How To Be Taken Seriously As a Blogger

Blogs are not your dad’s media and bloggers are not traditional journalists. Unless of course there happens to be one who decided to pick up on the trend. But being a journalist is in no way a requirement.

There aren’t very many wrong ways to blog wrong aside from legal acts like stealing content from someone else or verbally attacking a business or someone.

If you wish to be taken seriously as a blogger you’ll want to consider the following:

1. Goals & Value – Are you blogging to educate, inform, entertain or deliver some value? Keep in mind, blogs that help solve real problems do quite well.
2. Facts Matter – If you’re stating opinions, emphasize they are your opinions. If you’re stating facts, cite them. If this is your blog, your readers are going to appreciate your opinion, so I try to get in the habit of sticking to opinions.
3. Defamation – It’s wrong and can sometimes get you in big trouble.
4. Be Brief – No one wants to wade through miles of post to get to the point.
5. Link Up – When you mention a site or article that has a link it’s simply good manners to provide a link to that site. It’s good manners, it’s how the internet works and linking only to yourself isn’t a very good reputation to have.
6. Disclosure – If you’re blogging or writing a post to make money or if you have a working relationship with an organization that you’re writing about disclose that information to your reader. I have a blanket disclosure policy on my blog that lets my readers know in some cases, I earn money through my links.

Take time to review your blog and answer the following questions:

• Review your work every week or so. Is your writing and message improving?
• Review your work every month or so. Are you becoming redundant?
• Compare your work to others in your niche. What can you do to improve?
• Why are you posting what you’re posting? Do you have a goal?
• Is what you’re writing worth the time of your reader? How can improve? Should you shift gears?
• What more you could be doing with your blog to add value?

Have I overlooked anything? What else do you think bloggers can do if they wish to be taken seriously? What efforts do you personally make to ensure your readers are getting the best value from your blog?