How do you determine whether or not to follow a blog?

seriously people, voting me down? what happened to the sense of humor in this world? geez....

OK, now that I was voted up I guess I owe you a serious response.

Seriously, this depends on what you are looking for. For Christopher Ryan is step-by-step (not for me, not very useful in my world and the topics i read about). For me is mostly about diff perspectives, new ideas, and different ways to "skin the cat" or look at the topic.

I read blogs to get other perspective on items I follow or cover so I can see the world from a different color of glasses. I read a lot of blogs (I'd say peruse, but don't want to offend anyone) looking for different takes and end up mostly not happy with the lack of innovation -- but still gotta read them to stay on top.

I guess that brings the last point: it is not only what content type you are looking for, but what topics interest you and how many blogs there are about it. If you are interested in blogs that cover natural desiccation of fruits or how to win when playing a specific version of solitaire -- go ahead and them all, won't take that long. Blogs on Enterprise Software take longer to get through, so you may want to be picky based on content and whether they fulfill your needs. If you get to cars -- fuggedaboutit... just pick at random since they all are boring anyways (go ahead, "flame me").

Hope that makes up for my "bad humor" answer... and thanks to whoever voted me up -- i am gain back to believing humankind.

One more point, nothing you can do to safeguard against bad blogs with one good post. Just keep monitoring and never be afraid to use the delete button in your RSS feeder. If the blog was (is?) worth it, you'll come across it again via some recommendation.

As far as I am concerned, blog has to be related to one topic, with various related sub-topics. Let's say the blog is about internet marketing, if the posts are all about internet marketing (saturated with this keyword), I wouldn't follow the blog. But if the blog has various posts related to internet marketing, such as SEO, keyword analysis, etc.. then I would be interested in following.

The second factor is the quality of the content, which includes images, as well as the videos. Blog may have good (text) content. But as some of the people mentioned, if it is surrounded with unrelated images, videos, and/or lots of ads, I wouldn't be interested in the blog.

Another factor that I look at is the Twitter account associated with the blog. I go through the Tweets to see what types of Tweets the author(s) are putting out. If they are (again) related to the subject, this tells me that these people are serious about their work (by the way, I also look at some of the people they are following to see if they are "mostly" related to their subject matter).

One last thing I look at is the content (this may not be for everybody). I like reading content which is written from experience. In other words, if the author is giving something that he personally did (succeeded or failed) would interest me more than some post talking about how to do this, or how to do that (again... this is a personal preference).

Happy New Year Everybody :)

I rarely have time to follow bloggers, but the few that I do check-in on have one thing in common: solutions. Walk-throughs, tutorials and resources that make my life easier by solving real problems or give me innovative new ways to achieve a design goal always pique my interest.

The quickest way to avoid my following is just by loading up your blog with promotional posts that offer nothing but product reviews with affiliate links.

I look at the author,originality and quality of the content.

Typically if I find something relevant on a site I will "follow it" for a short period of time to see what other stuff the site might produce. If the site continues to produce good content - then they stay on my blog reader. If not - they soon get dumped for the next blog that comes along!

For me content is king - then its a matter of how often new content gets posted to the site. Those are my two big criteria.

Ryan
http://MassachusettsWebDesigns.com

After I read a blog post or two, if I find that I can walk away from it with something useful or if it goes against the normal gradient of things in a clever way, I'll follow it.

It's really about adding value to the Reader's knowledge base.

I follow blogs that offer tips & useful resources. I also make it a point to follow blogs of industry Thought leaders. Being pioneers in the industry, they're bound to know a lot and add great value to your existing knowledge base.

I'm with Christopher Ryan - are solutions provided? Mixed in with that is "Do I profit from reading this?" The profit can be physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, ... Thus the solution can be to other than business and usually is.

The company profile and rep

All kidding aside, it is difficult to follow anything religiously these days as there is just so much content to skim through. I find scanning the Twitter feed most helpful, and when the hook is relevant, interesting or potentially entertaining I will drill through to the underlying content. It may be an article, column or blog entry. Regardless, I will read it and then move on.

I write a daily blog. Not every entry is likely to be of interest or value to every person. Consequently, I don't expect many people will follow and read my column every day. I do hope, however, they follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus where each day the blog is promoted. That way they will catch the ones of interest.

simple, if i am the author -- just follow it.