In the spirit of the season here are five simple new year’s resolutions to boost your blog traffic.
- If you are not already using WordPress to manage your blog now is the time to start. Blogger is a newbie choice, Moveable Type is more complicated than it needs to be, and the new kids on the block like Mephisto are too unproven at this time. WordPress does what it is supposed to do without any fuss or bother, is search engine friendly and has a support community that is second to none.
- Get your hosting sorted out. Having a blog hosted at wordpress.com or blogger.com may seem like a good idea at the time but is like building a house on land owned by someone else. And you wouldn’t do that, would you? AN Hosting currently has a fantastic deal for new customers. $4.95 per month for 5 terabytes of bandwidth, 500 gigabytes of disk space, hosting for up to 40 domains, one click wordpress installs and a free domain name. Upstart Blogger is hosted with them and I can’t speak highly enough about them. Click here and get the best host for your blog.
- Use a wordpress theme (since you are now using wordpress) that is clean and simple so that your readers don’t have to fight to get to your content. If you like the look of Upstart Blogger then try these themes for size.
- Stick to a blogging schedule. Once a day, once a week, once every third Thursday, it doesn’t matter as long as you are consistent.
- Download a desktop blogging client. You’ll be surprised how these simple applications can make blogging easier to manage. If you are on a Mac try Ecto or Mars Edit, Blogjet for Windows, or BloGTK for Linux.






Happy new year Ashley, it’s good to have Upstart Blogger back after the holidays. Thanks for the resolutions, I know that number 4 is something I need to think about. If you don’t mind me asking, what is your schedule for blogging in 2008?
Thanks for the desktop blogging client options! I decided to go with MarsEdit.