I was in London last week to interview top Singaporean blogger Wendy Cheng who was visiting the city for the first time with her fiance.

The trip was being recorded for the upcoming season of Project Alpha, a Malaysian reality show uncovering the lives of bloggers.

Wendy, who is more commonly known as XiaXue (http://xiaxue.blogspot.com), is arguably Singapore and one of Asia’s biggest web celebrities, so I grabbed the opportunity to sit her down to share some of her blogging strategies.

Here are her tips on creating and maintaining a good blog.

1. Look good

No, Wendy wasn’t talking about how a blogger physically looks (although, I’m sure it plays a part considering how she admits to “photoshopping” all her photos).

She listed a few design elements a blogger should look into, including using a big font size, putting up an engaging header and making sure that all the elements are uncluttered.

“I also think blogs which uses bright, happy colours, always attract more readers,” she said.

Talk about looking good...

2. Be real

Nobody’s perfect, Wendy says, so one shouldn’t try to portray that persona on one’s blog.

“Be real and not try to be perfect sounding all the time. Show your vulnerability.”

She says that some bloggers only choose to write positive things, but she believes that readers will be able to relate better with “real people”

3. Easy reading

Wendy obviously believes in making it easy for the reader to consume blog content.

She thinks that some blogs are too text heavy but says that there are ways to get away with that. Besides her earlier tip about using big fonts, Wendy says that paragraphs should be kept short.

“Each paragraph should have only a maximum of three sentences,” Wendy shares. “This is very important!”

Another way of getting away with having lots of text is to “post as many pictures as possible”.

A visit to Wendy’s site shows that all her posts include lots of pictures. It doesn’t matter if these are repetitive shots, as long as they complement the blog post.

4. Stop the music

Many blogs these days tend to include music which autoplays. While this is a nice feature, and allows a blogger to share with the readers the kind of music he or she likes, Wendy has one word to describe it: “irritating”.

“If people are listening to their own music, and if the music from the blogs clash, they will close off your blog first,” she explains.

5. Update regularly

People like consistency, so bloggers should update their blogs regularly, instead of at their whim and fancy. To Wendy, regular means “at least once a week”.

Of course, it pays to update more often especially if one does not have the kind of following Wendy has. She added though that there is no need for the weekly updates to be on specific days – mixing it about means that people will keep dropping by at your blog to check if it has been updated.