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Top 10 best ways to write "new media best practices  guru" blog posts that will make you rich, famous and attractive!

1.  Use Numbered Lists for everything, always.  Always, always write articles in the form of a numbered list because, hey, other people online have found that it works best.  For extra points, make sure numbered lists are all you ever post to your blog.  Everyone knows that people scan online and don't actually read.  And, be sure to call your list the "top X" things about your topic, especially if you don't have any real proof that your suggestions actually are the "Top" points about your  topic.

2. Master Your Post Titles: Say Whatever You have to to make someone click on your link.  Make sure you hype your title as if it were on the cover of Cosmo!  Add something about sex if you can't think of anything else to get attention.  Also it's good if your title asks a yes/no question.  Even better if the answer to the question is "no" because then you can use any outrageous question you want!  It must work because you're reading this article!

3.  Be sure to tell people to follow you on Twitter, to "Like" you on Facebook, and to "Pin" you on Pinterest because everyone says you have to tell people, so it must be important.

4.  Don't ever write anything deep or meaningful.  You can't write anything meaningful because you have to keep your posts short and scannable.  "People don't read online" so why write anything substantial anyway?  Besides, how can you write something authentic, from the heart, and meaningful in a 10 point list?

5.  Write for search engines.  It's good that you can't actually write anything meaningful for real people because everyone knows that you're writing for search engines anyway.  Make sure you first do keyword reasearch and work your targeted keywords into your blog post, your article, your social media advice, your "how to get more traffic from search engines" guidebook....  Oh that reminds me of a joke: a man walks into a bar, tavern, club, liquor store, place to buy alcohol......

6.  Bullet Points

• Use Them

• Love them

• Master them

• Bullet points rock

• Nobody reads anything online unless you use bullet points.

• Everybody knows that.

• Blah, blah blah

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7.  Always use an image.  Best if you have to use something unrelated to your article.  Just find some generic stock photography.  But you have to use something, the best practices people say so.  If you don't have something to use, just use the infamous parked domain girl like I did for this post.  I figured since she worked for the domain squatters, she must be the right choice.  After all, they must be smarter than you and me right? 

8.  Make your blog posts and websites look like NASCAR.  Add a media sharing button to every social media service known to mankind.  There might be one person out there who still wants to share your post on Bebo, and you should let them.  You must assume that people don't understand how their favorite social media sites work.  That means that you have to provide buttons for everything.  This has the added benefit of sending people away from your site.  Why keep them around and develop relationships?  You're writing for search engines, not people, anyway, remember?  Oh yeah, plus looking like NASCAR is cool.

9.  Stick to a schedule, even when you have nothing to say.  You have to be consistent.  It's not OK to only write when you have something to say.  Write something every day.  For extra points, write something several times a day.  It should not be too hard, you're not saying anything meaningful anyway.  Search engines will love you if you post shallow articles several times a day.  After all, it works for TechCrunch so it'll work for you too!

10.  Did you remember to end your post with a question?  Did you know that someone, somewhere found that more people will "engage" with your blog if you ask a question?  What do you think?  Should I end this with a question?  Do you end your posts with questions?  Don't you especially love the contrived questions people write just so they can end with a question?

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And finally, seriously - feel free to ignore some or all of the points in this post.  While many of these "best practices" are OK in moderation, hopefully, you can see that trying to follow every "best practice" you read about on every post you write can lead to sameness, mediocrity and shallowness.