I know what I like in websites/blogs.  I know what catches my attention. Much like you described. Interesting topic, good photos or illustrations, clear instructions and writing.  I just can't seem to get mine to that point.  It's one thing to know it but another to lay it out from the beginning like that.  I keep finding excuses: I don't have a good camera, I forget to take pictures, I don't have time to write out good copy, etc. etc.  I need to do as you suggested and work on one thing a little at a time.  I'm just impatient!  I see other bloggers posting often, like daily! And I just can't produce that fast!!!

Oh I know - I really wish I had a better camera (or a video camera for that matter), lighting in my house sucks, and so on.

Maybe it would help to plan out an article, and then work through each bit at a time. Then it's not done at once, and you remember to do all the things you need to do. There are lots of articles online about how to take good photos (start with food blogs, they usually have a FAQ in their about section on what cameras, lighting, etc they use). Once you set up a routine, it's surprisingly easy to stick to. And working with a blog or similar website program helps make my life easy, as I just have to write and upload files, I don't have to fiddle around every day getting image placement perfect or whatever.

You don't have to update daily: I have recently discovered that if I update less I actually get more visitors. Going from 4-5 down to 1-2 times a week has gotten me 500 more hits per day. And also, it goes back to presentation. Having a 'related posts' section increased the number of hits I got when I first implemented it. I'm not sure how feasible it is to do on Blogspot, but you could manually add links to related posts if there isn't a way to do it automatically.

You also don't have to make perfect content every time. My first tutorial was on making a marionette puppet, just from an experiment that I realised could be turned into a blog post. It's popular not so much for its quality, but for the uniqueness of content. And it doesn't have to be about tutorials either. Good storytelling is another one. I read a medical student's blog about his training. I keep reading not so much because I'm interested in the subject of medicine, but because he writes about his days and experiences in a way that is very engaging. This is what I meant about 'storyline'. Although he doesn't intend it, the experiences of his day-to-day learning at medical school is a story, with characters, antagonists and protagonists.

Perhaps part of the reason you're reluctant to write is that you can't find something inspiring enough to write about. I know if I come up with an idea, but keep putting it off, it's not so much about time/effort, but about my level of interest in the idea itself. Forget about what you *think* should be on your website, and write about something you're passionate about. Pictures or not, grammatically perfect or not, if you're passionate about it people will read.

Kind of relatedly - a friend of mine suggested I offer a service to puppeteers to help keep their site up to date. Something where I get given a topic or blog post to write up, and I help organise and upload images, content etc. I haven't really taken it seriously as yet, but if you need some help, let me know. As you can see, there's no end to the amount of words I could write in a single day...

I vote for quality over quantity myself. I assume you want to do this for more then just the short term. With PandS I've never really looked at getting numbers. I just set out to have a site where folks could come and join in on discussing puppets. I mean yes sometimes when I post or reply to something I often will repeat a key word or add it if I don't think the prior post have it so that perhaps the search engines will pick up on it but I don't agonize over it. In fact I would almost say it has become second nature for me to add puppet words into the thread. See I just did it.

So true. Just by using the word 'puppet' you'll pick up 90% of people searching for info on the topic.

Had another thought: one good way to learn about popular topics is to visit any 'ask and get answers' websites. Yahoo Answers is one, but there are heaps out there (Wiki Answers might be another one, but not sure of the name)

Having been on YA for a while, I know regular questions. Common ones are things like: how to buy replicas (not just of Henson stuff, mostly puppets seen on TV in general though); how to make replicas (as above), how to make various simple puppets, etc. At this time of the year there are the obligatory 'how to make a costume of a puppet' questions. And so on. It's a good indicator of popular subjects, as well as how little is known not just by the question-askers, but by the generally-misguided answer-givers. You do have to be patient though, because searching for 'puppets' on any of these sites tends to draw up a lot of political/conspiracy questions too.