March 2, 2012 marks the birth of Desert Villa. Along
the evolution of the blog, I discovered a few tips that I’ll share with fellow and prospective bloggers –
Promote
what you absolutely love!
Create
an About page – Think of the about
page as a book jacket. The purpose of the blog is solidified in a few tidy sentences. Note that the about page is different than an about me page.
Establish
a consistent writing schedule.
Type a post as a word document first. Not everyone has access to a personal
editor to catch pesky grammatical errors.
Seek
permission from people before you write about them. Or...let people know when you mention them on your blog.
Give
credit where credit is due. If necessary, ask for permission to use an image.
Hyper-link referenced sites (Thank you, S.S.).
Post
an interesting video clip and credit the source from which it came. Write a
brief commentary about the clip.
Moderate comments.
Moderate comments.
Ask
for feedback. Ask questions. A blog should be interactive!
A multitude of other blogging tips exist. Feel free
to share!
Thanks for the advice. I especially like the idea to promote what you love.
ReplyDeleteWow...what a powerful and inspiring quote from Helen Keller, "One person, with encouragment, can make an impack". I love it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for checking out Desert Villa!
ReplyDeleteThis is good advice!
ReplyDeleteHaving the "about" page is definitely helpful, whether it's about the writer or about the blog or... well... about anything. I get frustrated when I visit a blog and there isn't something like "about" for me to click on! But maybe that's just me. :)
Also, thanks for mentioning about citing where things come from. I'm a big intellectual property advocate, and don't like to see photos that haven't been credited. Some bloggers (myself included) also add their own copyright page to emphasize that the blog content belongs to someone. It's amazing how few people think that blog content or just content generally on the Internet falls under the same rules as a work published in print.
In addition to this, my advice would be to be patient. As you work on promoting a blog, don't get discouraged when it seems like days go by without significant readership. It can get frustrating! I felt like nobody other than my parents read my blog for many, many months. Then, once I had a significant readership, I was discouraged that people wouldn't comment. Or wouldn't write guest posts in a timely fashion. Or "like" my blog on Facebook. Or whatever! There was always something to be annoyed about! And that's just a silly way to approach any endeavor.
Thanks again for letting me know about your blog!
-Elizabeth