Making your BLOG strong makes Biznik Strong which makes your BLOG strong.

Good topic, here are a few of my ideas:

1. Authenticity & Personality are critical, be genuinly passionate about what you write and that will come through

2. Don't try and sell, try and engage in a conversation, so make your posts conversation starters

3. Get involved with blogs on complemetory topics

4. when you write something totally original or scoop a story, don't be afraid email related bloggers individually and tell them why they might be interested in the story.

Karl

Here's my oversimplification on what it takes: Be relevant, be interesting, and be regular.

The last point in particular is important - if you scroll through the list of Biznik member blogs on this page, you'll notice right away that many of them aren't posting regularly. If you're going to blog, I think it's very important to post consistently, even if that's only a couple of times a week. That's where having a collaborative blog is nice, so that the pressure to post is distributed over several people.

Re: your last question, "If we subscribe to all of the Biznik members BLOGS does that add value to everything?" Well, first of all, that's a lot of blogs (currently there are 161 of them listed) but you COULD stay on top of that many if you wanted to by using a newsreader (especially since most of them aren't posting frequently). Nevertheless, unless you've got a lot of time on your hands, I'd select only the ones that interest you or that you find relevant to your field.

Here's how I show that I value a blog: 1) read it. 2) leave comments 3) link to it. And linking to it is what the blog's owner will likely appreciate the most, because it'll increase the blog's standing in Google and blog search engines like Technorati.

It think if you blog: 1. Interesting Subject matter 2. Comments 3. Repeat 1 & 2 frequently

will make your blog stronger..

Linking means adding them to your blogroll (typically in the sidebar of your blog).

Regarding consistency, yes, Google does value that a lot. Here's how it works: Google sends out a spider to your site, and indexes everything. The next day, they send out another spider, and index everything. If the index today shows no change in comparison with yesterday's index, Google figures they can spider your site less frequently, because nothing's changed. Then, several days later, when they finally send another spider, if still nothing's changed, they wait even longer. Bottom line: If you're inconsistently updating your site, you can bet Google will be inconsistently indexing you.

But the biggest thing about consistency is this: If I discover a blog and glance through the posts and within two or three posts I'm noticing big inconsistent gaps between posting dates, I generally stop reading. Why? For the same reason that I'd rather read a newspaper that arrives once a day than I would one that arrives some days and not others. There's something that engenders confidence in a voice that speaks consistency, and something that raises doubt about one that doesn't. To post consistently is go say "I care about what I'm saying, and you should, to."

I am with Dan on the need for consistency in blogging. I comment to more blogs than I write, but I try to post something everyday. I will pass by any blog site that has not had anything to say for more than a few days since most of the time the subjects are usually stale. I guess it boils down to how much traffic you want to your site or blogs. The more frequent you post the more attention is drawn to your posts.

Scott said: " I will pass by any blog site that has not had anything to say for more than a few days since most of the time the subjects are usually stale."

Maybe, but others are timeless... see http://upperleftimages.blogspot.com/

He also said: "I guess it boils down to how much traffic you want to your site or blogs."

... I was going to argue with you on the basis of priority, but then I guess that's your point.

DD

Something about what we're collectively doing IS working - I just typed in "business networking" into Google and Biznik comes up #6 today. The highest I've seen us rank is #5 on that term. Where we rank is fairly volatile, with big fluctuations, but being in the top 10 with that term is a big deal. So clearly the combination of the blogging, the linking, etc. - is working some magic.

Yeah, and I just typed "Everett, chiropractic" into Google and came up 3rd, 4th, 6th and 7th. Cool.

DD

Wow, here's a GREAT blog post on why YOU should be blogging (written by a geek who works at corporate Amazon, but totally relevant to indie professionals):

http://opal.cabochon.com/~stevey/blog-rants/why-you-should-blog.html

Incidentally, the fact that I found this post is because of a member who just joined, an engineer who works in silicon valley named Ravi Duvvuri, who recently started a blog at http://rduv.wordpress.com/

Yeah, Steve's blog on blogging was a nice read - what I read of it.

DD