Top Ten Things I Have Learned About Blogging
Here are the top ten things I have learned about blogging recently for those beginners out there. I have learned many lessons over the past few weeks.
1. Make the topic of your blog something you are passionate about. Unless you are passionate about the subject of your blog you can forget it. You will be burnt out before you can say blog. You will most likely run out of things to say after 2 or 3 days. Also people aren’t going to revisit a blog unless you enjoy what you are writing about. Readers can sense that and will likely no stick around.
2. A simple plugin can make all the difference in the world. Using a simple plugin like all in one seo pack is a necessity if you want a piece of that precious se traffic. It only takes a minute or so to install and has many features like putting your site name after the description in the title tag of your header.php file. This lets the se’s see your keywords first before the name of your site, unless of course the name of your site is your keyword.
3. Make a good first impression. Image isn’t everything but it is a lot when thousands of sites are competing for your potential visitors. Make your mission statement stand out letting people know instantly what your site is all about. Give them a reason to stay and put your best content at the top of your page so people can see what you got. Also keep it clean and simple. No one is going to want to stay if they can’t find useful content.
4. Build a sitemap for your site so google and other se’s know when you update. You can install a very simple plugin for wordpress called google-sitemap-generator. Very easy to install and it builds your sitemap for you. Update your sitemap every time you make a post to let everyone know you updated your site with fresh content.
5. Start a contest to create a buzz around your blog and bring traffic at the same time. This is a great way to gain some new traffic. Advertise your contest on forum, classified, and anywhere you can telling people you are going to give away a product to the person who makes the 1000th comment on your blog or to whoever does the best review of your blog.
6. Make a unique video advertising your blog and submit it to youtube and other video sites. If you make an interesting video people will want to see more and where it came from.
7. Post informative comments on other blog posts and try to be one of the first people to comment. Usually the blogger won’t read past the first 15 or 20 comments. If the post is about a problem someone is having try to give them a solution. If your comment impresses people they will want to see who you are and what your site is about.
8. Write, write and write more content. Just make sure it is original content and not the same thing 20 other blogs are writing about. Of course you can rewrite important news on your subject but be sure to write something original every day or two. Content is king when it comes to blogs and search engines love it.
9. Talk to other bloggers and try to become friends with the bigger blogs. One link back to you from a big blog can send mucho traffic. Try to become friends through email and build a strong relationship. This can pay dividends in the end. It takes a while but it is worth it.
10. Use adsense on your blogs. If you think adsense is dead you are sadly mistaken my friend and I have seen that a lot. Check this out if you don’t believe me. Over $400,000 in 4 years from adsense. It is definitely a top money maker for blogs along with Chiquita Malls.