Mind the Beginner

…Day in day out he stared at the statistics of his little blog, he had a dream, get his blog big enough to claim his place among the great blogs out there. Perhaps even cast a shadow over them and become the best of his niche. One day he would get there, he was convinced. They would see, just wait…

For many of us this is a dream we have about blogging. Making it big time and have a blog that will one day get into the illusive technorati top-50 blog list. Considering how many blogs there are out there this is not as easy as it sounds when we first have this dream. As soon as we start to work on realizing this dream we see just how hard it will be to get there. Struggling to get the first viewers, struggling to get people to subscribe to our RSS feed, struggling to get noticed.

A few weeks ago problogger started his 31 days to building a better blog program. The goals would be to make your blog better. With over 9000 participants he recognized a need and who better to lead all these bloggers to a better blog than the writer of the best read blog on the subject. I am one of the 9000 taking part in the program and I have another challenge. Get this blog bigger, and do it in the fast lane.

To get there we need a solid plan, stepping stones to get noticed. How to get more traffic, write quality (and quantity without loosing quality), how to get comments and get people to subscribe to your RSS feed. All these are questions we want answers to don’t we? Well, I can answer al the questions but I’ve asked myself how I would do it and the following points make up my plan:

•  Take part in the 31 days to building a better blog program and follow every piece of advice that is offered. Although this advice is temporary, it’s a great help. If I’m correct the entire 31DBBB will be offered on problogger’s site by the beginning of May.
• Use twitter to get the word out there on your blog and on new posts. Don’t overdo it though as this will become less effective over time because you saturated the market.
• Comment on other blogs in your niche, add value to their posts, be a help and do make sure you give a linkback using the “your website” box. Be honest in your comments, it’s not just about marketing your own blog on other blogs, it’s adding value.
• Participate in the comments on your own blog, let your readers know you appreciate their input and use the feedback you get. Making this obvious will make that reader appreciate you more and tell others about it.
• Set up an RSS feed. I use feedburner for this. This is very important as we all know.
• Write consistently, in the first weeks of your blog, it’s about a steady stream of posts. New readers will want to see that you regularly post on your blog. Only your trusted followers will forgive you if you don’t post for a week. Try one post a day, ever day. Try and use the right time to get your posts out. From other bloggers I’ve been told that the best time is around 1pm GMT. The US will be waking up and read your post during breakfast or in the early hours of work before really starting work. The UK will come back from lunch and take a quick peek. Australia will be done working and see your post in the evening.
• Work on the visuals. New readers will judge the looks of your site in about 0.2 seconds. If it doesn’t look right you’ve lost a reader. (Yes you had a pageview, but those don’t count, you want readers, not viewers.) Make sure your blog visually supports what you are writing. Add pictures to your posts that support the post. As a last note, most people like a light background.
• Make sure people know what your blog is about within a few seconds of looking at your front page. Some people will head off to the “about” page but if your front page isn’t clear you’ve already lost readers. Get a good one-liner up there that captures viewers.
• Don’t write outside of your niche to much. Your blog should express in it’s looks and in it’s writing what it’s about. If your writing is all over the place you won’t build a good base.
• Use all possible channels to get the word out on your blog: Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Blogcarnival, Forums you visit, even if they are not in your blog’s niche (make sure you have a link to your blog in your signature), I’ve probably forgotten a few, please let me know in the comments
• In all these channels, use the same name and avatar. You and your blog are a brand.
• Don’t be afraid to ask other bloggers to help you. Think guestpostings and linkbacks. Do offer something in return though! You could also reverse this and do other bloggers favours, you always get something back.
• Analyze your favorite blogs, what makes them tick for you? Why do you like to read them. Try to incorporate that into your blog. 
• Read anything “on blogging” you can get your hands on. 
• Get out there, leave your PC at times and interact with people and public places. This will teach you what is going on, what colors are used and how things are marketed. Marketing is something for professionals and their efforts are all around us. Watch and learn. Take notes, grab a cup of coffee and think about how you can apply what you’ve seen to your blog.
• Last of all: Write quality, nothing is more important than this.

Over the next months there will inevitably be more and more ideas to implement in the grand plan but this is how that plan stands so far. It’s not all implemented yet, so don’t be surprised if something changes on this blog. If there is anything you missed in this post that is part of your plan to build a better blog please do tell me about it in the comments. You will not only help me but also all the other readers that come here after you. Thanks everyone for all the ideas you’ve already supplied me with, I’m looking forward to hearing more. 

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Tags: blogging, challenge, learning

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 12:59 pm and is filed under On blogging, Skills and habits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.