Over the last six months Blog Chalk Talk has been dedicated to providing you with regular tips for successful blogging. We started our retrospective with an aggregation of articles on networking. Today we present you with a list of writing tips.

Getting Ideas to Flow

• How to Come up With Brilliant Post Ideas Every Time 
• Five More Ways to Maintain a Steady Flow of Ideas 
• A List of Post Idea Suggestions
  

Motivation

• How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Blogger Burn Out

Copyright Issues

• All About Copyright
• Copyright and the Basic Rules of Attribution
• Copyright and Images
  

Tags & Categories

• Why Smart Tags and Categories Bring More Blog Traffic
• Using Tags and Categories for Better Organization and Useful Searchability
• Consistent and Clean Categories and Tags Posts

Recurring Series

• The Power of Serial Posting
• Why Not Try a Recurring Series?
• Definitions, Terms or a Glossary as a Blog Series

Writing Voice

• How to Find Your Blogging Voice 
• Writing Voice: Find Your Authority 
• The Power of Voice: Your Own Writing Voice

Addressing Controversy

• Why Controversy Can be Good for Your Blog
• Sometimes It's Okay to be Controversial When Dealing with Controversy
• Tackle the Controversial Topic on Your Blog

Editor's Note: Strong writing skills is an essential elements to successful blogging. Whether you are controversial or writing on an extremely focused subject, your readers will assess your authority on your ability to convey your knowledge effectively. There are many bloggers who never planned on becoming writers, but developing the right combination of skill and voice are a definite mark for success. Simply put, style matters.

Without further ado, we give you the best of this blog's articles on networking:

Using Social Media

• Del.icio.us (Delicious.com) - to Network and Increase Blog Traffic
• Networking for Stumble Upon Success
• How To Easily Increase Your Blog Traffic With Digg 
  

Guest Bloggers

• How to Invite Guest Bloggers for your Blog, Become a Guest Blogger on Other Blogs, and Guidelines
• Types of Guest Posts 
  
• How (And Why) to Find Guest Posters and Places to Guest-Post

Connecting to other Bloggers

• Networking: How to Find Great Bloggers In Your Niche
• Building Blogger Relationships
• Blog Networking – Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Commenting

• Comments On Other Blogs Is Crucial
• Compelling People to Comment
• Why You Should Try to Attract More Comments at Your Blog

A few final thoughts

Networking is vital to a blog's success. Each act of networking is like a raindrop - not much by itself, but powerful in great numbers. Spend a little time on it every day and you'll reap great rewards in time.

You can make more orange juice by either buying more oranges or by squeezing more juice from your existing oranges. Applying this to blogging, you can increase your blog traffic by either bringing in new external traffic or by squeezing more page views out of your existing traffic. 

What is the best system to use for finding your own content and consistently linking back to it?

I suggest keeping a master list or spreadsheet of your best 20-30 posts (with their URLs). You might want to organize these posts by topic. Each time you write a new post, refer to this list and see if you have an already-published post you have written that is somewhat related to any part of your new post, then provide a link back to that post in your new post, using a good keyword in your content.

It might take some footwork to get your list created, but once you’ve done it, this intra-linking will become simple and quick, and it will be easy to maintain the list and add new posts as you write them.

Intra-linking has brought great results to Dr. Ellen Weber, whose BrainBasedBusiness.com enjoys an average of 1.8 page views per visitor, which is one of the best averages in our entire network.

Another idea: splitting your posts

In short, when you write a new post, put the first half in the main “Entry Body” box and the second half in the “Extended Entry” box (this may vary depending on your blogging software). Doing this forces a “Continue Reading” break for each post, so that a person on the main page of your blog will need to click through to the individual post to read its entirety, thus gaining you an extra page view. This same technique also makes your RSS feeds abbreviated, so that RSS readers will need to click through to your post to read the entire post, thus bringing more traffic.

Sometimes, increasing traffic is not a factor of working harder or longer, but working smarter. Intra-linking to your own posts is working smarter, and doesn’t take much time once you get your system in place. Splitting your posts is working smarter, and takes practically no extra time at all. Adopting these two practices will help improve our overall traffic.

Inner-linking - or linking to yourself - is honestly one of the best practices of successful bloggers, and today I want to take a look at one of our authors who uses this method frequently and effectively. Our BrainBasedBusiness maven, Dr. Ellen Weber, never fails to link to one or more of her own posts on her column. Aside from the promoting and time saving benefits to the author and/or blog, it also offers added value to the readers by providing them immediate access to relevant information. Even better if that relevant information is from you, right?

If you look at any number of posts on BrainBasedBusiness you'll notice that there are certain keywords with which Dr. Weber always includes a link. As someone who is not knowledgeable about serotonin or other brain chemicals, these links have often helped me to process the information she provides. It's an education of sorts. The links basically serve the same purpose as those to external sites where people are offering an opinion or analysis. However, Dr. Weber is truly an expert in her field (as are all the authors on the network) and has written over two years worth of content on BrainBasedBusiness. Why depend on someone else's authority when you can stand on your own?

This is not to say that Dr. Weber does not ever link to external sites; she does so quite readily, but the vast majority of the links provided in her articles are to articles for which she has done her own research and provided her own analysis. And why not? These articles exist as a resource for the readers and as a way for the author to avoid having to explain the same things over and over.

We all have content on our blogs that could come in handy as resource links for other articles. Take advantage of your own expertise, stand on your own authority and link to yourself.

Here's how to do it.

1. Planning - Whenever you take time to decide what to write about next, think about what you've already written. What could you build off of? What could you add to? What could you revisit? You'd be surprised how much time this little trick can save you. Some of you do this already (e.g. Bill Belew, Joseph Carrabis, Jason Boog and Gary Bourgeault).

2. Publishing - Right before publishing your draft, make sure you answer this question: Is there anything I've already published that the reader of this article would find useful right now? If the answer is yes, include the link. This will increase your traffic little by little as first-time visitors find more links to your content and journey deep into your blog.

3. Promotion - When you promote yourself on the Web, have a link ready to share with anyone you meet. That link should be to something you've previously written that you are particularly proud of. When you promote yourself offline, have a printed form of the link or even a printed version of the article to share with them. This'll save you time and boost your traffic.

What other ways can you think of to use your old content to make your work as a writer simpler and bring more people to your blog?

This week, we’ve been stirring the pot of controversy here on Inside.KnowMoreMedia. Easton talked about why controversy can be good for your blog, and Kimberlee talked about how the blogger can write in a controversial manner. Another major element of controversy in blogging is picking controversial topics. It is one thing to write in a controversial way, and it is another thing to cover controversial topics in your blogging: both can be very effective.

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Everyone loves a good controversy. Sometimes when authors are passionate about certain controversial issues, they become controversial themselves. Take Perez Hilton, the Huffington Post writers, the Fug Ugly ladies and what do they all have in common? They deal with hot button issues in a controversial way. As the comments roll in, so do the comments.

How do you become a controversial author? Tell others your opinion without holding back and let others know that you are the authority. Sharpen your wit until razor sharp and let ‘er rip. The stronger your voice when expressing your opinion, the more likely it is that anyone who disagrees with you will let you know. Can’t lose right?

Well…sometimes there is harm in being too controversial and as Easton said yesterday, you could damage your reputation if you take things to far. It is important to that you pick and choose your battles, engage your readers in discussion and avoid insulting their intelligence. Just because you stand by your statements and convictions, it is not necessary to be rude or snarky when replying to comments; even when the commenter was rude first. And trust me; there are plenty of people who will quickly call you an idiot and other not-so-nice adjectives but it's your job to maintain the tone of the discussion.

However, a good debate is often what controversy is all about and discussion becomes the end to the controversial means. If a good discussion can ensue because you expressed your opinion passionately, then everyone gets smarter and flex their critical thinking muscles. After all, outside of entertainment value, having access to information can enable people to think critically and make informed decisions…If you can be part of that process, being a controversial figure may be well worth it.

Here are 5 reasons why controversy can be good for your blog:

1. People love to argue.

2. People love to watch other people argue.

3. People love a story with conflict.

4. People love storytellers with a flair for the dramatic.

5. People love tackling difficult questions.

Notice that all of the above reasons focus on people and what they love. People are the main reason you're blogging, right?

Of course, controversy can be risky. If you're not careful, you can damage your reputation or worse.

Remember: Being controversial and talking about controversy are two different things.

Here are 3 tips on how to handle controversial topics well:

1. Always present both sides of the story.

2. Focus on the facts.

3. If something is just an opinion, say so.

Bonus tip: Don't blog angry. It's like driving angry.

That's the skeleton. What flesh would you like to add to these bones?

If there is any one thing that sets writers apart from each other, it is each writer’s individual unique voice, as Easton and Kimberlee have talked about this week. To me, a brief definition of voice is how the writer writes.

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Yesterday Easton started this week’s series on writing voices. I began thinking about my voice and what it was; what was my written personality so to speak. I went back and read a few of my articles, past and present. One thing I discovered is that depending on what I'm writing about, that voice may vary. I also realized that I thought being a journalist meant that you didn't have a voice; instead you used the voices of others to tell the story. Blogging over the last few years has taught me that journalists have voices too.

So what does my writing voice sound like? It's very much like my personality: a little dry, a tad witty, occasionally sarcastic, often descriptive and usually authoritative. I have learned that to establish myself as an opinion leader, I must be sure about my opinion and convince others that I am correct. This is not an easy task, especially when writing about culture, music and arts. There is a fine balance between asserting you are correct and insulting your reader. I'm not always successful walking that line.

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What is writer's voice?

It's the combination of what you say and how you say it. It's your vibe. It's how other people imagine you sounding when they read your words.

Why is voice important?

Your voice is your unique fingerprint. It gets people to notice you, to make assumptions about you, to judge you. It spurs them to action. It lulls them to sleep. It acts independently of the actual language you use. If you use it smartly, your voice can have great power.

How do you find your voice?

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Every industry has its own set of unique terminology, names, words, and lingo. Since your blog focuses on a specific industry, it would be valuable and helpful to create a whole series of posts where you define all the terms associated with your industry. I think the best approach would be to define 1-3 terms per post. You don’t want to include too many terms per post because then it becomes overwhelming to the reader. It may be ideal to define one term per post, if you can get detailed enough.

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Recurring series are a great way to give regular readers a feature they can count on every week, every month, or however you set it up. Several of our authors already have recurring features; CareerSuperStar probably has the most extensive since each day of the week on his column has a given theme. "Menu Plan Monday" from Workerette is also a good example of a recurring series.

Not sure how or what you could talk about on a regular or semi regular basis? You may consider your categories and things that happen in your blog topic regularly. For example GrowYourFunds has a recurring series called "Story Stocks" where he features a particular company and tells the story of their stocks. This is not a weekly feature but it is something that Aaron Smith publishes semi-regularly and his readers probably have started looking forward to these posts.

More examples:

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This week on Blog Chalk Talk, we'll discuss the power of serial posting, or doing series of blog posts around a theme. I'll explain why post series can be powerful; Kimberlee will share ways to do recurring-theme series; and Dan will show you how to do a post series offering definitions of terms.

So ... why can it be powerful to be a serial poster?

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My word preference for the name of links pointing to a website is “inlinks,” so I’ll be using that phrase. Inlinks are certainly a major component of the search engine algorithms, and are extremely critical to have, as Easton pointed out in his post this week. Kimberlee also shared the world of Technorati links. So, how do you get more inlinks? A major portion of the answer to this question is to increase your blog’s exposure, so that more people know about you and link to you.

Here are some ways to increase your blog’s inlink count:

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