10 ways to become a successful political blogger

10 ways to become a successful political blogger

By Samuel Gonzalez , The Last Tradition

When I first started blogging I didn't know what the heck I was doing.  All I wanted to do was to have an outlet at my frustration with the election of Barak Obama.  Well, he's come and gone after eight painful years and the Trump era is in full effect. 

So after eight years of blogging I decided to give back and inspire the next generation of citizen journalists to combat what I call the corrupt media machine. 

Here are 10 basic tips on how to become a successful political blogger.  They are not in order of importance, just what I've learned through trial and error.

1.       Post daily and often.  A lot of others may say to be consistent in your posting and that is true.  But, if you want to build an audience of readers, you need to post like crazy.  That takes a lot of commitment.  But, like anything else in life it pays off in the end. 

2.        Drudge is the best place to find stories to blog about.  But, here's a tidbit other won't tell you.  Stick to stories that are fresh.  That means stories above the big headline or just below it.  Use this same process when looking at other news sites like Fox or NewsMax.  Link to stories at the top of the page.  Don't bother scrolling down the page for older stories.  The fresher the better. 

3.       Don't be a Slaves to the Headlines.  If you work or go to school and you hear about a big story unless you have a laptop and can sneak a quick post on it, that story is dead to you.  You don't want to post about what others have already done for 8 to 12 hours.  News cycles change quickly.  You want to jump on the story that broke 15 minutes ago on Fox, not 15 hours ago.  There's always another wave coming and that's the one you want to catch.    

4.       Connect to other bloggers and ask for Blog roll exchanges.  This drives traffic to your blog and theirs.  Very important.  The more reciprocal blog roll exchanges the better for your traffic.  Never stop building your blog roll with reciprocal exchanges.  You can never have enough.    

5.       Get the Big Boys to link to you.  Who are the Big Boys?  These are the bloggers, men and women, that have traffic coming out the wazoo such as Instapundit or Gateway Pundit.  But, to get them to link to you, you  must establish yourself as a serious consistent blogger.  So if you've only been blogging for a couple of weeks don't waste their time.  It took me literally  years to get linked by Gateway Pundit.  But, he's at the top of the food chain.  However, there are other high traffic political blogs to go after.  The Big Boys want to see consistency and that only comes with time put in your blogging. 

6.       Be careful with images.  I wish somebody told me about this when I started blogging.  Unfortunately, there are copyright trolls looking to sting unsuspecting bloggers with demand letters for thousands of dollars for the unauthorized use of images.  So do not use images you do not have a license for.  I cannot stress this enough.  Yes, images make you blog look nice.  But, it's not worth the risk of getting hit by trolls.  So get images from Creative Commons or link to an images.  Trust me, I'm doing you a big favor. 

7.       Don't Go to Memeorandum for blogging fodder.  Memeoradum is the best place to find out what's big in politics and the news.  However, the stories that appear there are not fresh for my purposes.  For instance, Fox publishes a story at 7 am in the morning.  It won't appear on Memeorandum until 2 pm.  Drudge will link to it a lot sooner which is what I said earlier and why Drudge is a better place to find stories. 

8.       Make a list of Go to Sites for Stories.  I have a list on my favorites that I go directly religiously.  I always Fox, CNS News, the Washington Times and others for fresh stories. 

9.       Always link to your local paper.  They are the best source to what's happening in your community.

10.   Don't forget to have fun.  If blogging starts feeling like a job, then maybe it's not for you.  But, if you want to make a contribution, go for it.  Don't be afraid to make mistakes.  But, be professional about it if you want to be taken seriously by the blogosphere. 

If these tips were helpful, please sign up for my mailing at the upper right hand corner of my sidebar.