You might be a brilliant, insightful writer, but if someone visits one of your blog posts and sees you rarely post, they aren't going to bookmark or subscribe, no matter how much they enjoyed the single post.

The only reason they'll bookmark or subscribe is if they want to be sure they don't miss your future posts. If the doubt there will be any future posts, why bother?

So you need to post often and regularly. At least a couple of times per week if your posts are longer, daily if you just post quick tips or recommended links.

Making that sort of commitment can be scary, but here's a little tip to make it almost trivial: develop a backlog of post ideas (backblog?).

When you think of something that might even remotely make a good blog entry, start a new post, give it a placeholder title and jot down enough information so you won't forget it. But instead of publishing it, save it as a draft (just click Save Draft instead of Post Now).

Draft posts are invisible to everyone but you. Make as many as you like. If you have even just one you'll get a new entry over in the options box to the left that will let you manage just your draft posts.

On that day in the future when you feel a new blog post is due, but inspiration isn't coming, just call up your drafts, flesh one out, and change its "Publish Status" from "Draft Blog Entry" to "Publish Now". You can even schedule posts to publish on a future date, should you want to give the appearance of regular blogging even though you can't/won't be logging in for awhile.