There are a lot of weblogs out there, so it isn't easy making your blog stand out. Do people really care about what you did last Thursday? How can you get more people to visit your site? And which sites can help if you want to start a blog?

Read on for some expert advice. Rebecca Blood, author of "The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog," offers some great tips for experienced and newbie bloggers alike. If this Q&A still leaves you with unanswered questions, read this excerpt from Blood's book.



TechTV: How did you get started blogging, and why do you think you've been successful?

Rebecca Blood: I've had a million jobs, and when the original weblog community formed, I was maintaining websites for a department in a university. I already knew how to make webpages, and I just fell in love with the form, so I thought I would just try one of my own. And I was already sending my friends links every day with my comments, so putting them on a webpage wasn't such a stretch.

I think I've been successful in large part just because I've stuck with it. And I put a lot of work into my site, especially in the writing -- mostly rewriting.

TechTV: What can people do to get more views, traffic, and comments?

Blood: The best way to get the attention of the community is to become an active part of the community. It's always irritating to get an email from someone asking you to link them. What if you don't like their site? It's especially bad when you go to their site and they don't link to any other weblogs. If you want the support of the community, you have to support the community.

TechTV: What are your rules for what to post and what not to post?

Blood: The first rule is, is it going to come back to bite you? If it might, don't post it. Don't post about work, don't post personal things about your friends, don't post what isn't true. Lots of people imagine that because they are hobbyists, they are somehow exempt from the law or from being found out. They forget they are publishing, and all the rules that apply to the New York Times apply to them.

TechTV: You don't think blogging is the future of journalism. Why not?

Blood: I prefer the term "participatory media." Bloggers who link to the news are, in the first place, relying on established news organizations to do the reporting -- they are at most augmenting that reportage, and at least just commenting on it. News organizations have a mandate to present a fair and objective version of events that a general audience can understand. It would be foolish to expect bloggers to follow those standards. Bloggers are at their best giving their opinions, adding to the reported facts, or analyzing the reportage itself.

TechTV: How can blogs help us filter out the useless stuff in the news?

Blood: Weblogs that are centered around links can create what I call "targeted serendipity." They will point you to things you didn't know you wanted to see. A general-interest weblog will consistently point you to articles and websites that you find interesting. A subject-specific blog can give you all the news about a particular subject with one stop a day.

There aren't enough of these, by the way. There are lots of areas of interest and lots of professions that could benefit from this kind of resource. There are niches just waiting to be filled.

TechTV: Say you want to start a weblog. How should you begin?

Blood: There are hundreds of kinds of weblog software available, but for people who don't want to mess with the technical stuff, Blog*Spot is probably the best learning tool. It's free and easy.

If you don't mind spending some money, you can try Radio UserLand.

TypePad is a service that will be available sometime in June. It will host a Movable Type weblog for you at a very low cost.

Those are the big three, but there are many other choices. The Eatonweb portal is probably the best place to start exploring your other options.