7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers

I know, this title has been used several times around the blogosphere. However, I like the title so much that I think I'd write my own version.

There are certainly more facets that make an effective blogger, but as the title implies, this post lists only the top 7 habits. The purpose of this article is not to discredit other habits though.

For instance, playing around with various new web applications may sound like a waste of time. It is also not obviously related to blogging. However, if you consider that it increases your familiarity with the web, it can be extremely useful for bloggers too.

Being able to learn and work quickly through various computer related tasks is a skill every effective blogger should have. I know you'd agree on this one.

So, without further ado, here is my version of the top 7 habits of highly effective bloggers:

1. Optimize your blog for SEO
Thanks to the blog platform, this usually is a one-time process. You put various tags in your blog theme and activate it from your dashboard. Of course, you still need to research keyword for individual post and use it appropriately in the title and content, but the skeleton is also in the blog theme.

2. Balance quality and quantity
Your regular audience expects that you update your blog frequently. That means quantity is an important factor to keep and grow your readership. However, with all the noise out there both on the blogosphere and the Web, you really need to post quality -- as in useful and unique -- content to stand out.

Promotion becomes easier if you have great content to work with.

3. Convey personality and be transparent
The essence of every blog is the personality and transparency of the blogger. People are more likely to trust you if you are an individual than a big corporate name.

Conveying personality is not easy though because of the way we are used to be trained to write and communicate. It is a skill worth learning though.

4. Interact with your audience passionately
Nowadays, you should have one or more ways to interact with your target audience. If you choose to enable blog comments feature, you should spend some time getting involved with them.

Ask them to contribute and answer their questions. You need to show that you are reading what they have to say.

5. Engage with other bloggers
This is somewhat related to blog content promotion, but personally I never see it from this perspective. Networking with other bloggers makes blogging a much more rewarding activity.

You can never predict what is going to happen out of it, but that is a bonus. If you approach a blogger too aggressively to promote your content, only a few bloggers will respond, not to mention that you diminish the fun purpose of networking.

6. Promote your content
Nowadays, quality content can only do so much. It is true, once people find great content, they may start telling others about it, perhaps through social media and other means, but still you have to promote it to make it visible to your audience.

Content promotion becomes necessary as the Web grows, because good content can be buried deep in the corner of the Web.

7. Monitor the blogosphere
As blogging is not only about broadcasting your thoughts, monitoring the blogosphere is necessary to respond to on-going conversations about you, your product or your brand. At the minimum, set up Google Alerts and use Technorati or other services to monitor the buzz around the blogosphere for particular keywords.

If you think there is a more important habit than those I've listed above, what is it? Share your list!