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Making your blog easy to use

tashword — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:19:03 +0000

Doing some research this week, I’ve been to a large number of blogs but one in particular stood out and inspired a post from me This blog has extremely long posts (even longer than those yellow-backed-sales letter-web pages!) which require a lot of scrolling – the home page is just one post! There is nothing else – no about us page, no list of previous posts or categories, not contact details.

I found it very frustrating (as I wanted to find some specific answers like what the blog was about without reading multiple essays!) It was also very strange to not see any of the common elements we’re used to for navigating a blog.

So it raises the question – what do you expect to find in the structure of a blog?

Photos in blog posts

tashword — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:33:43 +0000

Do you like seeing photos in blog posts? Do the blogs you read most often include photos all the time, some of the time or never?

I was just reading some blogging secrets (shhh don’t tell anyone!) from Chris Brogan and he suggests using a picture in every blog post. His argument is (and a sound argument it is) that it catches people’s eye so can draw them into your blog.

Some people use pictures for inspiration for blog posts and some people blog about topics that really need images (I’m thinking in particular of someone like Lauren Perkins who often blogs about artwork she is working on).

I occasionally add an image to brighten up my blog and make it look more interesting, but don’t do it all the time because it may slow down the site itself, I write about writing so am not sure pictures suit my brand, and it isn’t always easy to find a relevant picture when you write about capital letters or pairs of misused words!

But I am curious – how effective do you think images are in blogs? Would you like to see images added to more or all of my blog posts?

Where blogging can lead you…

tashword — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:12:25 +0000

When writing a blog, you know that anyone could be reading it – in fact, you hope someone important (important to you and your business) will come across it and bring you some tangible results. But it is easy to forget how public our blogs are and how what you write can count.

Kylie of Tilda Virtual got some great feedback from her blogin February – she gave a genuine review of QuickBooks and they surprised her by reading the post and calling her to thank her.

That’s not to say anyone should write posts to attract attention instead of giving good information and/or opinions (as that can backfire as it is less interesting to read.) It does mean that each post should be relevant, accurate and written honestly – this builds your credibility and is more appealing to read, plus it may just bring in some unexpected results like Kylie’s.

Promoting a blog

tashword — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:29:02 +0000

Most people who start a blog would like to have some people read it And many would like more people to read their blog – whether it is to promote their business, share their passion or express their opinions and experiences, they want someone to read what they have written.

So how can you promote your blog, getting more readers?

I have found a few blog posts recently that cover parts of this topic so I thought I would share them before I gave any tips of my own…

How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Through Word of Mouth Marketing

Powering Up Your Blog With These 26 Power Lists/Rankings (the list is handy, but the site isn’t impressive with many faulty images, etc)

101 Internet Traffic Generation Strategies – Part 1 Not all the tips will be relevant to your blog, but you may get some ideas.

How Top Submit Your Website To The Leading Russian Search Engines – Yandex And Ramble - only for a specialised set of blogs!

6 Steps to Building Diversity In Traffic - remember the old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”? It applies just as much to customer and traffic sources.

Big Bang explains a new way to get links to your blog from many other blogs and it’s actually quite similar to the Million blog list

Are there some other blog promotion ideas you have used successfully?