I would say three things:
1. Focus:
Which things do U know really well?
What is ur knowledge domain?
Where can U give good tips, tricks, suggestions?
2. Quantity:
When #1 Focus is too demanding switch to give regular updates like
– comments on news
– experiences, life events
– Refer articles to read, invite friends to contribute, interview them
3. Online Presence
Submit to aggregators – Digg, Blogkut
Post it in Social Networking sites – Facebook, Twitter
Good Practices to the post – Machine readable (Google understandable) Title, lot of Tags, one or two categories
Any other useful info or sites?
Again 3 things:
a. Quality of content (Audience)
– The visitor might hv come via Search Engine: Sound research, useful tidbits shd be there in each post
– Regular reader: Don’t repeat; say the obvious
– Occasional onlooker: came via social networking sites like reddit.com, Digg, Del.icio.us, clipmarks
b. Short attention span
– Keep it in bulletpoints (summarize each post at top or bottom) ; Use blockquotes: Be aware of HTML
– Add a relavant Photo – attracts the user to the content, writing; summarize the post in 140 chars in Twitter
– Read a lot; write in simple language
c. Interaction with Visitors
– comment regularly on ur visitor blogs
– write lengthy rebuttals to popular bloggers (like those listed in Desipundit.com)
– don’t cheat ur feed readers: write often; atleast once every day!
Finally Technical Notes:
1. Use wordpress.com (instead of blogger.com)
2. As much a spossible avoid writing lengthy discourses on Politics (at least when starting to write blogs)
3. Never ever post ur Kavithai, story, fiction etc in blogs – Not many will read there
4. Give lots of link to relevant posts from other blogs – Link Love
If at all going via Blogspot route:
http://mashable.com/2009/01/26/blogger-widgets
http://mashable.com/2009/01/16/blogger-toolbox/
http://mashable.com/2008/05/17/70-plus-new-and-beautiful-blogger-templates/
http://mashable.com/2008/12/22/blogger-template-resources/
http://mashable.com/2007/09/13/blogger-templates/
http://mashable.com/2007/09/10/bloggercom-toolbox/
Snap Judgment 