- Unless you are writing your blog strictly as a journal, stay away from the truly mundane. If it is a cute story about something your child did, some dumbass move your husband pulled, a funny account of a conversation with friends, it’ s a good read. If it’s a description consisting of nothing more than how you had chicken salad for lunch, don’t bother. As a rule of thumb, if you would call and tell a friend about it, it’s worth blogging about.
- Use spellcheck. Use spellcheck. Did I mention use spellcheck?
- Write like you speak. If you don’t normally use 5 dollar words in your speaking voice, don’t try to use them in your writing, as you won’t sound authentic. Don’t be afraid of the grammar police, sometimes a sentence needs to start with an ‘and’ or ‘but’ to make an impact.
- If you use blogger, do not allow it to automatically log you in when you comment on someone’s blog. Why????? you ask? Because when a person clicks on that link, it goes to your profile, not your blog. Filling in the information manually will create a direct link to your blog, giving you more of an opportunity for traffic and more links with Technorati.
- Get your Alexa redirect link, and use it. For some reason someone out there decided that Alexa ranking is important. Your Alexa ranking will often be used by companies to decide how important you are in spending their advertising dollars with you.(Think paid review sites.) A simple and easy way to start boosting your Alexa ranking is to start using your redirect link. It will look just like this- http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.yoursitehere.com Fill in your site address and use that link instead of your normal URL in things like comments, message board preferences, blogrolls, etc. You’ll notice a boost in your ranking within a week or so, depending on your normal traffic.
- Submit your sites to Reddit and Stumbleupon religiously. Stumbleupon in particular can be a HUGE source of traffic, depending on the catagory of the post and time of day submitted.
These are just a few things I’ve picked up lately, there may be a part 2 down the road! Feel free to add your own helpful tips!
I had no idea about Alexa redirect links. I’ll have to try using them.
Thanks for the tips!
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The following words do not compute: Alexa, Stumbleupon, Reddit, redirect, Technorati. I feel tired at the idea that I should know about these things. I think I will take a nap rather than looking into any of them.
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Good to know. 🙂
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Shit..I didn’t even know half this shit.
What would I do with out ya, darling!
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I’ve noticed your Alexa redirect link and thought it was just some sort of tracking device fancy Sara used. Very good to know.
And thank you for the StumbleUpon mention. You Stumbled one of my posts the other day and I had something like 200 hits from that one Stumble alone. Wow. I was thinking that it looked bad if you Stumbled your own posts, though, is that not right?
By the way, the perfectionist in me loves these kinds of tips posts and the lazy procrastinator in me adores them. Thanks, Sara!
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Thanks for the tip about blogger…..but it’s just so easy to log in and be done with it. My blog is so very mundane. I’m sorry!
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I will try the alexa thing and see what we see… thanks for the tip!
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I think joining the odd blogroll & listing it on your sidebar is a good way to get more traffic. Many bloggers will click through a blogroll to find something to read when bored I know I do.
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I’m going to have study up on this stuff…esp. the blogger and alexa thing.
My brain hurts just a little now, though.
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Such great tips – thanks Sara! I especially love the Blogger tip and am hoping people follow it. Even though I’m on WordPress, I read a lot of Blogger blogs and get irritated when I click on someone’s interesting comment only to get directed their profile instead of their blog. And don’t even get me started on spell check…
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spel chek? Wot r u talkeen abowt?
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my blogging learning curve list just got longer! But thank you!
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Great tips, thanks for sharing those!
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These are great tips!!!! thanks for posting!
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Thanks for the tips – these are a great help! I never thought about not just automatically logging in… And I had the same question as Megan about sites like reddit, stumble, etc. – how do you “submit your site”?
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Interesting tips. Guess I’m not a real blogger. Not that I ever anticipated being one. I don’t know, maybe I’ll try harder in the future.
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Thanks for the tips. I submitted Hubby’s website to Reddit and Stumbleupon last night and he got over 100 hits from Reddit in a few hours! Nothing from Stumbleupon though, I wonder if I’m doing that one right?
Here’s a link I found to some hints for Reddit use.
http://www.southasiabiz.com/2006/07/25_tips_for_getting_best_succe.html
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When you need it most, a buddha appears! Thank you for the blogging wisdom.
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Great tips! I just used the Alexa redirect here. Hope I did it right.
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You are a blogger’s saint. Thank you for this advice. I have same question about submitting my own site to the reddit etc. And you mean specific post links, yes? Or just home page?
You also really made me think about what/how I blog. I do put recipes in my blog, because I love food — this also brings some unusual traffic to my site. I’m a relatively new blogger and I’ve been trying to post every day, so mundane has certainly snuck in. Earlier posts in my archive are more interesting and short story like. It’s something I was just thinking about this morning… am I boring???
Sometimes I am, yes.
Will try harder. Thanks for the inspiration.
Wondering what you think of Skirt — seems like I should submit my own posts first, so readers who click can just vote rather than having to go through all those windows…?
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Thanks girl, and keep ’em coming. You’re a font of knowledge! I second (or is that third) StumbleUpon. My Site Meter was working overtime one day, and that was the cause. Now I just have to figure out how SU works. Maybe you could address that in Part II or in a separate post ?:grin:
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I don’t quite understand how one sets up an alexa redirect. Call me htmp, css and whatever else people use to program idgit. You have nice helpful. Thanks for sharing. 😀
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This is a great set of tips for a novice blogger. Bless you! I love the tip about not logging automatically into Blogger. Another tip is to allow people to bookmark your site easily. We use a WordPress plugin called Subscribe Me that allows people to bookmark at various sites and homepages.
Cheers. BTW I was LOL about the gapmom’s post.
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When I don’t let Google log me in on comments, but check the “other” option and manually enter my name and URL, I get no link whatsoever, not even the one to my profile. Any suggestions?
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Great Tips! Great information! Thanks!
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Ack. I am so woefully inept at this stuff.
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Ohhh, awesome post. And I love LOVE that you can share these things. I’ve learned only a few on my own, the hard way, but honestly I’m still at a loss for a lot of it, like Alexa and not being logged in to Blogger. Oh, and I SUCK royally at social networks.
But it’s so nice to be invited (did I say thank you? THANK YOU) muwha!
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Thank you so much for this! I just “stumbled upon” this, but not using the Stumbleupon you’re talking about. I’m so new at this, so any help I can find is GREAT!! I didn’t realize how much there actually is to know about blogging. I’m so glad that there are many old timer bloggers willing to share their knowledge! Thank you! 😀
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