I’ve been blogging for about three years and some of the them have been misses, but it’s been a great experience. Here are ten tips (not in any real order) for starting a blog:

1. Aesthetics are great, but content is king: The first time a person comes to your site they’ll see the theme or design of your site. The look of your site needs to bring people in, but that’s it. After seeing the site design, they’ll go straight for your content.

2. Promote yourself by promoting others: Really like a certain blog? Fan of a podcast? Write about it. Post a review of the site you like or just leave a link on your blog. Others will appreciate the recognition and they might even link back to your site.

3. Keep it simple: If your just starting a blog, just blog. There isn’t a reason to over extend yourself. I have made this mistake many times and have overcomplicated this blog, as well as many others. Before starting a forum or another blog make sure to get an audience.

4. Make friends (with fellow blog folk): I never thought that making friends with other bloggers would help my blog, but it does. Just break the ice and send a question to another blogger, they’ll be happy to respond.

5. Use a popular blogging platform: Don’t use a blogging platform that’s old or has few users. WordPress and Blogger have been what I’ve used over the past few years of blogging. Blogger is a great blogging service, but is restricting and spam ridden. WordPress is what I am currently using and it has been working for me. WordPress can be difficult for those who don’t know anything about running a website (hosting, plug-ins, etc).

6. Don’t write to make money: You will fail every time. If you want to make money go write for an already established blog like Engadget. For those who just want some ads on their site to pay for hosting I have found Google Adsense and Text Link Ads are a great mixture. Google ads can be put up in an instant, but the money flow can be really slow. Text Link Ads on the other hand takes time for advertisers to buy links, but payments are usually higher.

7. Don’t pay for promoting: Don’t pay ANYONE to promote your blog, they might bring users to your site, but they never stick. Use free services like Digg, StumbleUpon, Fark, and del.icio.us to find readers.

8. Be consistent: Pick a general blog subject and stick with it. Don’t pull a fast one and start blogging about the most recent football game on your mac blog.

9. Be frequent: Tell readers how often you’ll be posting. Leaving weeks between blog posts is a sure way to lose all readers.

10. Keep the top ten lists to a minimum: “Ten Reasons to…” “10 Ways to…” Top ten lists are great ways to raise traffic, but the traffic usually isn’t the kind you want. Digg has become famous for having these submitted. Go head any make a numerical list, but keep them separated and infrequent.