Penelope Trunk is a nut case, but she’s a smart nut case.

Penelope Trunk has a blog, book and company called Brazen Careerist. I have never seen her in person or interviewed her on the phone.* I have no idea how she is as a CEO, mom, daughter or ex-wife.

But this I do know. While she name drops, over shares and brags in a subtle, indirect sort of way, she’s also one of the best bloggers around- maybe because of all those things. So if you blog, and especially if you blog about careers, tech or start ups, you have to read Penelope Trunk.

Why is she so good?

1. Penelope Trunk understands what makes people read blogs. Her blog is nominally about careers. In reality, she uses it to carry on about all sorts of work-related topics, including her adventures starting a company, recollections of jobs past and now that she’s divorced, forays into dating life. So even though her blog has a subject, it’s big enough to encompass a lot of things. That makes it fresh and interesting reading.

2. She’s not afraid to have an opinion, even if it goes against conventional wisdom – especially if it goes against conventional wisdom. If it seems like she’s taking a stand that’s contrary to popular thinking just to be contrary, well, she probably is. But she does it to make people think about a subject from a different perspective. That’s what good columnists, writers and bloggers do, get people to look at an issue from a different perspective in order to get them to act differently as a result.

3. She always links back to old blog posts, which is great for building traffic because it sends people to other pages on her site, which have links on them that lead to other pages and so and and so on. If you don’t link to your own material on your own blog you should. Then link to lots of other blogs, especially blogs that are bigger and more popular than yours, which if you do it enough, will lead to even more traffic.

4. She’s a good storyteller. Yes, she seems to have had nine lives and written about all of them, and shares too many details of her marriage, divorce and sex life. But people eat that kind of stuff up. She uses narrative devices like dialog and what-happened-next story structure, which sets her apart from blogs that ramble on without making a point or are written in a too dry, newspaper inverted pyramid style.

5. She loves lists. Even when she’s not doing a list blog, she writes posts in list form because she knows blog readers love lists. Thanks Penelope, I did this post as a list just for you.

6. She manages to work subjects into blog posts that get picked up in search engines – like sex. Take the post she wrote earlier this week on how to write a good blog post. It had absolutely nothing to do with sex, but she managed to squeeze in a reference in the very last word of the very last line – that’s brilliant.

All of that explains why Penelope Trunk is making money blogging while a lot of other bloggers don’t, and won’t – ever.

And it’s why even though I roll my eyes at the latest crazy thing Penelope Trunk writes, I keep reading.

Who are your must-read bloggers?

* While I’ve never interviewed her, I’ve mentioned her in a few previous blog posts like this one and this one and she’s left a couple comments.

The well-dressed blog post begins with good writing.

The best posts are heavy on context. But that’s just the beginning. To make sure they’ve got that pulled together look before you send them out the door, they should also have:

A catchy title – A clever headline will capture more attention than a dull one. Just make sure it accurately reflects what’s in the post.

A visual – Adding a photo, line drawing, logo, video  or other type of art that creates white space and visual interest, which increases readability. Creative Commons has a database of images and other creative work that can be re-used for free.

Links – Include URLs of blogs posts on the related topics, either written by you, which is good because it’ll drive traffic to your older blog posts,  or someone else, which is also good because when your readers click over to that someone else’s blog they’ll wonder who you are and come visit and that’s the first step to making a connection with like-minded bloggers.

Keywords and tags – A tree falling in the wilderness doesn’t make any noise, and a post on your blog that nobody knows about won’t make any noise either. You don’t have to be an SEO pro to add tags. The design themes some bloggers use do this work for them. If you’re looking to bone up on SEO, you’ll find some good resources in ProBlogger’s 2005 series on SEO for blogs.

Promotion – In addition to tags and keywords, it’s good to have a few mechanisms in place to alert regular readers to new posts. You can tweet about posts on Twitter and use other social networks like Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon. Here are some other strategies for driving traffic to your blog.

One thing good blog posts don’t have – spelling errors. I don’t care what Penelope Trunk says, blog posts with too many typos are a turnoff. And not everyone can afford to have an editor proofread their posts. So before you hit the “Publish” button give your post a once over or run it through a spell checker.

You signed up for a blogathon and realize you now have to blog about something every day for a month. Ack!

There’s no getting around the fact daily blogging is work. But there are ways to minimize the extra effort. Writing short, planning ahead, mixing up the types of blog posts you write, creating standing features that run the same day every week -  they’re all paths to daily blogging bliss.

It may be a slog, but there’s a silver lining to posting every day. If you want to broaden your freelance repertoire, learning how to blog is the first step toward pitching yourself for paid blogging gigs. Fees for paid blogging assignments are all over the map, so it’s good to know how to write different kinds of posts, how long it takes to write a post and the basics of driving traffic to a blog, so you can take all that into account when negotiating  rates.

Whether you’re taking part in this blog’s 2nd annual May blogathon, or if you just want to learn how be a better blogger, here are 5 sure-fire strategies for coming up with posts every day:

1. Plan ahead – Let me start by saying, this is the hardest for me to do. I know some bloggers who write a week’s worth of posts at a time, and others who chart out what they’re going to write several weeks ahead of time. I don’t do that very often, normally just to cover myself for vacations. But even planning a few days worth of posts – or even just the next day’s post -  is a start. Especially if it gives you time to think ahead about what you want to say and collect URLs that might related to the subject you’re writing about. However, there’s something to be said for the spontaneous blog post, especially if you’re fired up over something and need to write about it while the idea’s fresh. If you’ve banked a number of pre-written posts on evergreen topics, there’s no harm in slipping a spontaneous post into the front of the queue.

2. Write short – If you’re blogging for yourself, you can decide how much or little to include in a single blog post. Some days you might feel like writing 500 or 1,000 words reacting to a news event or on a subject that’s close to your heart. Other days, you may just want to share a news story or blog post someone else has written with your readers, so your post could consist of a link to the original with a paragraph or two of explanation or commentary. Here are some other suggestions for writing short.

3. Mix it up – Unless your blog is set up to be something very specific – a recipe a day, a daily journal entry, all photos -you don’t have to write the same kind of blog post every time. In fact, mixing it up is a good way to get readers to keep coming back to see what you’re going to do next. In a typical blog, you could include:

• Commentary – Your POV on current events.
• Lists – Readers love ‘em.
• How tos – Learned something new? Share.
• Best ofs – A handful of older blog posts on a certain topic. I’ve use this to cover for vacations.
• Interviews – Some of my best-read posts are Q&As I do with other writers on a variety of writing related topics.
• Links – Lists of links to posts on blogs you read on the same subject as your own.
• Announcements – Tell the world when your articles, books or other work appear.
• Reviews – TV shows, movies, books, music, electronics, software, services – anything related to your blog’s theme.

4. Create standing features – A standing feature is a certain type of post that runs on a regular basis. On WordCount, I have two standing features, a weekly recap of highlights from the online media business that runs on Fridays, and a Q&A with freelance writers that runs on an irregular basis but about every 2 to 3 weeks. Standing features give a blog a sense of regularity, and readers come to expect and appreciate them them – and that’s what brings traffic back to your blog.

5. Pre-publish – As writers, we have deadlines. So some days are harder to devote to blogging than others. Blog software that let’s you pre-publish posts is made for those times. Write whatever posts you need to get ahead and use the publish feature to schedule when they’ll appear. This is also a great way to avoid blogging on the weekends, because really, nobody should work on the weekend, especially if you’re not getting paid for it.

Got your own secrets for writing one or more blog posts a day? Please share.

Made you look. In the blogging world, a catchy title will make people click through to read your post.

That’s just one lesson I learned since starting this blog a year ago. I still consider myself an advanced beginner, but I’ve picked up enough over the past 12 months to want to share. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Sex sells. Good headlines attract attention, whether they’re in a newspaper or a blog post.  That’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned from Twitter, which limits users to messages of 140 characters, forcing them to be catchy and concise. Recently I’ve been channeling Cosmo to come up with blog post titles like Work smarter, not harder, Write like a pro and Beat the recession. Big caveat: once you’ve got people’s attention, though, you gotta give them something worth reading.

Mix it up. The best blogs offer a variety of types of posts, a blend of news, how to’s, first-person experiences, round ups based on other people’s opinions or experiences, Q & As, pointers to great material on other blogs, lists, “best of’s” and just enough off topic material to keep things interesting. Offering a variety of material keeps things from feeling stale – and gives a blog a personality.

When writing a new post, include links to old ones. A couple weeks back I wrote about my picks for top 10 digital media trends for 2008 and included a bunch of links to older posts.  Not surprising, many of the older posts I linked to got a nice a bump in page views. What was surprising, though, was the overall number of old posts were getting click throughs at the same time. So I counted – 104 of the 226 posts I wrote in 2008 had been viewed that week. That’s almost 50 percent. There is something to the long tail theory after all. One of the reasons is…

Evergreen topics have an incredibly long shelf life. My no. 1 most popular post of 2008 was a list of best blogs for writers I did last February. It still gets a couple click throughs a day. That’s something to remember when thinking of subjects for new posts. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel, just revise posts that worked well the first time. Especially if you’re committing to posting every day of the week. Which brings me to the next lesson learned.

More is better. I was contemplating cutting back to three times week from five times a week in 2009, following the advice of 4-Hour-Work Week author Tim Ferris to let posts percolate through the blogosphere to build momentum and readership. Now I don’t think I will. The guys at ProBlogger advocate posting multiple times a day on the theory that the more you write, the more traffic you get to your site. That’s holding true for me.

Need a break? Recycle. Twice this year when I’ve gone on vacation I’ve run “Best of” compilations of three to six posts related to a common theme. This post, Work smarter, not harder is a compilation of seven posts I did earlier in the year on some aspect of being more productive. It works: click throughs for that and other “Nest of” posts I did was exceptional. In fact, the weeks my “Best of” compilations ran my blog had some of its biggest traffic days ever.

It’s all about community. If you’re using a blog to build a brand, platform or business, you want people to know about it and the best way to do that is to circulate in your virtual community. Befriend bloggers writing about the same thing you do and leave comments on their blogs or write guests posts. Join blog rings. Use Twitter. Make it easy for people to interact with your blog by adding all of the RSS and subscription bells and whistles. Caution: there’s nothing worse a blogger whose only aim is self promotion. Be real, and give back.

The past year has served as something of a learning curve for me. Now it’s time to get serious. That hit home after I started using Twitter a couple weeks ago and have seen traffic to my blog increase as a result. I’m kicking myself for not putting some kind of income-generating mechanism in place before now – especially with the publishing industry going down the tubes and taking freelance writing opportunities with it. So I’m moving that to the top of my 09 to-do list, which means buying a domain name, porting the blog to a hosted service, finding a designer, figuring out what to sell, etc. Hmm, sounds like fodder for a bunch of new blog posts.

But enough about me. For any fellow bloggers, what have you learned over the past year?

I’ve written about how great starting a blog can be for your freelance writing business. You can use a blog to promote yourself, develop a beat, make connections, improve your skills and if you’re lucky, pick up some paid gigs.

But sooner or later you’ll find yourself staring at the screen thinking, “What can I possibly write about today?” I’ve heard this recently from a couple of the 23 other freelance writers who’ve joined me in our May blogathon, where we’re all writing a post every day this month. While some people have no trouble posting something every day anyway, and some pro bloggers post many times a day, others are having a hard time coming up with ideas.

Here are 3 ways I come up with topics for blog posts:

React to news events related to my blog topic – In my case that means following news about the newspaper and magazine industry, online publishers or freelance writers.

Riff on what people are talking about – I connect with other freelance writers on blogs, Websites, LinkedIn and message boards and routinely get ideas for blog posts based on what they’re talking about.

Share lessons learned – I’ve been in the business in a while, I write a lot of service-type articles and I’ve taught journalism, so it’s a natural impulse to want to share what I know and love to do.

Here are two other places to go for inspiration on what to write about:

ProBlogger, one of my go-to sources for great tips on blogging, compiled a list of posts on how to write good posts, including a great one titled 7 Days to Rediscovering Your Blogging Groove, which includes suggestions such as writing a list, writing a review, answering a question and telling a story.

Joan Stewart, a publicity experts who blogs as The Publicity Hound, has some great ideas about what to write about in a post called Finding content for your blog is easy with these 19 ideas on Squidoo, a network of a half-million personal Websites.

I write blog posts a couple different ways. Some days it’s the spur of the moment, when an idea strikes or I’m inspired by the day’s news. Other times I hatch an idea, dash something off in a hurry, then let it simmer half-written for days or weeks before finishing it off. Or I’ll have an idea but I’ll need to poll a bunch of people or do more research, so the finished post reads and feels more like a reported story.

Since I’m still a relative novice blogger, I wondered if this was normal. So I asked around. More than two dozen freelance writers and bloggers responded to a question I posted on LinkedIn asking how they handled writing blog posts. I guess that means this particular item falls into the category of researched post.

What I learned: when it comes to writing blog posts, anything goes. Here are some top blog writing styles:

1. Wing it. A lot of freelance writers who keep blogs as a sideline to their main jobs are shoot-from-the-hip bloggers. “That’s what makes it blogging rather than journalism,” writes Jackie Cohen, a San Francisco communications consultant, blogger and former colleague of mine at the Industry Standard. “I think of it as the writing equivalent of how athletes run sprints daily to get their blood flowing. For us, blogging frees up our voices so we stay in top writing shape. Then we can more expertly approach paid writing opportunities.”

2. Get organized. It’s more common for a paid blogger to have an organized system for tracking posts as they move from idea to publication. Jonathan Northwood, a professional blogger who writes for Weblogs Inc., focuses on blogging about breaking news first, then determines what other posts he can schedule in advance and shuffles his research and writing accordingly.

3. Do a little of each. Some writers with both personal and professional blogs use different tactics for different blogs. Jen Nipps, an Oklahoma writer, publishes a schedule of upcoming posts for Confessions of a Fat Chick, a blog that she’s turning into a non-fiction book, and another blog, The Idea Pocket. “Some posts have sources quoted, some don’t,” Nipps says. “Some were very easy to write and post and took very little time. Some have taken up to two weeks, depending.” For a third blog, Creatif, Nipps tried and failed to keep to a strict posting schedule. “It doesn’t work out for me on that one,” she says. Note: My hat’s off to anybody who can maintain three blogs at a time.

4. Change as your blog changes. When psychologist Barbara DeShong began her blog, Mysteryshrink.com, in January, she intended to be very organized about how she wrote posts, which she planned to use for teaching or manuscript development. “The result was that I was way too wordy and complicated,” she says. Then she started tracking which posts got the most page views and wrote accordingly. “As a result, I’ve gone to shorter, specific topic entries,” she says.

The most important thing isn’t really how you write, it’s sticking to the stated subject, having an authentic voice and getting posts up as often as you can. “Don´t worry about it too much as long as you can keep your blog interesting and attract visitors,” says Catharina Bethlehem, a Dutch software developer. “More important: make them come back and interact with you on your posts.”

You can read all the comments on the LinkedIn thread here.