Your blog is not your personal journal. If you want to document your personal life online, that’s fine, but don’t expect it to resonate with other people. Yes, you need to tell stories. Yes, you need to share your personality. But if you make it all about you, nobody will care.

The success of a blog depends on two things, neither of which is in the author’s control: reader comments and external links. Blogs that survive and thrive do so because they create a strong collective of users who build conversations around an author’s posts.

The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others. Share your reading list. Point to helpful reference materials. Create some tutorials and post them online. Use pictures, words, and video. Take people step-by-step through part of your process. As blogger Kathy Sierra says, “Make people better at something they want to be better at