Tag: blogging

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Writing and Publishing

If We Don’t Promote Our Blog, it Doesn’t Matter

When I started blogging in 2008 my readers came from two sources: friends who knew about my blog (that is, I told them about it) and people who discovered it online. I had more readers who I didn’t know than people I did. The power of blogging became apparent when, after two weeks of blogging, someone in Africa commented on one of my posts.

While that still happens today, it’s far less common; there are so many blogs out there that few people will accidentllly stumble upon our particular blog.

Assuming we want people to read what we write, we need to promote it. Here are some ideas:

  • Let our social media friends, followers, and circles know about our posts. The greater our reach on the various platforms and our degree of activity, the more people we will drive to our blog and posts.
  • Include a link to our blog in our email signatures.
  • Put our blog on our business cards and promotional materials.
  • If our blog is part of our website, make the posts easy to find.
  • If our blog is separate from our website, link from one to the other and add supporting info on the blog, such as an about section, a bio, contact info, photos, and other interesting content.
  • Go old school and actually tell people about our blog.
  • Start an email list and promote our posts to our list.
  • Guest blog on other like-minded sites, and some of their readers will become our readers.
  • Follow best SEO (search engine optimization) practices.

When we get people to our blog, we want them to keep coming back. Here are some tips to do that:

  • Let them subscribe via email and be notified of each new post.
  • Provide a link to an RSS feed so they can easily access posts from their blog reader.
  • Post according to a schedule. That way they can form a habit of reading our posts on a regular basis. (I post here every Saturday morning.)
  • Ask for comments and interact with those who comment. While some comments don’t warrant a response, most do.
  • Make it easy for people to comment; don’t require them to log in, sign-up, or be approved. If you must moderate comments (which I do not advise), approve them quickly.
  • Post great content!

When we take these steps more people will read our posts—and isn’t that what we want?

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

Blogs and Links: The Art of Helping Readers and Improving SEO

Great writing is essential to successful blogging. Using links when we blog helps us better serve our readers and aids in search engine optimization (SEO), which lets more readers find our work.

This blogging tip has three considerations:

Link to past relevant posts: Within a post, link key words or key phrases back to other relevant posts or tags, (as I did with “blogging tip”). This makes it easy for readers to read more about the subject, discover background, or explore related posts.

A variation of this is to include “related posts” at the end of each post. As a bonus, once setup, this happens automatically, so it requires no extra work or thought. The results are usually quite good, provided we have a sufficient number of posts in our blog.

Link past posts to the current one: This SEO strategy increases the SEO standing of a new post because existing pages link to it. As a bonus, when someone discovers those older posts, they will see a link to the new one.

Include a link when commenting: Another SEO strategy is to go to other blogs of interest or that our audience might read. Make relevant comments on those posts.

For most blogs, the commenters’ name automatically links to their site (assuming they provided that information when they posted their comment). This link should be to our home page or main blog page.

Sometimes it’s acceptable to include a link to a specific post when we comment. We must do this with extreme care. Make sure the link is relevant and adds to the discussion. Shameless self-promotion will result in disaster.

When commenting, don’t leave a generic comment (such as “great post” or “I agree”) and never ever leave a nonsensical one. The comment should advance the discussion or share relevant information. There should be no doubt we read the post and considered our response. (I hope you will take a moment and comment on this post!)

I do a good job at the first and last suggestions, but usually forget the middle one.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Proof then Publish

Another blogging tip is to proof and then publish. That is, once written, review with care and post without delay. It’s that simple.

Some beginning bloggers are afraid to share what they write. They fear it’s not good enough or people will criticize their words. They talk themselves into waiting until it’s better. They search for a title with pizzazz or a conclusion with punch.

They worry about formatting, search engine optimization, and finding the right picture. And if the post is controversial, they dread the firestorm that could erupt—or that no one will react. Will anyone even read it? Given all that, the safest thing is to never post.

I once fell into that trap. Fortunately I escaped quickly. If no one reads our words, they mean nothing. We must publish.

The other extreme is to gush a flurry of words, and toss them to the world without a worry. Who cares about typos, word choices, fact checking, or excellence? Just spew forth our stream-of-consciousness and call it good. Disregard the craft of writing; seek quantity over quality.

I understand that mindset, too. In my early days as a blogger, circa 2008, I sought to write quickly and post even quicker. I hoped one scan of my draft would catch all errors.

My objective was a twenty-minute post. And though I sometimes hit my goal, the results fell short.

Typos overshadowed my prose; sloppy writing detracted from my ideas. I needed to turn off the timer and to take more time. Though perfect posting is an illusion, we need to be close; errors should be the exception and not the norm.

Successful blogging requires a rhythm: we sit down and write; we proof our words and then publish the results. No more, no less.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Make One Point Per Post

Another blogging tip is to make one, and only one, point per post. Trying to cover two or more points is a distraction that will turn off readers, cause confusion, or risk them missing key communication.

For some bloggers this is easy, while for others, sticking to one point is difficult; but remember, we respect our readers with concise, focused writing. Keeping our posts short will help us achieve the goal of one point per post.

To re-enforce our one point, we can certainly make sub-points, often in the form of a numbered or bulleted list. If the explanation of each sub-point balloons out of control, then perhaps each sub-point needs to be a separate post.

Usually, I know what my one point is before I begin writing. Other times, the point emerges as I type my explanation of the title. If a second point materializes, I just break the text into two posts.

Some bloggers have a free-form style; their writing is a stream-of-consciousness narrative. They have no idea where their writing will take them and neither do readers. I think this is sloppy, a sign of undisciplined writing. While some bloggers who do this have a following anyway, most avoid falling into this habit. We should do the same.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Does Your Blog Need Pictures?

My eighth blogging tip is to include a picture. Really? Then where are they? I’ve never included artwork on my first blog, Musings.

Four reasons why I didn’t include artwork in my posts:

  1. Requires Creativity: Frankly, I seldom have ideas of what picture to include. That’s a problem.
  2. Takes Time: It takes time to find a photo, time I can’t spare. If I had to include an image with each post, I’d have less time to write.
  3. Carries Legal Concerns: To post a photo, we need to have a legal right to use it or have permission to use it. We can’t just do an image search and grab the first thing we find. Some bloggers don’t know this and eventually find themselves in trouble for illegally using copyrighted work. Even sites with unrestricted photos carry so many caveats that I still worry about breaking the law.
  4. Requires Interest: The thought of finding a photo for each post overwhelms me, so much so that I’d probably stop blogging if I had to include one.

Four reasons why we should include artwork with our posts:

  1. Adds Visual Appeal: Having a photo on each post makes it more attractive. Our eyes are drawn to the picture; then we read the text.
  2. Aids in SEO: When posting an image, we can (and should) add information to it. People won’t see this but search engines will. This includes a title, description, and what’s called “alt text.” We can also include a caption (which is visible) and a link to another site or post. These behind-the-scenes elements help search engines find and like our post. This is search engine optimization (SEO).
  3. Scores Big on Social Media: Images are usually automatically included when we promote our post on social media. The picture increases views, especially on Facebook. More social media views, means more clicks, which means more readers.
  4. Increases Opens: For email subscribers, seeing an image in the email (assuming images aren’t blocked) increases the chances of them reading the post.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Three Tips for Reader Engagement

Blog Comments Provide Quick Feedback and Encourage Interaction

Another successful blogging tip is to engage readers. Interacting with our audience is the best and easiest way to connect with readers and build a following (that is, grow our platform). The best way to engage readers is by encouraging blog comments. Having comments can also increase the visibility of the post—and the blog.

A side benefit of engaging blog readers is quick feedback. When we write books it will be a year or two before anyone outside the publishing process reads it. When we write articles it takes several months before anyone sees our published work. But in both cases, even after waiting, feedback is limited. Did our work connect with our audience? Was our message received and understood? What do readers think? We are largely left wondering.

Not so with blogging. With blogging, feedback is fast—if we engage with our audience. This is easily done through blog comments. All blogs should allow comments and commenting should be easy.

Don’t make readers log-in, register, or jump through hoops to leave a comment. Many of them won’t bother. Since only a fraction of blog readers leave comments, make it easy for those that do.

Here are three tips to engage with our blog readers:

  1. Write a great post: Quality writing encourages readership. Be helpful; provide value. Cause the reader to think about the topic. Stimulate their imagination. Give them a reason to continue the conversation.
  2. Ask a question or give a prompt: It can be generic, as it “What do you think” or simply “Your turn.” Or be specific, tapping the post’s theme. That’s what I usually do. And I often ask two questions, giving different directions to consider. I also have a generic question and prompt as a heading to the comment section: “What do you think? Please leave a comment!”
  3. Respond to comments: Though we don’t need to—and shouldn’t—reply to every comment, often this is a great way to extend the topic, interact with commenters, and show appreciation.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Seven Tips For Effective Blogging

Here is the final installment in our series on using WordPress for blogging: a platform-building, book-selling tool.

For the first six posts, we covered the technical aspects of setting up and using a WordPress blog. In this post, I’ll share implementation tips.

  1. Maintain a Regular Schedule: We respect readers by providing them new content on a regular basis. Don’t blog every day for a week and then disappear for months. Set a schedule and then follow it. I recommend starting with one post a week.
  2. Have a Focused Theme: Pick a topic for your blog, and then stick to it. Make sure it’s not too broad, but ensure you have enough ideas to keep it going.
  3. Keep it Short: When it comes to blogging, less is more. Concise posts honor readers and acknowledge the short attention span of most people.
  4. Make it Scannable: Use bullet points, numbered lists, subheadings, and bold to make posts quick to scan and easy to absorb key points.
  5. Proof Before Posting: The best time to correct a mistake is before it’s published. Take whatever steps necessary to double-check your work. When you find an error afterward, fix it quickly.
  6. Publicize Your Post: Share posts on social media so other people can find it and follow good search engine optimization (SEO) practices so search engines can find it. too.
  7. Interact with Readers: Invite comments and respond appropriately. Build community.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Don’t Forget Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on Your Blog

Another blogging tip is to optimize posts for search engines. As we already covered, the post should be at least 200 words long for search engines to have enough content to analyze. Also, making a post scannable helps, too, especially when we use bold or add a headline tag to subheadings (an easy step I often forget); use H2.

The post title needs to be search-engine friendly, as well as interesting to readers. For example, using “Optimize Before Posting” as a title for this post may intrigue readers, but it wouldn’t help search engines. Conversely, one that search engines would love but not so much readers, might be: “WordPress Blogging Success: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Improves Discoverability”

Many people tell bloggers to research keywords and key phrases to scatter throughout a post. I don’t. I write the best post I can for people and hope search engines like it, too. Though I do try to include words and phrases I might use if I were doing a search on the topic.

Publicizing our posts (which we’ll discuss in two weeks) also helps SEO. Legitimate links from other sites to our posts improve SEO ranking. Also, link to other posts and from other posts.

We need a sitemap. All you really need to know about sitemaps is that search engines expect them and that a plugin can automatically make them. I use Google XML Sitemaps but there are others, too.

Lastly, we need an SEO plugin. There are several options, but I use All in One SEO Pack. This allows me to add three behind-the-scenes SEO elements:

  • Title tag, which can be different than the post title. Write a title tag that is descriptive to readers and keyword-rich for search engines. Use up to 60 characters.
  • Meta description is displayed in search engine results and some social media platforms. It should interest readers and abound with keywords and phrases. It can be up to 160 characters, and I try to use them all.
  • Meta keywords are reportedly not used by major search engines anymore. However, I still enter a few just to be safe, but I only spend a few seconds doing so.

Publishing a post without considering SEO is like writing a book and not telling anyone. We crave readers, and these SEO tips will help us find more.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Four Ways to Make Scannable Posts to Attract Readers

Readers are more likely to read short posts. Making posts scannable is another blogging tip to gain attention.

Here are four ways to make posts scannable:

Use Bullet Points

This is a technique I like, as both a writer and a reader. They add clarity without adding words.

Have Numbered Lists

A numbered list also makes posts scannable. Numbered lists and bullet points accomplish the same thing in a similar fashion, so how do we decide which one to use? If we state a number of items in our post or title, number the list, else use bullets. The exception is when we have more than five items, then number them, because too many bullet points cease to standout, whereas numbered lists keep points separate.

Add Subheadings

A similar technique is subheads. I seldom do this in posts, but often do in articles, which are longer. Bloggers who pen long posts often insert subheads to break text into bite-size tidbits. However, with short posts, there’s never a need for subheads.

Bold Important Words or Phrases

In normal writing, don’t use formatting embellishments to highlight words. That’s sloppy. (See my post on creative writing.) However, with the informal nature of blog posts, the judicious use of bold can benefit. In addition to making bullets, numbered lists, or subheads bold, we can place notable words or phrases in bold – if we’re careful. Some bloggers get carried away and use bold so much that ceases to help. As a guideline, never put more than 15% of a post in bold. (Here’s an example.)

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?

Another key to successful blogging is to write like Goldilocks: not too long, and not too short, but just right. But how long is that?

Although writers often grumble at my answer, I’ve never heard one complaint from a reader. Readers are who we need to please: posts should be 200 to 300 words long. That’s right, just a couple hundred words. Shorter is okay, but aim for at least 100. Longer is risky, but definitely keep it under 500. I get nervous if my posts pass 300 and edit ruthlessly when they approach 400. Having penned 1,500 posts, I’ve only exceeded 500 words once—because I was asked.

Here’s why we need 200 to 300-word posts:

Attention Span: Readers have short attention spans. They’re likely to become a distracted halfway through a lengthy post—and bail. Or they might never even start.

Time: When a reader has ten things to do and only enough time for five, they make choices. A shorter post has a better chance of being read.

Quality: It’s easy to write a long post; it’s harder to write a short one. Long posts often ramble; short posts make every word count. Rabbit trails get deleted; extraneous phrases have no place in the land where brevity is king.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engines need a couple of hundred words to form an opinion. Anything under 200 and there’s not enough to evaluate. Yes, some successful bloggers write short posts, but they don’t rely on SEO.

Consider This: USA Today found success with shorter articles because that’s what people wanted. By the way, this post is 294 words.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.