blogging
Information, tips and guidelines for making your blog effective and worth reading
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.
I just came across a blog directory site I hadn’t heard of before which includes a business section. I am going to make some time next week to sit and look at various blogs in that directory – I might find some great blogs or at least some inspiration for more posts and articles of my own!
Have you listed your blog in any directories to increase your exposure? Has it generated a lot of responses for you?
Some time ago, I wrote about avoiding a sales pitch as your blog ending. I was recently reminded of this when reading a post on a new blog.
The post was about others not having enough skill to offer professional services, which is a fair point (and one of my pet hates, too!) However, a middle section of the post was “Others wrongly offer a and b. Our business offers x and y”., and expanded on what they offer.
Instead of explaining their point of view so I could learn something, they told me what they can do – I still don’t know why they think their way is better than anyone else’s way. Consequently, I gained no knowledge and they gained no credibility.
Blogging is not just a form of cheap advertising – it is about building a community where people share information, ideas and opinions. The more you give through your blog, the more likely that people will start trusting you and valuing your expertise. That is how blogs bring you customers – not by boring them with lists of your services.
Here’s to interesting blogs to read!
It’s amazing how fast 365 days can fly by.
It has been an entire year sice I started blogging and I can hardly remember running my business without it!
It feels strange to go back and read my first ever blog on here.
As my first blog post says “It is important to spend time doing what we love and are good at, rather than filling our hours with ‘stuff’ that may be urgent and even important, but not fulfilling or the most important.” And after how fast a year has gone by it still stands that it’s very important to do what you love, time goes past too quickly to ignore the things you enjoy.
Looking forward to another year of blogging!
If you leave a comment in a blog, you presumably want to contribute and have your comment included on the blog site. So make sure this is going to happen by getting it right.
Recently, I have received a few comments and pings that aren’t spam but have faulty links so I have not approved the comments.
In one example, the same person gave two comments and had a URL starting with http://http://www so the link obviously didn’t work. The lesson here is to check whether you need to add http:// or not when completing a form – don’t assume every blog/website owner will take the time to fix this error.
Another example if a link that takes a very long time to open and then goes to a page that doesn’t display well or completely. The credibility of the site, and therefore the comment, is reduced. In my case, it meant I couldn’t see how they had linked to me so I wasn’t comfortable accepting the link in my comments.
The result? Your comment is not approved or is only approved once the link is deleted.
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.
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