When Dooce talks, bloggers should always listen. Whether you agree with her or not, there’s never a time when Dooce doesn’t give sound advice worth adapting to and implementing right away with your own blog!
Heather Armstrong is a best-selling and award-winning blogger, writer, brand consultant, and entrepreneur. She blogs as Dooce and has been part of the blogosphere for the past 14 years. A couple of weeks ago, Dooce was featured on the October 22nd episode of Hack the Entrepreneur, a popular podcast available on iTunes. Here’s a list of my top 10 tips from listening to this great interview with one of the greatest blogging pioneers:
10 Blogging Tips from Dooce
- Pay close attention to what your readers want from you, but balance that with doing what you’re good at. If you keep writing what’s true to you, they will appreciate the authenticity and continue to support you.
- Don’t obsess so much over advertising and finding new readers. Set up your business how you want it to be, and success will come. The Dooce says she never actively sought out new readers. I can’t blame her— she didn’t need to!
- Write what you know. Dooce started out writing stories about her workplace, which got her the attention of thousands of readers. You write more candidly and with more enthusiasm when you write about your passions and your thoughts, and that’s what draws readers the most.
- Be careful with what you put on the internet. The term “dooce” means to get in trouble for something you put on your blog, and it was coined after Dooce got fired for the stories she wrote about her coworkers and her job (despite taking no names!) While she says she did go from having 4,000 readers to 12,000-15,000, you still want to be careful with what you write publicly. Your blogging will have consequences, and things won’t always turn out as great as they did for her!
- Books aren’t an end all, be all. Many bloggers’ end goal is to get published, but writing a book is not necessarily the best option for all bloggers. Dooce says she likely wouldn’t write another book, as blogging brought her much more happiness.
- Continue to write through everything. Dooce wrote through her pregnancy and planned to stop with the birth of her daughter. She continued to post, however, about the post-partum depression (PPD) she experienced, and it helped her get through the ordeal as well as sustain a following.
- Stay true to yourself. Don’t fear losing your audience so much, or it will make you very unhappy. It’s okay to slow down the posts. If you keep true to yourself, they will be there waiting for your next one.
- Don’t be afraid to pour your heart out. Dooce says the benefits far outweigh the negatives of doing so.
- Write something rewarding. Dooce says that her posts about her struggles with PPD put a face to mental health and helped many of her readers who could relate.
- Write so your legacy was a good one. Write in such a manner that you could die today knowing that your legacy was a good one, whether big or small.
I thought this was a great interview. Did you realize that the “dooce” was featured as an answer on both Jeopardy! and in Trivial Pursuit? What an icon!
What are your favorite tips after listening to this recording? Let me know in the comments below!
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