There needs to be an online degree you can get for blogging. Or a marketing your blog type of blog. Oh wait there are tons of those!

What bloggers really need to do if they are serious is research and test what is myth and what works.

Do you have creative imagination where you are a pioneer and pluck ideas out of thin air? Are you the type that comes up with amazing new concepts from existing ideas?

Me I'm the second type (okay maybe not amazing ideas) and couldn't come up with an original idea if you offered me millions. It's not gonna happen folks.

Along my blogging career here is what I have found through extensive research and testing what works for me.

Keywords - You don't say! According to Word Tracker, there are 48 searches for "mature women blogging naked" per day. That is just 4 less searches than "make money blogging".

Can you incorporate valuable keywords, and I say valuable because I am tired of seeing the term r*** rhymes with b**** keywords scattered all over the Internet.

One way that I find important keyword searches is to do a Google search for blogs with keywords. Lots of bloggers have already done the work for me providing useful, free content to their own blogs.

They post elaborate lists of expensive keywords, marketing keywords, all types of keyword lists and keyword services to see if you come back to the same post. Well I do and I use them as a reference point and thank them by giving them traffic. :)

Just a reminder, because I know some of you still don't do a lot of things you are supposed to do to make money blogging, keywords go in the title, beginning, middle and the end of your posts.

Short Posts - Make em short but make many of them in a day.

Drafts - If your not using the drafts portion in your blog platform you are letting a valuable tool waste away.

Like I said I am not much of a creative thinker so my unfocused and scatter-brained thinking leaves me with many ideas that start out big and kind of whither off into nowhere. I think to myself, I had a great idea but forgot the key points. What the hell was I thinking again...? Then another idea comes along. Repeat.

When you start drafting, tweaking and editing you don't lose those ideas you were excited about and you have content to post on days you don't feel like posting.

You can use free website content but it is still better to write as much of your blog as you can.

Drafts. A total lifesaver.

Lists - Remember those search keyword lists I was telling you about? All good blogs and info websites have lists! They have Top 10 lists lists, they have strongest directory lists, they have lists about lists and there is even a list by a guy named Craig!

Do your reasearch and come up with a good list!

How To - Is this post considered a How To? I'm not sure because as I always tell readers I'm a big picture person and not very detail oriented. Which means...lists, giving directions, or writing out a plan of action are beyond me. I'm a big time delegator. It doesn't mean I'm lazy, I'd rather give someone else the opportunity to shine if it is important to them. To me it's not that important.

So...How To. Anthony Robbins has a simple plan that he laid out in extreme detail on how to suceed at just about anything.

Reading his book Awaken the Giant from Within, after reading all the details I broke it down to the short version which was: Have a vision, take the first action step, make adjustments and a dynamic plan of action, be willing to make sacrifices to reach your goal.

The shorter list is written in my little notebook and is permanently in my thoughts:

Vision
Action
Tweak
Whatever it takes

Here is a quick How To on blogging for you:

Content. Content. Content.
Ad placement.
Backlinks.

Can you write a "how to" or are you like me who talks about what works. You decide but make sure you have a basis of posts that instruct and or inform.

Pillar, Flagship or What I like to call Golden Posts - Those are those crazy long posts that you know, JUST KNOW are going to be the selling point for your expertise and for your blog.

You're going to have that one golden post that everyone in the blogsphere absolutely, positively has to read.

Some of my golden posts have turned into ebooks! One of my golden posts I fragment and alter so I have extra posting material that I save in my drafts. One of my golden posts is a how to school on blogging.

Too bad it cannot be an acredited online degree for blogging. The only online degree that any blogger needs is to do the research, do the work and your diploma are the checks in the mail or funds in your Paypal account!