There are plenty of good guides to blogging and I was going to add my $0.02 to the pile. It's the thing to do once your blog reaches a certain age, and I figure turning one is about the right time. However I'm going to break with blogosphere tradition of jumping on the bandwagon and instead present a collection of various appropriate links at the end of this post. What I am going to share with you is all the things they don't tell you about in blogging school.

1. If you want to start blogging and have huge amounts of traffic instantly I can recommend one of three things: be an established journalist/opinion maker; be Glenn Reynold's brother; or porn. Otherwise face facts: you've got an awfully big hill to climb.

2. Never get your brother to guest blog for you. Trust me.

3. Before you start, read other blogs and get a feel for what they are like. Then completely forget everything you've read and seen so you can establish a new and distinct voice that will get noticed. This also helps a common problem: a really sucky first post. Trust me.

4. Prepare for the reality that the rest of the world may not share your high opinion of yourself and your site.

5. You know that movie where the guy built a baseball field and waited for some dead folks to turn up and play ball? Blogging's like that. Prepare to slog at putting up brilliantly crafted, accurate and to-the-point insights that will proceed to make no difference to anything at all.

6. Blogs live for two things: readers and links (not in order). There is no blogger alive who does not religiously follow Trackbacks - if you don't have trackbacks (that's especially for you Blogger folks) then use Kevin's manual Trackback pinger. Link liberally and eventually someone might notice you. You can even said emails to bloggers telling them about your new site or post. Try and keep it relevant, but unless they are a mega-blogger most will read the email. Here's a handy hint: do NOT title the email "Cheap Viagra".

7. The big bloggers (in terms of readership, not size. I'm sure at least some of them are thin) are big for a reason. They fill a niche, they have interesting opinions, they've been doing it for a long time. Whatever it is, you need to realise that overnight success can take years to create.

8. Buy a lottery ticket. Sometimes luck plays a chance. If a big blogger stumbles across your site and your brilliant entry catches their eye, you could have it made. If the post that catches their eye is a blow-by-blow description of your trip to the corner store, prepare to keep dwelling in oblivion.

9. Join the Bear's Ecosystem and learn about Technorati. They are good ways of learning your place. If you're new, try sending an example of your work to the New Blog Showcase. Send entries to the various Carnivals and link-fests that float around. You'll often get a flow of traffic and some might even like your site enough to come back.

10. Bloggers aren't just lonely nerds typing furiously to no avail. They are people. You can even meet some of them. Just ask. Many turn out to actually be nice people. Plenty of nerds too, if that's your thing.

11. Once you've made it, it's important to give something back. For example, you should liberally link to and recall this blog and this post, which gave you your start and set you on the path to greatness.

12. If you think this blogging caper is a path to fame and fortune, give up now.

13. It's not fair. It never was and never will be. Deal with it.

14. There are some good ways to attract attention to yourself and your blog. These can be broken down into the following:
a) talk about your sexual experiences a lot. This works far better for women than men.
b) have something interesting and new to say. This works far better for those that understand the basics of English grammar.
c) quirky slice-of-life types who are actually quirky. This works far better for those that are interesting people in real life.
d) humour sites. This works far better for those that are funny.
e) niche sites. There may well be a strong readership for those interested in mountain goats. It helps if you talk about stuff you know about.
f) be an iconoclast. If you are controversial you are likely to generate debate and people will come back for another look. The important thing is to be coherent and have a rational body of thought rather than a series of random pronouncements.

15. Learn to spell or how to use a spell-checker.

16. Most blogs have comments, at least until they hit the big time. Respond or get involved in any comments you get. It's rude not to reply to conversations. Most blogs will get few comments on each post, while others will get many. If you want comments, start talking about your sex life a lot. Leave comments at other blogs. It reminds people how witty or smart you are and sometimes it will lead to visits to your own site. It's important to note that many of the comments you get will be spam. These don't count as real comments and it's not worth replying to them, unless you have an unhealthy obsession with online casinos, get-rich-quick schemes and cheap drugs.

17. You will get trolls. Some ban them; others alter their posts; still others leave their idiotic comments for all to see. It's a fact of life. Another fact of life involves birds and bees. You will also get spam. If you are going to put your email address on your website so people can contact you, spell it out; split it across two lines; include NO SPAM in the address; or anything else that is obvious to a human but not a spambot. Spam is like the French: it is moderately annoying but ignorable in small doses and a huge pain in the backside in big doses.

18. Following 14 (f), the iconoclast can generate good traffic by either policing a mega-blogger or big media (papers, TV, etc.) Be prepared for heated debate and keep plugging away, but if you've found something genuine you'll end up getting the whole blogosphere beating a path to your door. Or not. It helps if you ignore others who argue against you or come up with valid points. It helps even more if you indulge in extreme language and opinions.

19. Do something original. Come up with posts on the good news in Iraq like Arthur Chrenkoff and before you know if you'll be a mega-blogger and published in the Wall St Journal.

20. Follow this handy rule-of-thumb: start a blog using Blogger. If you are still at it after 3 months, get off Blogger immediately. It is not as daunting as you think and there are plenty of hosting companies offering cheap plans and differing software packages like Movable Type or Wordpress. Make the move.

21. The golden rule of computing always applies: back-up. If you are drafting a post, do it in Notepad or in an email that can get saved as a draft. Cut and paste it at the end into your blogging software. Sometimes the software crashes and takes your valuable post with it, and trust me, you won't feel like writing it again. This also lets you do something essential: proof-read. Consider a post like an email: if it's trivial a quick skim might be OK, but if it's a manifesto on all that's wrong with the world you'll want to take care with it. If the world's going to ignore you, you may as well it's ignoring something that makes sense.

22. The great thing about blogging is plagiarising is encouraged. That's why so many academics blog. The only trick is plagiarising needs to be accompanied by links back to the original...because links are the lifeblood of a blogger. So go ahead and steal.

23. Learn blogging etiquette. Blogging is like golf: you can cheat but you need to be polite about it.

24. If you're thinking of blogging from work, read this first.

25. It's your site so you can do whatever the hell you like.

26. Like all esoteric fields, blogging has plenty of terminology. I've used a lot of it here in this post. Trackbacks, pings, permalinks, blogrolls: know what they mean and how they work. Alternatively enjoy having your Mum being your only daily reader.

27. Time in the blogosphere is frighteningly fast. By the time you link something, it has already been done. There's nothing you can say that hasn't already been said, probably better and funnier too. The one time you do hit across a link or idea that hasn't been linked elsewhere, someone else will find it and get all the kudos. It's not fair. Deal with it.

28. The one time you put up a joke post or idea, it will immediately get massive attention and be taken seriously by far too many people. This is called the Overblog phenomena. One blogger's joke is another's insult.

29. Forget what your schoolteachers told you. Form matters more than substance. If your blog is a hideous pink colour the best content in the world won't get people coming back. Invest effort in your design, or get a pro to do it for you. People respond a lot better to good designs. The key is simple: if you think you right good stuff, keep the design simple. If you write cr@p, then use as many distractions as you can.

30. Just like in life, extremism beats moderation and emotion beats logic. If you want reasoned discourse prepare to dwell in oblivion. If you want invective and ill-considered responses, watch the hits come in.

31. A good way to publicise your blog is tell people about it. A good rule here is to ask yourself if you'd be embarrassed if that person could read what you write. If not, tell them about it. Just once, though. No need to turn into a stalker.

32. Many bloggers adopt an alias or nom de plume. There are many reasons why this can be a good or bad decision. Just try and choose a good alias. The blogosphere already has several Tom Paines. As far as I know it doesn't yet have a King Kong.

33. You will visit your own site a lot. Sitting in front of it constantly hitting the refresh key does not count as genuine hits on your site.

34. Checking your sitemeter every hour will not increase the number of visitors to your site.

35. Learn to insult creatively.

36. Logic and reason are for the weak. Knee-jerk and off-the-cuff reactions are for the blogger.

37. Blogs are the perfect diversion. They send you on more tangents than a calculus class. Just remember that when reading blogs time seems to go much faster than normal.

38. There is no great diversion than your own blog. You will spend hours getting the coding right, the format right, the content right, fixing links, trying to get readers, reading other blogs. You don't get paid for it. In fact blogging is the one game where the more successful you are the more it costs you (e.g. in bandwidth charges). It really is a sucker's game.

39. Blog is an ugly word but we're stuck with it.

40. If you crave hits then try this simple technique: think about important upcoming or potential events, and write a blog entry with an appropriate title. That way the search engines like Google will give your entry prominent billing when people start searching for that information. For example: if you title a post "John Kerry's love child", should it turn out he has one (and I'm not saying he does, it's just an example) then Google will deliver you more hits than a crack addict in a crack-house.

41. Just like real writing, sometimes bloggers are hit with blog block. There are three ways to deal with this. Firstly, talk about your blog block. Everyone else has, you may as well tell everyone why your creativity sucks so badly too. Secondly, just post nothing. Sure you'll lose the 3 readers you had, but it's best not to make them sick by posting crap. Thirdly, fight your way through it by posting crap. This could involve recycling old stuff you wrote in a desperate "best of" kind of thing or just keep linking to others until you get inspired again and can write stuff on your own.

42. The stupidest, most off-the-cuff posts tend to get the most comments.

43. A good way to get people to visit your site is to visit theirs. Blog owners check their referrer logs religiously and when they see a new URL in the logs, they go check it.

44. You will encounter plenty of ignorance in this blogging caper. Much of it will come from other blogs. However even more of it will come from your friends and family. Blogging is like renovating: you find it endlessly fascinating, but no-one else gives a sh!t. They are unlikely to have even heard of blogs. It is your job to talk their ears off about it. Bamboozle them, tell them how great it is, print business cards with the URL on it. They all think your mad already.

45. Once you've started a blog, encourage others to do the same. The purpose is two-fold: it will get you links from these newly established blogs AND if you're going to be rabbiting on about blogging to all and sundry, you may as well have other people to talk to once your friends and family disown you.

46. You need to face reality: p0rn works. If it's a meteoric rise you're after, starting including images and/or stories about that age-old vote winner: sex. It helps if you have a new angle (so to speak), for example sex and politics (the Wonkette/Washingtonienne route).

47. A good way to get traffic and links is to have a major life event such as a birth or marriage. Of course this will mean you get traffic just when you ease off posting because real life has intervened. That's the thing about blogging - it's got a solid sense of irony.

48. If you're looking for material, a nice long list doesn't hurt. Especially if you include lots of gratuitous links to others. Many people do "101 things about me" lists and provide a link to them. The toughest part about this is most people don't have even 11 interesting things to say about themselves, let alone 101.

49. So sometimes list need padding to make it to a nice round number.

50. Ignore all the conflicting advice you get, including this.

Now go and enjoy, because if you're not enjoying it then why the hell are you going to bother?

Bibliography
Listed here is a selection of some of the better hints and tips on blogging from around the blogosphere. If there's one thing bloggers like to talk about it's themselves, so this is by no means a comprehensive list. But like many things in the blogosphere the same points tend to get repeated ad naseum so this should cover most of the basics: