The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers, by Annabel Candy

If you want to be a great blogger, you should, too.

A lot of the top bloggers like Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, and Leo

Babauta have shared hundreds of tips about how they made their blogs so successful. But each blogger's tips are just a little different.

So I would read one special report with a great idea and put that into place on my blog. But the next day I'd find a podcast from another top blogger with contradictory advice, so I'd change my blog again. Then I'd come across a third idea from an equally successful blogger, which sent me down a totally new path.

Finally I realized I needed to stop focusing on little things like what plug-ins to use, how to write my About Page, or where to position my ads.

I needed to focus on a bigger picture. I wanted to find out what all these top bloggers had in common. Their mindset, their mental habits.

I spent a lot of time observing, which led to this list of the eight success traits shared by all top bloggers I've found. I'm happy to share it with you.

The good news is that even if you don't have all these personality traits already, most of them can be developed over time. Best of all, if you can cultivate these traits, you'll become more effective in the rest of your life as well.

The first key to being a successful blogger is to write. A lot.

The more you write, the better your writing gets. The more posts you add to your blog, the more juice you'll get from search engines. And more content means more reader visits to see what's new.

There's no way around it; it takes work to be prolific. Effective bloggers work hard. Putting a successful blog together requires a lot of time in front of your computer, and not surfing LOLCats or Twittering about what you had for lunch. Great bloggers put serious time into researching, writing, editing, and planning posts for their blogs.