I have had an exciting time this week networking, making friends with new bloggers from all around – sharing blogging ideas and tools.
With yourblogtools.com up and running, I decided it was time to shift focus and concentrate on relationship building – and it has been fun.
As a result of this move, I noticed three changes on this blog:
In general, blogs live and breath on constant activity, once this element is removed – it’s pretty much game over.
Blogs are very dynamic by nature and are constantly evolving – a reason why search engines love them a LOT!
Let’s look at some typical blog activities;
As a result, your blog instantly becomes a breeding ground for discussions and interactions. However, the moment you cut-off food supply is the moment you hit the destruct button – A bit like flicking on the lights at a party – Party Over!
Let’s identify some key buttons:
• Irregular post frequency
• Lack of quality content (Blog that no longer offer value to readers)
• No call to action (Not instigating a conversation or readers opinion)
I am sure there are many more blog-destruct buttons – some bigger than others.
Try to avoid them.
Do you know any others? Share your thoughts to benefit others.
We all know how important mailing lists are, but for the benefit of new bloggers it is very essential to start building mailing lists from day one.
Picture this, somehow, someway, a first time visitor has landed on your page in order to gain some information – all well and good,
but there is no guarantee of that visitor returning.
So, the action plan here is to encourage them to subscribe to your future posts and updates.
As a result, you are building up a bank of visitors that are guaranteed to know whenever there are new updates on your blog. Continue reading
There are a number of great bloggers out there, on a daily basis pumping out great advice and recommendations – from blogging practices to marketing techniques.
Which has led me to think, how much of this advice are we actually applying to our own blogs?
At times, a blogger can be bombarded with a wealth of useful information.
In fact, I personally have them springing up from all angles – Google Reader, TweetDeck, Email Notifications and so on.
This has led me to list a few advice I have picked up and implemented.
Blog: Mike’s Life!
Post Title: Eight ways to get more page views
Author: Mike CJ
In Mike’s post “Eight ways to get more page views”,
A segment of his posts highlights the effectiveness of having Mini-bio on a sidebar.
Giving visitors a quick snap-shot of who you are and a link to your about page.
Blog: Lisa Morosky
Post Title: How to Write Scannable Blog Posts
Author: Lisa Morosky
Lisa’s post points out the importance of making your content ‘scannable’ for readers.
In this post, she encourages
Blog: CopyBlogger
Post Title: How to Stand Out in a Crowded Niche
Author: Jonathan Morrow
Now, this is a very encouraging post, especially for new bloggers.
There are simply too much information out there.
At times, it seems everyone is talking about the same topic, but there are ways you can be creative about your own message.
A crowded niche is not necessary a bad thing – there’s sometimes good reason for that.
Blog: GideonShalwick.com
Post Title: 37 “Must Have” Tools For An Online Video Marketer
Author: Gideon Shalwick
I love this post, and how Gideon carefully explains 37 must have tools.
I also like the screen-casting tool being used here SCREENR. I shall be using this tool in the near future.
Have you been encouraged by a blog post recently?
Imagine you’ve just checked-in to a hotel, reception have handed you your room key, You open the door, only to find your room in a complete state – bed unmade, towels on the floor e.t.c.
I guarantee you would turn back and find somewhere else.
The same principle applies to a blog. When visitors stop by and find your blog a complete eye sore or of no value, they would simply turn back and go elsewhere.
Do you have a good theme installed?
How many side bar widgets do you have installed? – Must you really have all that?
Do you really need all those social bookmarking icons? Are your text font / size readable by all?
All these factors constitute to the overall appearance of a blog.
Let’s go back to our hotel analogy – although a blog/hotel may have something of value to offer, if first impressions are negative, chances are, the visitor will not return.
Remember first impressions counts, so take time to plan your blog’s structure.
Once that first impression bridge has been crossed, content is your No.1 product of value.
Either you have a news or an entertainment blog visitors are reading your stuff because you have something of value to offer.
Bare in mind, in most cases, visitors on your blog are there simply for their own interests.
What are your thoughts on this?
Have you recently done a stop-by test?
What would you suggest?
Imagine starting a new blog with no plan of making friends – It’s a bit like drafting a post but never hitting the publish button.
Visitors and potential friends don’t just magically appear, we have to actively find them.
Let’s check out some tools that would brag about your blog as well as interact with others.
To continue with our series on “Essentials tools for a new blog“, Engaging your blog with community is a good thing.
Your blog is always going to be in a world of its own without communication channels or means of reaching out.
There are several ways to create these channels,
however, in this post I shall focus on four social media ones. Some of which have been applied to this very blog.
Let’s face it, as of the time of me writing this post Twitter is the biggest thing out there. A social networking service that enables you to send and read messages – also known as tweets.
If don’t already have an account – get involved here
And of course there are several third party Twitter applications that would give you a nice tweeting experience.
You can also decide to incorporate your Twitter conversation on your blog in a form of a widget. On this blog I am using Twitter for WordPress
Benefits:
With Twitter Feed, you can auto-schedule your blog post to distribute to Twitter.
Meaning your followers on Twitter would instantly know when you have a new post.
Benefits:
The TweetMeme retweet button is designed to encourage visitors to tweet your blog post.
This would actually be my first time using this widget.
I am keen to see the effectiveness of it.
Benefits:
It essentially does what it says.
The Share This or Share/Save button encourages visitors to add your posts to social bookmarking sites.
There are tonnes of share this application around. The Share button used here is by Add to Any.
Which tools do you use?