Today I read this discussion in Hacker News. I thought it would be interesting to write about this topic.
When I started this blog, I hadn’t much money to order a customized template. So I went for a free one, as this free template compete with the paid ones in ThemeForest.
Few days ago, I read some interviews with successful bloggers and wondered how they made such great blogs.
I took two examples and analyzed them deeply. I found that they have the same startegy, the same starting… and nearly the same ending result.
The first blog is Coding Horror. The blogger is Jeff At Wood and you should already know him.
A very simple template; made exactly for web readability. So is the secret hidden in this template?
Let look at the other example, may be only few of you knows it. Dosh Dosh, an Internet Marketing blog written by a student MakiMaki.
The blog isn’t as successful as coding horror, but more than 30K of readers are already an achievement. A great achievement, especially the blog had started in 2007 and not in 2004.
Again a very simple template and made for web readability. So is the secret hidden in this simple, clean and typographic template?
No, the blog template is a factor. No one will like a crappy blog with dozen of advertisements and pop-ups. But this is not the secret to success.
In “How To Achieve Ultimate Blog Success In One Easy Step“, Jeff At Wood states how he made a successful blog and the one easy (yet very long) step.
When people ask me for advice on blogging, I always respond with yet another form of the same advice: pick a schedule you can live with, and stick to it. Until you do that, none of the other advice I could give you will matter. I don’t care if you suck at writing. I don’t care if nobody reads your blog. I don’t care if you have nothing interesting to say. If you can demonstrate a willingness to write, and a desire to keep continually improving your writing, you will eventually be successful.
So Jeff assumes that any persons can start blogging with zero knowledge in blogging? Absolutely! I browsed the archive and found those little posts.
In fact, Jeff At wood first posts were short, simple and even you can write similar if not better than them. You can browse those posts by adding +1 each time, for example here’s the first post
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000004.html
the next will be
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000005.html
Or just use Jeff browsing links.
Dosh Dosh is no better, its’ first posts can be found here. They are no perfect from my blog posts in Web nudge. However his latest posts are way far from my current post. I started blogging in 2007 in a free Blogger blog (I sold it later), then moved to web nudge last year and here I’m starting again.
If I regret something now, is that I didn’t stick to my first blog. I made around 50 subscriber in the first one, 170 in the second and here there are already 10. I thought that moving to another blog, will dismiss the past and create a new future, better one.
But no, that was completely wrong and a waste of time.
So lesson learned: Stick to your blog, to your project, fight to the end. Never give up. The successful person is the patient one, that learn from his mistakes and try to correct them instead of starting something new.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Really Good Work…. You Helping People A lot
In truth, immediately i didn’t understand the essence. But after re-reading all at once became clear.
lengthy and in depth article but full of useful information
tres bien fait — ca c’est tout vrai. keep up the good work man.
There’s a lot of info. I’ll be back again.
Thanks man for keeping an eye on the website, I’ll try to update regulary and improve; it’s like that step-by-step
I read a few topics. I respect your work and added blog to favorites.
IF not YOU will fail just like the other 90% who try to get into biz for themseleves !