My friend Caroline, a talented blogger, asked me for advice the other day. Here's a partial answer, with a few apologies to Swift:

1. Use lists.
2. Be topical... write posts that need to be read right now.
3. Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
4. Break news.
5. Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year.
6. Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
7. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
8. Announce news.
9. Write short, pithy posts.
10. Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
11. Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
12. Write long, definitive posts.
13. Write about your kids.
14. Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
15. Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
16. Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
17. Tag your posts.
18. Coin a term or two.
19. Do email interviews with the well-known.
20. Answer your email.
21. Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
22. Be anonymous.
23. Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
24. Post your photos on flickr.
25. Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
26. Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
27. Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
28. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
29. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
30. Point to useful but little-known resources.
31. Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.
32. Write about Google.
33. Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
34. Don't include comments, people will cross post their responses.
35. Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
36. Run no ads.
37. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
38. Write about blogging.
39. Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
40. Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
41. Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
42. Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
43. Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
44. Don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
45. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
46. Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
47. Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.
48. Be patient.
49. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
50. Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
51. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
52. Write in English.
53. Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
54. Don't be boring.
55. Write stuff that people want to read and share.

One of the basic steps in setting up a blog that makes the most of the medium is getting an account with www.Feedburner.com. No matter what blogging platform you use to write your blog, there are good reasons why you should use Feedburner. Below are some reasons why, followed by some steps on how to use the service.

What is Feedburner?
The simplest answer to this question is that Feedburner republishes your RSS blog's RSS feed (or any RSS feed for that matter) to make it much friendlier, more powerful and more useful.

What am I going to get out of this?

1. Find out how many people are subscribed to your RSS feed. These are the folks who are going to keep coming back to your content, more than any other group of visitors to your site. It's good to know how many of them there are and how that number has changed over time.
2. Make it easier than ever for readers to subscribe to your feed. By email, MyYahoo, Bloglines, Newsgator and more are all options with at most two clicks of a lambs tail when you use Feedburner. And it's so much more friendly than a Movable Type or Wordpress "subscribe to this blog's feed" link with a whole bunch of XML behind it. Here - go click on my feed and see how pretty it is.
3. You are going to set up Feedburner to automatically ping Technorati and everybody else who ought to know when you've posted something new on your blog so that it will show up in search engines.
4. There are lots of extra features that are easy to select as add-ons to your feed. For example, people who subscribe to my feed see links after every item to email that post to some one, save it in del.icio.us, see how many comments on are on that post and make a comment themselves. You can also display inbound links to that item and lots more.

One of the most popular ways to make money blogging is through Google AdSense. It allows almost anyone with a blog or website to create an account and place ads. The ads are, for the most part, targeted to each blog. For instance, a blog about writing will have ads about writing. Each time a visitor clicks on one of the AdSense links, the blogger earns money. The amount of money depends on the ad; different keywords bring in different amounts. Google will send a check once you receive $100 in revenue. It's quite easy make money online this way.

Create a Blog
Your first step is to create an account with your blog platform of choice. If you use Wordpress you may only be able to use AdSense if you install special plugins. If you use Blogger, there's actually an AdSense option within the template design feature. Read up on the different types of platforms to find out which works best for your needs. Be sure to read all the FAQs, specifically those related to advertising.

Open an Account with AdSense
Your next step is to open an account with AdSense. Simply sign up and fill out all the necessary information. Once approved, you can place AdSense on your blog.

Place AdSense on Your Blog
Log into your Adsense account and click on the "Adsense Settings" tab. If you wish to place ads on your website, click on the "Adsense for Content" link. Once you reach the "Adsense for Content" page, you can choose the type of ad you would like for your blog. You can choose a text ad, which consists of links, an image ad with is a picture or graphic, or both.

Choose your ad type and click "continue." Next
The next screen takes you to design page. Here you can choose the ad's size, shape and color. After your make your choice and click continue you'll be directed to a screen that allows you to click and highlight the HTML to copy and paste the AdSense code to your blog. Most bloggers prefer to place the code in the sidebar, but choose a design that works best for your blog.

Blogger
If you use Blogger, you can either paste the code as directed above, or click on the "template" option and drag and drop the code as desired. Blogger even offers an option allowing you to "blend" the ads into the blog. Many prefer this step as they don't have to find the perfect color match.