Read my blog!

Wouldn't it be nice if that was all it took to get people reading, following and talking about your blog? Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Instead, here are some blogging tips from the pros.

Classic Party Rentals reports they've done a great job of getting their new blog off the ground, with thousands of visitors since the blog's September launch. Our question is - are they coming back? That's what truly makes a blog successful and without those repeat visitors and fans who share your blogs with others, your numbers will stay stagnant.

Here are a few tips to keep your blogs fresh and follow-worthy (and you probably shouldn't use made-up words like that!):

● Keep it short. Remember, you're competing with every type of social media out there and people are so conditioned by 140 character tweets that if they don't get the meat of the message in the first sentence or so, they're probably not coming back. In fact, I just revised the intro to this blog!

● Pictures please! Images are great for driving Web traffic (did you know that the primary traffic for many sites comes from Google image searches?) and keeping readers engaged. Instead of yammering on about how great the event was, show a few pics instead and move on.

● Make it choppy. Despite everything your high school English teacher taught you about writing an eloquent paper, Web readers don't actually want to read anything and too many adjectives is a major turnoff. Get to the point and expect people to scan your blog for relevant information and keywords so use bolded terms, hyperlinks and tags to keep people moving quickly.

● Share the love. You may love what you wrote, but if nobody is reading it's not doing you any good. Tweet about an interesting post, add it to your Facebook and share it with friends. Just don't go overboard or you'll drive readers away.

There's a lot more I could share, but in the interest of practicing what I preach I'm going to send you on to the Spring 2010 issue of Southwest Meetings + Events that's out soon, or you can click back by to read our Spring Technology column that's full of blogging tips from the pros.