It’s like getting the theme song from The Bridge on the River Kwai stuck inside your head. A blog can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare. If used in “moderation” a blog can be a benefit to your bottom line, but beware, blog are addictive. It’s easy to get caught up in your blog and lose focus on your core business goals, so here are 5 simple ways to make your blogging life easier and more successful. So put down the proverbial blog crack pipe, and remember the blog is there to serve you, not the other way around! Blogs (or Web Logs) aren’t new, but they have become a fast mover in the world of web design and search engine optimization. A blog is a website first and foremost, with a small twist. It usually has a neat user interface that anyone can publish their latest news, product updates, whimsical thoughts, technical specifications, customer service/FAQ information and more. You can use a blog for just about anything you can think of. The more creative you are the better. There are plenty of low-cost or free ways to get started blogging. WordPress, Blogger, Easy2Blog, B2Evolution and more are all free. I’m a WordPress guy myself because I dig plug-ins, but if you don’t know anything about programming I would suggest Blogger (Google) or Easy2Blog (easy as the name suggests). The Ways to Improve Blog Performance are more for those of you who have are using publishing software such as WordPress. So here we go (remember, a blog is a website). Content There are plenty of ways to get content for your blog. It’s best to keep it relative to your topic. EzineArticles and GoArticles are great places for free, syndicated articles for your blog. Just be cool about it and remember to cut and paste the text or code exactly as it is and give attribution to the writer (the author link). Simply syndicating everyone else’s articles isn’t enough, you need to add your own viewpoints. Try and write one a day, even if it’s not 500 words or more. Be careful. It’s easy to become obsessed with adding content to your blog. Spend more time on adding content on the front end (when you’re building the original blog structure) and then simply commit yourself to 10 minutes a day writing at least one post for your blog. It’s easy for a BLOG to become a BLOB that your reader’s will soon turn away from. Categories Set up and manage several different categories related to your “topic”. You can publish the same article into different categories. Example: if your blog is about Search Engine Optimization you may have 5 different categories (plus the main category). Your categories could be – On Page SEO, Off Page SEO, Link Building, Directory Submission, and Site Design. Not every article or post will be relative to each category, but some will overlap. Don’t go crazy and put every post in every category every time. You’ll lose readers and value. Blog Search Engine Optimization There are a series of tools/plug-ins that will help with search engine optimization for your blog. DagonDesign has a great plug-in for WordPress and it’s free and easy to install. Having clean URLs for your posts is extremely important. When you post an article about “Choosing Colors for Your Website” you don’t want your post URL to be www.blahblahblog.com/?=ID1234 . In WordPress, for example, you want to at least choose the built in selection “Date and Name based” (click “Options” then “Permalinks” in the Dashboard view”). If you feel comfortable and are a bit crafty you can create a custom permalink structure. If you want to have a blog making money all you have to do is learn the basics of blogging to make money. It is rather simple and easy but you have to make sure that you have a passion for writing, otherwise, earn money blogging will not be an option for you.