Now that I have been writing from past two years in my blog – though not as regularly as I wish to -  I think I have a better idea of what blogging  actually is. So let me answer the eternal question every blogger gets asked at least once – ‘Why do you blog?’.

So here I am writing down a list of things in no order of preference and will update when there is something to add.

• I blog simply because I love to do it.
• It gives me a chance to connect with interesting people around the web which otherwise is not easily possible.
• I love writing. I can write here whatever I want and get feedback from people who read.
• I think everyone has something to write, but very few exercise that skill seriously. Blogging is a good way to test writing abilities. If you do not have a blog yet, go get a blog and unleash the writer within. You will overcome the writer’s block sooner or later.
• When we write about a topic, we actually learn a lot more compared to simply reading that topic.
• Finally, do we always need a reason to do something? I just blog and that is enough for me to keep going. There may not be any real reason behind it except that I love to blog.

If you own a blog and have written on why you blog,  please leave a link to the post in the comments section.

The original blog post titled “Shoddy Journalism” was removed by Kunte and he has put up an apology instead. The very way the apology is written, one can easily make out that he was sent a legal notice to remove the article from his blog.

But the things don’t die on web so easily. Removing the article from the original website and getting a forced apology published is not going to work as the guys at NDTV might have expected. You can find the original article here and here.

Only few people might have read what Kunte has written in the original article before he actually removed the post. Following the apology, many of the Indian bloggers joined hands in support of Kunte and published their views and expressed anger against NDTV.

I do not understand what NDTV has achieved with this entire episode of threatening a lonely blogger. I think its too paradoxical. Is it not the media which works entirely on the basis of freedom of speech? Few months back, the same TV channel conducted a show on bloggers and blogs to discuss bloggers right to freedom of speech and regulating blogs.

Is freedom of speech only applicable to the media guys, politicians, rich and influential who can somehow battle in a court if necessary defending what they have said or written? Is the common man of India denied the basic fundamental right of freedom of speech, which is one of the six fundamental rights in India, which everyone of us studied and remembered so proudly in our school days.

Here are few reactions from Indian bloggers which I found very interesting.

The Further Adventures of Hark! DaButt

http://shripriya.com/blog/2009/01/28/shame-on-ndtv-and-barkha-dutt/

A bedtime story about blog freedom

Blogger Silenced by NDTV

http://www.sandeepweb.com/2009/01/29/barkha-dutt-and-ndtv-the-joke-is-on-you/

http://www.labnol.org/india/indian-bloggers-vs-ndtv-barkha-dutt/6853/

Please share your views using the comments section.

After looking in google for few minutes I have found that few others have already written about it.

http://venkatkrish.blogspot.com/2005/04/blog-tld.html

http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/2004/08/its_time_for_a_.html

Design:

As we know visuals speak more than words, it’s quite true for your blog. Having an aesthetic design is a primary requirement to give a good first impression to the new visitors. If you are using the themes freely available on net, make sure you select a good theme which relates well to the content you are going to write on the blog. Make sure your content is easily readable. Choose colors and fonts carefully. For example a yellowish color on white background is hard to read.

Content:

Once you have a design which looks great, then comes content. If your blog is about a particular niche, make sure you update your blog with latest happenings in your niche. Be quick to respond to the latest developments in your niche or in general any other interesting topics around. Personally I feel content is the primary driving force to increase your blog’s visibility.

Post titles:

Post title is what your visitors primarily look at. If the post title is not good, there is less chance that they will read the post. Consider the following post titles.

1. All about earning money online
2. Easy tips to make money online
3. How am I earning $10000 every month online?

Assuming, you are about to write an article to share your experiences about making money online. Let’s see which of the above three titles to use. First title lacks the clarity. Second title is better compared to the first one and will attract more attention. People often look for easy tips rather than knowing everything about a topic. Third one has more clarity and people are always eager to know and learn through others experience. If you are more creative you can write a more appealing title.

Participation:

Find out the existing best blogs in your niche. Try to participate in the discussions through the comments. Making good points on the posts in others blogs will definitely lead some traffic to your blog. Dont comment just for the purpose of getting some traffic. Be genuine about commenting otherwise your blog might be considered as a spam by other bloggers.

Participate in the discussions through online forums. Many forums allow you to add your website address in your signature. The more you contribute the more are the chances to increase traffic to your blog. Again be genuine!

Submit Articles:

Another way is to submit the articles you have written on your blog to other sites which will publish your articles. Most of these sites will allow you to add a link to your blog. The best site to submit your articles is EzineArticles.

Links:

Links play a crucial role in popularizing a blog. Ask your friends to link to your blog. If you don’t have any friends who have blogs ( as of this writing I am the first one to have a blog in my friend’s circle! great! ) it takes some amount of effort to get linked. On your blog, provide links to other interesting blogs you have noticed. I don’t mean to say that you link to every blog you find. Select the blogs which worth linking on your blog. Assuming that you have worthy content, you might expect a link back from the blogs to which you have linked. This way you can make new friends while increasing blog visibility.

Listing your site:

Listing your blog in blog directories might help you in getting some traffic. Divya Uttam at her blog Blogging to Fame has links to blog directories. You might consider submitting to these directories but don’t be too obsessive about submitting to each and every blog directory around.

Search Engine Submission:

You can avoid this if you are using a hosted service like Blogger, LiveJournal and WordPress. Try to submit your blog to the major search engines around so that they can index your site and content. Personally I prefer submitting to Google, Yahoo and MSN would be enough as most of the other search engines use these three search engines to show the results.

Email Signature:

Add a link to your blog in your email signature. This becomes viral when one of your friends forwards your mail to his friends and one of his friends forwards it to his friends and so on……..( Yes, I know its too much )

Going Social:

Try to promote your blog through the social networking sites like MySpace, Orkut to name a few. This would definitely help you in driving some traffic.

Technorati:

Register your blog with Technorati. I would say this is the first thing you should do after you have setup your brand new blog.

That’s it! I am planning to elaborate more on the few of the topics mentioned above in my future posts. Following are the links which you might find useful to increase your blog’s visibility.

1. 34 Tips for Finding Readers for Your Blog
2. How to get the first 10,000 visitors to your blog

Wish you Happy and Profitable Blogging!