles follow this simple format: an introduction, a few points (around four, in an article of 500 words), and a conclusion.

Writing a short outline before you begin the article will help you to stick to the point.

Every article you write should include a “takeaway” for your readers: at least one nugget of information that’s not available elsewhere.

2. Know your audience – who’s reading your blog? Why?

Before you begin writing, think about your reader. Who’s your typical blog reader?

For example, if you’re writing a blog about digital photography, ask yourself whether your current article is aimed at beginning photographers, or at experts. If your typical reader is a beginner, you’ll need to add explanatory material (or links) to your article.

Knowing who your typical reader is will help you to write content that’s appropriate for your blog. Staying with our digital photography example, you could write several series of articles for beginners; these articles would become “evergreen” content on your blog; they’ll always be popular.

3. Create an inviting title: make it a “must read”

When you’re creating article titles, there are two audiences you need to remember. The first audience is your readers. Make your titles intriguing, so that when a reader sees the article in his newsfeed, he’ll read it.

Your articles’ second audience is the search engines. Use keywords in your article title so that they can be found.

4. Use short sentences and short paragraphs – make your articles easy to read

On the Web, you don’t read. You scan. So make your articles scannable: use short sentences, short paragraphs and lists. The easier your articles are to read, the more readers you’ll get.

5. Add links to your articles

Links are important for every article you write. If you’re creating a blog on WordPress, there are several “Related articles” plug-ins you can use on the blog, but especially for longer articles, you’ll want to add your own links too.

So there you have it: five tips which will help you to write a steady stream of informative and entertaining articles for your blog.

A tip: while promotion is important, it’s not a substitute for content. Keep adding content to your blog, as you promote it.

Big tip: try to market your blog every day. This may not be possible, but if you can, this persistent marketing effort will pay off hugely over time.

Let’s look at three simple, easy and no-cost or low-cost methods of marketing your blog.

1. Writing articles for promotion – cheap and (still) effective

Write articles for others. You can write articles for article directories and for other sites. The second option, writing exclusive articles for other sites in your niche, is more effective. Article directories are becoming swamped with junk content, and this devalues your articles by association.

2. Press releases – both free and paid, get results

It’s interesting that some of the major article directories are now offering free press release posting. Press releases have always been an effective way of promotion, and you should use press releases to market your blog.

Don’t forget to post your releases to your blog, too. A press release section of your blog provides great historical information for a journalist who wants to do a story on your blog, and it also orients new readers to who you are, and what you do.

3. Advertising: try small ads on popular sites

At some stage, you’ll need to spend money to make money. Once your blog is earning an income, spend some of that income on advertising your blog.

Small ads on large sites work well, as do ads in ezines.

Tip: although there are many ways to advertise, don’t start advertising your blog until it’s generating an income for you. Unfortunately, when it comes to advertising, there are no guaranteed results.

So there you have it: three ways to market your blog. If you can, do a small marketing task each day, even if it’s only writing 100 words of an article. Once marketing becomes a daily habit, your blog will have a constant flow of traffic. Persistence in all your marketing efforts is essential.

1. Content is King

First and foremost, you can encourage millions of people to visit your blog, but the numbers won’t mean squat if you don’t keep them coming back for more. You’ll need to provide useful content. It’s not enough to provide the same news as every other blogger in your niche topic. You’ll have to come up with something new and unique and provide thought provoking analysis. Your blog has to say something and say it well.

2. Participate in Like-Minded Forums

Even if you’re not a joiner, it pays to visit forums so the rest of the people in your niche group know about your blog. If your blog is about knitting, visit some knitting and craft forums. If your blog is about earthworms, visit earthworm, soil and gardening forums. You don’t have to post a lot of “hey come visit my blog” type comments, but if you add a link to your blog in your signature, it will appear in every post. This is sure to bring in traffic.

3. Visit Other Blogs

Search for other blogs falling within your niche and pay them a visit. Be sure to comment so they’ll visit your blog too. If you have something interesting to say about your topic, others may link to and even discuss your blog.

4. Add Tags

Don’t forget your tags! Not only do tags help search engines pick up your blog, but they also help to direct those who are searching for your topic. Make sure you add as many tags as necessary. For instance, if your blog post is about roses, you’ll want to add tags for roses, flowers, gardening, soil, planting, thorns, aphids, and other related keywords.

5. Add Links

Not only is it important to add relevant blog links to your blogroll, but you’ll also want to link to other blogs in the text. The blogger on the other end of the link might just reciprocate, leading more traffic to your blog. At the very least, he’ll add a reciprocating link to the side of his blog.

6. Technorati is Your FriendBy claiming a blog with the blog search engine Technorati, you’re making it available to others who might not have otherwise heard of you. The more you post and the higher you are ranked, the more likely others are to turn up your blog during a search. Your Technorati rank depends on how many others link to your blog. If you want other bloggers to offer up links to you, you have to provide good content, an eye pleasing template and build up an active community.

7. Submit Your SiteIn addition to submitting your site to all of the blog search engines, you will need to ping all the engines every time you update. To do so, utilize a free service such as Pingoat or Ping-O-Matic to ping all in one fell swoop.

8. Install an RSS ButtonMake it easy for others to subscribe to your blog by installing an RSS button.

  9. Read Up on the Latest Traffic Building Techniques 

If you’re really serious about blogging, visit blogs about blogs. The top blog bloggers offer great traffic building tips in addition to other helpful information.

  10. Analyze Your Stats In addition to the above steps, you’ll want to implement a stat tracking service such as Site Meter to keep track of hits and traffic. Your stat tracker will not only let you know how many people are stopping by each day, but they’ll also let you know where everyone is coming from. This will enable you to determine which traffic boosting methods work best for you.  

It takes time to build up traffic. Above all else, don’t give up. It may take up to a year or more for yours to become one of the top blogs in your niche.

1. Pay Per Click Advertising

It’s possible to earn a decent income through Google Adsense or other pay-per-click advertisers. While some bloggers report earning a meager income with the pay-per-clicks, it’s indeed possible to earn up to six figures. If you have a popular blog, you can do well. Installing Adsense on your blog is simple, it’s just a matter of pasting code on your website. Every time a visitor clicks on one of the links in the ad, you’ll collect a percentage of the ad revenue. Because you can fine tune the ads to match your blog, they’re not as unattractive as other forms of advertising.

2. Blogads

Invitation only sites such as Blogads sell ads for placement on high traffic blogs. The good news is that this isn’t affiliate income. Bloggers receive a flat fee for every ad sold. The bad news is that Blogads doesn’t accept just anyone. If you don’t know anyone who can offer a recommendation on your behalf, try emailing a request to be placed on the waiting list. But don’t hold your breath, some bloggers have been waiting years.

3. Affiliate Revenue

Many online retailers will pay a percentage of a sale if it results from an advertisement placed on your site. Amazon.com offers a popular program, or you can visit an affiliate super-site such as Commission Junction to find retailers catering to your particular niche. Bloggers report mixed results. While it is possible to earn a decent commission, it’s not as easy to earn with these advertisers as with the pay per click programs. Still, some do well. The flashing, colorful ads are a turn off for many because they’re so distracting. Fortunately you can choose codes for the ads that work best for your site.

4. E-Books

If you’re an expert in your field you might consider writing e-books and selling them through your blog. This would be a good way of expanding on some of the information blogged about in the past. Check your stats to see which topics garnered the most interest and take it from there. If you have loyal readers and good traffic, you might have a best seller on your hands!

5. Café Press

If you have a recognizable logo, why not Café Press it? Café Press allows you to place your blog’s logo or catch phrase on merchandise such as mugs, t-shirts and calendars. Sell them on your blog for a percentage of the earnings.

6. Tip Jar

Some bloggers place “tip jars” on their blog’s sidebars. Tip jars are donation buttons leading to the recipient’s paypal account. Some bloggers report earning hundreds of dollars through tip jars alone. While this isn’t recommended for every blogger, those who put in hours to provide a useful service are certainly justified.

When submitting comments to these blogs please write some relevant and useful content. Don’t Spam! If you submit just one comment to all of them then it gives you more than 250 back links to your Website/Blog. And these 250 back links alone can get you a PR of 1 assuming you have quality search engine friendly articles.

1. Find a decent blogging provider that appeals to you. Some may include MuseCrafters.com, Livejournal.com, JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, WordPress.com, TheDiary.org, Mindsay.com, Blog.com, Diaryland.com, Blogdrive.com, or Xanga.com. Most of these sites are pre-made with templates and push-button publishing that don’t require much technical know-how.
2. Once you sign up, you’ll have a gallery of ready-made templates to choose from. Select one and personalize it. Add your name, interests, images, etc.
3. Add blogging freebies like buttons, images, blog chalks, imoods, tagboards (for example, myshoutbox.com), guest maps, guestbooks, comment boxes for readers’ input, etc.
4. Explore other blog sites that offer more features for a small fee, such as Typepad.com.
5. Decide on whether or not you want your blog to be private or personal: do you want any Internet visitor to be able to read your blog, or do you just want your friends and family to be able to read it? Most blog sites offer the ability to password-protect your published posts so only those who you approve of can view what you’ve written.
6. Decide on how you want your blog to look. You can pick a color scheme and layout. Most sites come with a set of predefined layouts and schemes that you can choose from, or you can edit your own.
7. After you’ve set up your blog, write a few posts to test it out, and make any adjustments to the layout or style that you see fit. At first, it will seem tough to figure out what to write, but once you get into a routine of daily blogging, you will find it addictive. Write about your day, your thoughts, events, ideas, fears, pleasures, the news, current affairs, art, or anything you are interested in!
8. Visit other blogs to build a blogging circle. When you leave comments, add your blogging address so they can visit you too.
9. If you want to make your blog look more attractive, there are some sites up that have many “skins” that might make it look better. One example is blogskins.com, which also comes with Photoshop and HTML tutorials.
10. Publish your blog by sending the URL to your friends or publish the URL on your website. Add the URL to posts you make on other blogs. Done

 Tips :

• If you update your blog frequently, more people will return on a regular basis to read it. Establishing a reader base will motivate you to write more and in turn more people will read your posts.
• Get into a routine of blogging. Make it part of your day. Soon, you will notice things during your day and think, “Hey, I’ll blog this.”
• Personalize your blog. A pretty blog always catches the eye. Visit blogger.com for ideas; they have a list of their 10 most recently updated blogs.
• You could Google for “blog California” or “blog Shakespeareans” (or anything else), depending on location, interests, etc. For instance, if you have a blog on lawns, you may want visit allaboutlawns.com’s forum and other similar type blogs. Circles of interest are the essence of blogging, and it can start to develop you as an authority in the “blog-o-sphere” on lawns or whatever area of interest you choose.
• Keep the posts interesting. Try to avoid focusing on things that most readers won’t find worthwhile (such as “I went to the mall today and saw Kelly.”) Write about things you noticed, thoughts you had, and feelings or ideas. Blog about a recent trip to Spain. Write about the chemical explosion during class.
• Spell check your writing before posting.
• Some sites allow you to make money off your blog by using an Amazon Associates ID or by placing Google AdSense advertisements. If popular enough, your blog could start to pay your bills.
• Don’t feel bogged down if no one visits your site for the first few months. As with communities this large, it will take some time for your blog to get noticed.
• If you want a broad (international) readership, do not use too many abbreviations or slang terms that might not be easily understood by people who are not from your country/area.
• Get interesting news from Yahoo Oddly Enough…, other Yahoo stories, Crayon.net and other websites that you frequently read.
• Blog on a specific subject. You can’t please everyone, so target a specific audience and go with it.

 Warnings :

{Source : http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog}

 1. The first tip is to Write Quality and Unique Content. Content is the King. If you just copy and paste from other website and blog then it doesn’t makes any sense. But what if your articles are original. Then people will link to your article from their websites or blogs.

  2. Update your blog regularly. If you update the blog regularly then it increases the visibility of your blog in Search Engines like Google, Live Search and Yahoo and Blog Search Engines like Technorati, Google Blog Search e.t.c. You may write your blog posts daily, or weekly but do it regularly.

  3. Ping search engines when you update the blog. (See List Of WordPress Ping Services)

  4. Insert Technorati Tags in your posts so that you get backlinks from Technorati.com.

  5. Ask your friends to Digg your post so that you get traffic from Digg.com and if it’s some valuable information then more and more people will Digg it and it generate a lot of traffic to you. And what if it appears in the home page of Digg? Then it’s a backlink from a PageRank website! Use a Plugin like Sociable, Share This or Digg This so that it’s easy for your visitors to Digg your story.

  6. Do Comment on others blogs and don’t forget to leave your URL in the URL field. If it’s a DoFollow Blog then you get both traffic and backlinks from your comment.

  7. Read the top blogs in your niche. If your blog is about “Make Money Online” then read ShoeMoney, ProBlogger, John Chow daily and leave your comments there. So that they will most probably visit your website and may even link to it. Also, in some of those blogs if you are the top commenter then your blog URL will appear on their home pages.

  8. Feel free to link other blogs if they have an interesting article so that they may link back to you if you have a good post.

  9. Increase the page view of your blog by installing the Related Posts Plugin.

  10. Submit articles to Article websites like GoArticles, Article City, Ezine Articles e.t.c. I’ve submitted many articles to Ezine Articles and they all have PageRank 4 to PageRank 7. Hence it’s a quality backlink.

  11. Submit your blog to Free Web Directories. (Submit your website to 850+ Search Engine Friendly Web Directories)

  12. Blog about Celebrities people like that stuff very much and will link you from all over the world.

  13. Visit Yahoo! Answers and answer other people’s queries. You can include your Blog URL if its related to the topic.

Go to WordPress Dashboard > Options > Writing and paste the following URLs under Update Services field.

List of WordPress Ping Services

http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com/
http://ping.myblog.jp/
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://www.bloglot.com/rpc/
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?idhttp://1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

Did I missed some service(s)? If yes, feel free to add those URLs as a comment below and I will include those URLs to the list.