“A blog is like a garden, it should be tended to and one should pay attention to the little details.” Not my words, but Scott Hanselman’s, in this great article about blogging dos and don’ts. While posted in 2007, it still contains a lot of good starting points for any new blogger – and some useful reminders for the rest of us. Here are a couple of things I would like to add.

Dos

Social Media. Everyone’s on it, so an excellent way to bring readers to your blog is to connect it to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Make it a habit to retweet and share your recent posts on Facebook – that way a lot more people than your devoted subscribers will get a chance to find your blog. (Unless you update it 20 times a day – then tweeting about every single post will more likely scare people away.)

Design. If you just can’t wait to have your opinions published in cyberspace, then blog design might be at the bottom of your list. However, spending a couple of hours on making your blog look pretty will pay off later. Trying to read text off a really ugly blog – however interesting and well-written the content might be – is kind of like trying to read a book you just dropped in the toilet.

Don’ts

Stealing. Here’s the thing. A blog with just text and no pictures can give a boring impression and scare off readers looking for something visual to lighten up the page. However, to just Google an appropriate picture and cut and paste it into your blog could be an even worse idea.

Copyright laws prohibit unauthorized use of images, so if you don’t have the copyright holder’s expressed permission to use a picture – don’t use it! Stock images are a way to go, or get off the computer and go snap a picture yourself.

Clutter. I know it’s tempting to put a cute animated hamster in the sidebar of your blog. Or a countdown to your birthday. Or that really funny YouTube video. Here’s my suggestion – limit yourself to only the widgets and plugins that add something useful to the blog. Too much clutter will affect the readability of your blog, and draw attention from what should be the reader’s main focus – reading.