Blogging Tips for the Book Blogger
Ahh . . . blogging tips for the book blogger. This is a divergent from my normal bookish talk on this blog. But this is great for those of us with book blogs and those of us who are thinking of maybe having a book blog (you know I’m talking to you Laura!)
Kim at Bold Blue Adventure has created a meme about blogging tips. I’m normally not a meme-ish person but I thought this was a great idea. Now, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here. There are literally hundreds of websites out there that are solely dedicated to blogging tips. I’m simply going to point you in the right direction, relay my experiences of what I’ve learned in my seven months of blogging, and talk specifically about what I do in regards to this book blog.
And I KNOW that this is WAY more than she asked for but I just can’t help myself.
Seven months ago, I knew NOTHING about blogging! I had never even heard words like plugin’s, themes, widgets, etc. I was 100% completely lost. I had two things in my favor. One, an incredible sister who didn’t mind that I called her five times a day. And two, I’m a pretty fast learner.
During my first three months, I was lucky to get 15 visitors a day. And I was so excited when somebody from Argentina visited my blog that I ran down the stairs to tell my husband. I love seeing who has visited from the far corners of the globe and have now reached all 52 states and 102 different countries. I’ve been fortunate enough to see my statistics steadily increase, particularly the last month and have exceeded any expectations that I had. Every month is always better than the last.
So why do I say all this? Simply, I think I must be doing something right to see my numbers steadily rising rather than plateauing. But I am NO expert! I hope to figure out this blogging thing even better and look forward to all the other tips that everybody has.
This will just be a modge podge of things I’ve been doing and resources that may help you. Everybody is different, so what may work for me, may not for you.
On to actual blogging tips . . .
Why am I blogging? Who is my audience? I think a question that we all need to ask ourself is: Why am I blogging? Who am I blogging for? Am I writing just for myself? Or am I writing for a particular audience? Is that audience just other book bloggers, or just my friends and family, or is it for a larger internet audience?I first started blogging to bring some exposure to a home-based business (more about that another time) but I’ve found that has changed.
For me, I’m now blogging for several reasons. One, I love to read. I’m a stay at home mom who needs a creative outlet, some interaction, and this blog has done just that. When I first started blogging, I didn’t know that this wonderful book blogging community existed. I’ve been very fortunate to be welcomed with open arms. So while I am blogging for myself, I’m also blogging as a part of this community. But I am very aware that 75% of my visitors that are not book bloggers. They are simply seeking information that I hope I can provide for them. When I write, I very much try to not address just the book blogging community. Why? I want everybody to feel welcome. As a result, I feel as though my writing reflects this. Make sense?And because I’m blogging about books, I try to keep everything on topic. Sure, I share stuff about my personal life, but I like to throw in some relevant books at the same time.
- How Much Time Do I Have? So this is one that I need to get under control. I spend way to much time blogging. I hope to nail down some type of schedule because my husband says he misses me. And frankly, I miss him too.
- Choosing a Blogging Platform. For me, I chose to purchase my own domain name and host my own WordPress blog. I couldn’t have done this without my sister. I only hope that we are all so lucky to either know how to do this stuff on our own or know somebody who doesn’t mind helping you out. With Wordpress I have the flexibility to do whatever I want, have a ton of plugin’s at my disposal, and have full control of my content. Not to self: back up my stuff!!If you don’t have a blog yet, but are thinking of starting one, shop around and see what features you like and don’t like about the various platforms.
- Branding Branding is important to me. I want everybody to know who Maw Books is. I use the same avatar and the same name everywhere I go. Social networks, commenting on other people’s blogs, forums, etc. I want to be easily recognizable and easily found.
- Google Alerts I love Google Alerts. If you’re not using them you should. Basically, Google Alerts does all the searching for you. Say I write a post on a particular book. I’m curious as to what else is being written about that book. Not just now, but in the future as well. Set up a Google Alert for a particular keyword, choose what to search (entire internet, blogs, images, etc.) choose how often you would like Google to notify you (as it happens, daily, weekly, monthly). Google will then send you an email with it’s search results. It’s a great way to find new bloggers talking about something that you have interest in and you’ll have something to contribute.
Plus, every time anybody uses the words Maw Books, I am immediately notified (even if they don’t link to me). It’s a great way to keep tabs on what others are saying. But I can also have a Google alert for links if I have my keyword like this: link:http://blog.mawbooks.com. If you do a Google or Yahoo search it will tell you all the pages linked up to you. Yahoo seems to have more pages indexed than Google.
Have a Feed! Have a feed for your blog. If I can’t subscribe to it I will NEVER come back. I just don’t have the time. Most people subscribe to blogs through Google Reader or Bloglines. I prefer Google Reader. But make sure that you also have the option to subscribe to your blog by email. Not all of your readers read enough blogs or have the know how to use a feedreader. For example, I subscribed my own mother-in-law and my parents by email. I’ve also noticed several of my neighbors signed up as well.
- Google Reader Trish at Hey Lady, Whatcha Readin? has already written a great article about Google Reader so I’m not going to even try to repeat anything she already said. I just wanted to mention how I use Google Reader. Because I maintain the Book Bloggers Book Review database (yes, I managed to slip that in there!) I put every book blog that I come across into Google Reader. I just checked and I’m now up to 515 subscriptions (yikes!).Thank goodness that you can manage those subscriptions through folders otherwise I’d be going crazy. What’s nice is that you can have a blog in more than one folder. I have a folder where I put anybody who has left me a comment. This helps me pay particular attention because these are extra special people. I have a folder for author’s blogs, a friends/family folder, blogging tips folder, and my newest folder addition is the Weekly Geeks reciprocal link exchange list so I could keep track of who said they were willing to exchange links (I have 45 blogs in that one, let me know if you want that list). All the rest just hang out folder-less, I scan through them quickly, see if there is anything interesting, reviews to add to the database, etc.Starring. Because I have so many blogs in my reader, I will always star something that I want to go back to and read in depth more, comment on, a book I want to add to the TBR, etc. I also star book reviews that need to go into the database, once added I unstar them.
I also do a lot of searching within Google Reader. Say I just finished a book and want to see what my fellow book bloggers are saying, I can search from just within Google Reader. That’s how I’ve been creating the database.
I also share what I’m reading as well. You’ll notice in my left hand sidebar, the widget that corresponds to Google Reader. Anything that I mark share will show up there, and you can click read more to see all my shared items. I honestly don’t know if anybody actually does click through to anything but I like it.
And another thing about Google Reader. As soon as I add anybody to the reader I immediately change the name and add in the first name of the blogger into the title. This helps me remember bloggers on a first name basis and who belongs to what blog. Which brings me back to branding. It’s sometimes hard for me to track of everybody on a first name basis alone. Branding yourself can only help.
Share a bit about yourself! I really try to focus on just books and reading on this blog. But I want my readers to get to know me as well. Make sure you bring some of yourself to the table while keeping it relevant to your context. This goes back to the question: why and what do you blog?
- No excuses! I hope to never be apologizing to my readers for a lack of a post. I honestly don’t think everybody is standing by their computers and wondering why Natasha hasn’t written a post in two days. But that’s just me.
- Titles Does your reader know what the topic of your post is from the title alone? Well, they should! Please don’t tell me, “This Post Has No Title” or “A Couple of Reviews.” When I log into my Google Reader I am looking at 200-300 new blog posts. If the title doesn’t tell me what the post is about I’m not likely going to click through to find out. Plus, my blog is syndicated through several networks (CafeMom, Facebook, BlogCatalog, BlogRush, etc.). Titles are the only thing that will tell somebody what your post is about.
- Keywords I have actually been shocked on the number of book reviews that I have read that do not mention even once the name of the book or the author (even in the title). I guess I’m suppose to figure it out from the book cover. When search engines crawl your blog they are looking for relevant keywords. Make sure the keywords that you use in your title are the keywords that you use again in your blog posting. Every time you say, “this book, this author, this story, etc.” replace those words with the title and author. What do you type into the Google search engine when you’re looking for something? Are those the keywords that you are also using?
- Navigation How easy is your blog to navigate? Are your book reviews easily found? How many clicks do I have to go through to find something? The less the better. Sometimes I find navigating a particular blog so frustrating that I’ll switch over to Google Reader and browse through there instead. Have a search box as well. Also, how cluttered is your blog? Does your blog need some dejunking? Keep it easy on the eyes, nice, clean and simple. And I hate music that automatically plays. And if you’re at work, well then you just gave away that you’re actually not working.
- Social Networks If you are looking for more ways to drive traffic to your blog consider the use of social networks, blog directories, and forums. Have a presence in the major social networks. I currently have profiles with YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and CafeMom. I’m not working them as much as I could (exception being CafeMom), but at some point in the future I hope too, particularly YouTube. You just have to ask yourself is your time worth it? Plus I haven’t even mentioned a million others.
- Blog Directories List your blog in free blog directory listings. Some examples are BlogCatalog, Fuel My Blog, and a myriad of others including directories for mommy bloggers, book bloggers, etc.
- Forums I consistently contribute to at least four forums on a regular basis (all book related) that allow me to have my blog listed in my signature line (all forums have different rules, so you’ll have to check). It’s a great way to contribute in book related discussions and give your blog some exposure. Again, you have to ask yourself is your time worth it? Is this something that you want to get involved in?
- Book Catalogs I’m having a brain freeze. I can’t think of the proper name for these. But let’s not forget the myriad of different book cataloging services you can use as well. Library Thing, Shelfari, Goodreads, etc. These all have a large deal of socialization as well. Pick one that works for you and go with it.
- Download the Web developer tool bar for Firefox. I use the web developer toolbar to check block sizes, CSS styles, and color. I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.
- Alexa Ranking Do you know what your Alexa ranking is? It’s a rough estimation of how much traffic your website receives compared to other websites. For example, Yahoo is #1, Google is #2, YouTube is #3, and I’m #394,887 which roughly means that I have the 394,887th most popular website. They update the ranking every month and I’ve been happy to see my ranking increase. When you download the Alexa Ranking toolbar you can see the ranking of each website that you visit. If you have a blogspot.com blog it will show as #9 as it cannot tell the difference between your blogger domain and another bloggers domain, rather it’s everybody’s combined ranking. This may be true of Typepad and Livejournal as well.I use the tool bar to to judge how popular a website or blog is. If it’s really popular I’ll be sure to drop some comments or cite an article. If they are getting great traffic, it won’t hurt to try to get some exposure there. A lot of people don’t put a lot of stock into the Alexa ranking, but I think it gives a rough estimation on how you are doing compared to other bloggers. I like it.
- Stat counters Why use a stat counter to advertise that you have only had 20-200 visitors on your blog? If your traffic is low, why are you telling me? This really irritates me.
- Technorati Use Technorati to keep track of who is linking to your blog. A must have in my opinion.
- Blogging Faster I keep several text files with the hyperlinks of my book reviews, hyperlinks of my posts and hyperlinks of my images. That way I don’t have to go find them every time I need them.
- Encouraging Comments
First, write great posts! If it’s not interesting, nobody will care to leave a comment.- Ask questions in your posts that lead naturally to a response.
- Develop great blogging relationships. Not a problem in the book blogging community, everyone is amazing.
- Leave meaningful comments on other blogs that contribute to the conversation. There is nothing worse than spamming a discussion with just leaving your link. Or only saying, I read this too, check out my review. Comment on my post and I’m more likely to then check out your review as well.
- Make leaving comments on your blog easy. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of the captcha. I sometimes have to try 5-6 times to figure out what the letters are before I finally get it to go through. Very frustrating although I understand why some bloggers use it. And are you restricting comments only to those on your blogging platform? Why? Why would you exclude those who don’t blog on the same platform as you? I have to admit that I had to create a blogger profile just so I could make comments on these blogs, although I don’t have a blogger blog. And you’re lucky that I took the time to do that. Most will just bypass commenting on your blog. Don’t discriminate.
- Reward your commentators. I have the Top Ten commentator widget in my sidebar. Nothing like a little friendly competition and satisfaction of seeing your name there to encourage comments. I used to have snapshots on this blog, which when hovered over a commentators name will give the RSS feed of their last three posts (which takes me back to why titles are so important, since that’s the only thing it shows). I just took it off after some discussion on a forum made me realize how much everybody hated this plugin. I am currently searching for a new plugin that does something similar.
- Have contests and giveaways. Everybody loves something for nothing and it doesn’t take much for us book bloggers to get excited!
- Respond to comments. I personally am disappointed when I see a blogger hasn’t responded to my comments. Sure, some may not lead to a response but it’s nice to know that the blogger has acknowledged what I have to say. I try to respond to all the comments here, but have found it increasingly time consuming, but feel that it’s worth it.
- Have a way for commentators to subscribe to comments. Ha, like I should be talking about this one because everybody tells me that mine doesn’t work. Even after I fixed it and tested it with my sister who receives all the follow up emails. I may have to find a new plugin as well.
- Follow a commentator back to their blog. Add them to your feedreader, make a contribution to their blog. I have to admit that I used to always leave comments with everybody who left me a comment on a very consistent basis. But I now have had more than 120+ bloggers leave me comments and I just can’t keep up. I now comment on those which I feel like I have something to contribute. In the perfect world, I would spend all day leaving comments but I do have two small children who would mysteriously get into major trouble.
- HTML Code/Technical Issues Whenever changing anything on your blog, make sure you have everything backed up! Save files into a text file so you can easily revert back to something. This is a HTML Quick list that I use often. A lot of people recommend changing your template often, as for me, I’m really scared to do that. I’m comfortable with what I’ve got, so why change it.
- Readability Keep your posts easy to read by breaking up your post into shorter paragraphs. I almost never read a post if it’s one continuous paragraph. I get lost and my attention spans. Use proper writing skills and skip all of that texting lingo. I seriously don’t even know what half of them mean. Capitalize and punctuate properly. Nothing annoys me more than no capitals or punctuation. Did they even make it out of high school? I’m the first to admit that my grammar is probably on the bad side, but I’m talking about the obvious here.
- Use Images Nothing like photos to make your blog more appealing. Use them! I also love videos, even if I’m the only one to watch them. I’m a very visual person and enjoy blogs that reflect that.
- Blogging Tips Blogs (that you should be subscribing to):
- More resources to help you blog. Lorelle on WordPress has written the best in-depth article that I have ever seen about blogging helps. Everybody should check this one out.
- Have a Universal Gravatar. Visit http://en.gravatar.com and register your email address with a gravatar. Blogs that have this enabled will automatically show your avatar. It’s a great way for your comments to stand out. I only wish that there was a way for Blogger blogs to show people’s avatars that are not a part of Blogger.
- Make it easy to have people contact you. Often times people will say “visit my profile page to find my email address.” Couldn’t you have just given it to me? If I was reading it in a reader, that will make it two, no wait, three clicks to get to your email address meaning you just lost me because I won’t click that far. I have a contact page and surprisingly people use it all the time!
- Organize Your Email I have different types of email go into different folders. If it’s a Google Alert, it goes into the Google Alerts folder. If it’s a comment from my blog, it goes into the comment folder. If it’s a contact through my contact page, it goes into a contact folder. I also have different folders for various forums, social directories, etc. This just makes my blogging easier and faster. I only have to look at what I want to look at, when I want to look at it.
- Link to Your Older Posts Nothing like getting me to browse your blog more. Link up to your older blog posts if it’s relevant to the one that you are writing.
Saving Posts for a Rainy Day Have a few posts ready to go for those days that you don’t have much energy or time to devote to blogging. If you are going to be out of town take advantage of pre-publishing your posts so that you will have something going up although you are not at home. I also worry when people say that they will not be home for the next two weeks. Are they just inviting intruders to their home? Especially when I found a website (can’t find it now) that pulled up my name, address, and phone number all based on my domain name purchase. Scary.
If anybody is self-hosting a WordPress blog and would like me to post on what WordPress plugins I think everybody should have, just let me know and I can add them into the comments. This post just got super long so just let me know if interested.
Okay, so how’s that!? This really got out of hand. Did you learn anything that you think you can use? Anything to build on what I mentioned? Tips of your own? I’d love to hear them.
And after about two weeks of this being in draft, I’m finally hitting publish! Better late than never.
P.S. Visit www.mylivesignature.com to create your own signature.
Hey you! Yes. You! I've noticed that you've stopped by to visit a few times! But I don't know who you are. Why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself. Don't be scared. I try not to bite. I know you're a lurker but I'd love to hear your thoughts about what's been bringing you here. And if you haven't done so already, don't forget to never miss a post by subscribing to my feed or receiving updates by email. Thanks for visiting!
Category: Bookish Musings & Miscellany, The Community
Tags: blogging tips, giveaway, meme, Weekly Geeks
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Wow! Great post with so many useful links. I’m also trying to keep track of the Weekly Geekers and hadn’t thought of creating a folder. I always wondered how people got their personal avatars all over the comments and how to create a signature.
I’ve wrestled with why I blog for most of a year now and your post really helped me consider some things…. Thanks
on May 26th, 2008 at 11:44 pmVery comprehensive post. What are your thoughts on monetizing of blogs? Google adsense or other such plugins.
on May 27th, 2008 at 12:27 amWow..that’s a really comprehensive post! Well done!
on May 27th, 2008 at 2:59 amI learned a lot from this post, Natasha. Thank you.
For one, I didn’t know I could Google or Yahoo alert for links!
on May 27th, 2008 at 4:41 amWow! This is fantastic! Some of the things you’ve mentioned I haven’t even heard of. I’ll definitely be trying to use some of these things. Thank you!
on May 27th, 2008 at 6:17 amHoly freaking moly! You weren’t kidding when you said this post was long! I think you’ve covered most everything, though. I found myself nodding a lot. *grin* I think I’m going to do a very little tutorial on html soon. It’s something more people should know and it greatly helps in your blog!
on May 27th, 2008 at 6:53 amSo many useful things! And amen to the whole Use proper grammar and such. I know, I don’t use quotations, so I’m a total hypocrite. But I capitalize and punctualize and SPELL OUT the words ‘your’ and ’see’ and so on.
Did you know that high school kids are putting those sorts of abbreviations in their homework, now? And that they’re having trouble following the emotional sense of a piece of writing if it doesn’t have emoticons in it? I know I’m getting old and stodgy, but kids these days. *shakes fist*
Awesome post.
on May 27th, 2008 at 9:13 amNatasha! Great post! I don’t know how to do half that stuff but I appreciate the effort you put in to trying to teach me!
on May 27th, 2008 at 9:29 amSeriously, I learned a lot from this. I didn’t know about the Alexa ranking or Yahoo alerts. Thank you.
Wow! What a great and helpful post
)
I use two library catalogs to serve slightly different purposes. LibraryThing is a catalog of the books I own. I post reviews, participate in Early Reviewers, and otherwise socialize … but the main reason I use this service is to keep track of all the titles I own. It is an amazingly robust service.
I use GoodReads to keep track of the books I’ve read. I have yet to go back and capture all the books I have recorded as read, but it is a good record from the time I joined. The books listed here are not necessarily owned by me … just read by me. And it is yet another book socialization outlet and place to post reviews I’ve written.
on May 27th, 2008 at 10:59 amSo much good and helpful information! There were some things you wrote about that I’ve been wanting to do but did not know how and some things I did not know about at all. This was a very comprehensive post! I am going to have to read through it again and take notes.
on May 27th, 2008 at 12:16 pmAnother great article, Natasha.
Yes, I may have mentored you some, but you are such a quick learner and figured out much of it on your own before I got around to teaching you everything.
I’m quite proud of the “blogger” you’ve turned in to.
I have quite a few blogs, which additedly have been a little neglected little while due to the fact that I’m in the middle of some other web-related design projects. One of those projects has to do with my “blogging tip of the day.”
If you have more than one blog create a central site that contains feeds from each of your blogs. If someone wants to keep updated on what is going on in your life they can visit one central site. An example of what I mean is here: http://www.leisawatkins.com
~ Leisa
on May 27th, 2008 at 1:21 pmLots of good tips. I think the key to what your saying, however, can be summed up with “Why am I blogging?” and “How much time do I have?” Most of what you are suggesting takes tons of time! I’ve decided that I’d rather have a life than a very popular blog (and for me, they are mutually exclusive), so I know that means I can’t do a lot of what you are suggesting. That’s the thing with blogging, though: you get what you put in to it.
on May 27th, 2008 at 3:39 pmTo Rebecca,
It’s true that these things take time. You don’t have to do them all. Simply selecting one or two and getting good at them will make a difference in your blogs exposure.
Of course, you certainly don’t have to worry about popularity at all, but then if you feel that something is worth writing, it is likely worth at least being viewed. A lot of people may find it interesting. Often times the only way for people to discover a new blog is through the methods Natasha describes.
on May 27th, 2008 at 4:31 pm[...] sister Natasha posted a great article titled “Blogging Tips for the Book Blogger.” If you don’t have a book blog don’t let the title scare you away from visiting. [...]
on May 27th, 2008 at 5:20 pmUmm… wow. You weren’t kidding about this being a small book. But I LOVED your tips. I already added the firefox extension and I’m adding contact information to my blog now. It just hadn’t occurred to me to do that! I am going to have to come back here because there was almost too much information to absorb in one sitting. Very cool!
on May 27th, 2008 at 5:54 pmWhat a fantastic post! My stats have been at a plateau lately, and you’ve given me a dozen ideas of how to boost readership. Thank you for the great tips and resource links! I’m also curious what you think of having things like AdSense on blogs. Are they worth it?
on May 27th, 2008 at 6:59 pmTasses – I’m glad that you found some useful ideas. Your blog is beautiful. Keep it up!
Chica & Jeane – I’m actually going to be monetizing my blog in the very, very near future (I hope within the month). I’ve already created my adsense account but haven’t found the time to sit down yet and do it. I think the key to doing this is to make sure that you’re not blogging to make money but that you are blogging for the reasons you got into it. I think ads should be very non-obtrusive! I hate ads that are in the posts or in the header. The key is to have them blend in with your site, almost as if they aren’t there. The reason I’m going to start monetizing is because with more than 10,000 visitors a month, I would be foolish to at least not put one block of ads on my blog to see if I can at least cover my domain name fees and postage when I do book giveaways. Well see what happens.
Marg – Thanks!
Tarie – I love Google Alerts for links. If somebody links up with me, I’m usually the first one there to say thanks! And thanks for the Facebook add as well!
Alea – Start with just a few things and work your way up.
Trish – I would love a HTML tutorial. When I started I didn’t know any HTML. Even now, my knowledge is pretty limited. I’m lucky to have done as much as I have.
Raych – I totally believe you when you say kids are writing that way in their homework. I get a lot of middle and high schoolers leaving comments on my blog and at a glance I can tell their age range. I must have just barely missed that generation of texting because I’ve never sent one and have no idea how. I have zero clue when anything means either. It’s just a language I don’t understand. And seriously, how do you graduate if you don’t capitalize or use punctuation?
LisaMM – Start out with just a couple of things and apply them. It’s certainly not like you have to do them all!
Terri – Thanks for telling us how you use the catalogs. I have accounts with both but to tell you the truth I haven’t done anything with either one of them because I’m just not sure how I want to do it. Right now I just use an Excel spreadsheet to track the books I own, and this blog to track the books I read.
Jeanette – Glad to be of help!
Leisa – I don’t know how you do it, everyday you are telling me about the new blog you have. What are you up to now? Ten, twelve?
Rebecca – While going down the list, the only things that I think take time would be contributing in forums, social directories and the cataloging services. Sure, these aren’t necessary just some additional exposure. And they aren’t for everybody. I actually think everything else saves me time. My feedreader, Google Alerts, organizing my email, etc. is a time saver for me. I’m of the mentality that if I’m going to take the time to write up a post, I at least like the validation that someone is reading it. The other techniques ensure that for me. It’s true, though, you have to decide what blogging is for you and how you would like to approach it.
Kim – You’re the one who got this whole thing started. I told you that I can go a little overboard!
Jeane – See my comments above regarding monetizing. I’m glad that I was able to give you some ideas.
on May 27th, 2008 at 9:32 pmHoly freakin’ cow!
I’m short on time and trying to catch up on my blogging, so I read most of the first part and skimmed through the rest. I think I have different goals from most bloggers–I have picked several blogs that I really like and try to visit them as much as possible. I don’t want 200-300 blogs in my reader because then it becomes less personal–I like to remember who I am visiting and why. But great information Natasha!
on May 28th, 2008 at 4:57 amTrish – That’s why I have my “extra special” people in a separate folder. These are the ones that I like to try to visit on a regular basis. The others are simply there to help me create the database that I hope is a service that I am providing to everybody else. I, for one, appreciate your many visits to me. But I do agree about each of us having different goals and different reasons to blog. I think we all have something that we want to accomplish or gain from blogging. As long as we are happy with our results than we are successful!
on May 28th, 2008 at 7:29 amFabulous posts – some of your ideas I can definitely implement on my blog.
I absolutely agree with you about captchas. I can barely solve those things.
I’m not sure if I have a feed through Google Reader. I’ll go try to set that up now.
(I like my stat counter. I could set it to invisible, I suppose. But I thought it was awesome when I had over 500 unique visitors last month!)
on May 28th, 2008 at 8:51 amwow! You pretty much wrote a pocket encyclopaedia of blogging. Thanks for all the great tips! Like others said, I think I’m going to refer back to this post in the future.
on May 28th, 2008 at 9:15 amWow – what a comprehensive tip list! I love the idea of using sub folders in google reader to keep you*special friends* separate. I may try that one. I also like the idea of changing the feed title to the person’s name – simple but v helpful!
I think I’ll subscribe to your google reader feed (already have your blog subbed) as I like to see what other people are sharing.
on May 28th, 2008 at 10:57 amThanks for the great tips. I’m not hugely computer savvy, but I’ll try to start using some of your suggestions. I just signed up for Google Reader, so that’s my first step.
on May 28th, 2008 at 11:12 amGREAT post! I’m going to have to set up Google Alerts now, that never occurred to me. I have worried that my blog is too broad, not very focused, but unfortunately at this time in my life I just can’t maintain more than one or two. I did have several at one time, but gave up when life got busy. I just hope readers stick in when I’m not posting on the topic they prefer. I’m going to go check out gravatar too, but how do you ever decided on ONE image???
on May 28th, 2008 at 3:15 pmWow! What an amazing post. I’m going to start using google alerts and will bookmark this post to come back to. Thanks for taking the time to write this.
on May 29th, 2008 at 9:24 amokay lets try my new gravatar
on May 29th, 2008 at 9:35 amSo in re-skimming the list of things to do, you are right–many aren’t huge time takers. I guess it was just the combination of all of them that made it seem overwhelming. And commenting on tons of blogs takes tons of time. I certainly am just talking about my own experience. I have so little time right now: I just went one day without any blogging, internet, or email.
I self-host wordpress and I had many subscribe to email problems at first when I was on a windows server but now I’m on an apache server and haven’t had one problem. But if ONE person is getting all the subscribe to comments, I have NO IDEA what to tell you. That’s bizarre.
I show up as a top commenter but it doesn’t link to my site–is that because I changed my site to its own domain? Any way to have my name associated with just the one site instead of being confused with the old one?
on May 29th, 2008 at 3:53 pmLiviania – That’s great that you’re exceeding your traffic goals! You might want to keep it hidden though until the number is a bit higher. Low statcounters give the impression that nobody is reading your blog, although they are. High statcounters make me think that a blog is popular and reputable, leading me to return again.
Nymeth – Thanks!
Mrs. S – I love the style of your blog! I understand that magazine style templates are the way to go now. And I love how you give both your name and blog title when leaving comments. It’s the branding!
Charley – Once you get Google Reader, you’ll be amazed at how great it is! Let me know if you have any questions.
Lisa – As long as you are blogging about what you want to blog about, I wouldn’t worry about it! Eclectic is great is that’s what you want and have the time for. I see no reason to apologize! As far as deciding on an image, choose one that you feel represents you and your blog. It will soon become apart of your image, you won’t want to change it.
Tara – I love Google Alerts! So glad that I learned how to use it. I get so excited when I see an alert for a link or my name.
Rebecca – It was an overwhelming post. Just do one thing at a time. Out of curiosity, did you get the follow up emails? My sister (who receives the emails) and I are on the same server. I wonder if that’s why she gets them and nobody else does. Sigh . . . it’s been awful to try to fix this one. Also, I’ll be more than happy to edit all of your comments and change the url to your new domain. That way it will go to the correct one. The top commentator widget works with matching up the name and url.
on May 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pmI have never received a follow-up email. Maybe it’s the same server issue….when I had a windows server, the php mailer didn’t work for anyone else, but I received the emails for registration and such; I had to use an smtp plugin for the email to work for everyone. Now I have an apache server and all works with php.
If the top comment widget works with matching the name and url, why doesn’t it ignore the four or five comments with the incorrect (old) url? If I typed in a different url, shouldn’t it think I was a different Rebecca?
on May 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pmI think this has been my fault: the website field had my website url spelled wrong all this time–maybe that’s why it wasn’t linking, because it wasn’t a site.
on May 30th, 2008 at 6:15 pmRebecca – Thanks for letting my know about the email’s. Looks like I still need to work on this one.
I went in and edited all of your comments. I had you under two different emails and two different url’s which I consolidated into one email and one url (which double check next time you make a comment because the last few were coming in with your url spelled incorrectly). The widget is now linking over to your site. Which by the way, I think it’s awesome that your name is Rebecca Reid and your site name is Rebecca Reads. Very, very clever. Now that I think of it, I think maybe it bases it off of email addresses. Who knows what was going on. Including yourself there are at least four Rebecca’s who’ve commented on my blog. Thanks a bunch!
on May 30th, 2008 at 6:21 pmAnd this Rebecca wants to send her congratulations on a fabulous post! Thank you for what you said about titles–that is one of my pet peeves. The only time I don’t worry about my title is if it is a post of a personal nature and I don’t care if people read it. Sometimes I will go for a provocative title instead of a straightforward informative one, but when I see posts titled “another post” or “hi” in my reader, I skip them.
on May 31st, 2008 at 3:42 amHi Natasha, I can’t believe you went back and changed them all…that sounds like it takes a lot of time. I’m going to start signing with both first and last name…but no need to change anything. I don’t care if it starts the comment count over again or whatever at this point….thanks for everything, and thanks more than anything for interesting reviews!
on June 1st, 2008 at 4:58 pmNatasha,
What a great (and highly useful) post. I know what you mean about knowing your limits with time as blogging can eat its way into one’s life.
Thanks for mentioning some of those blogging directories; I’ve added a couple to my site thanks to you (I also have a Blogorama button; do you do that one? I’m sure there are lots of others too, so it’s probably a matter of picking and choosing). Oh, and I sent you friend requests for all the social book site, so I hope we can be friends
.
By the way, I also enjoyed looking around your Book Bloggers Review Database and I’m sure I’ll be returning to it again in the future. Thanks for pulling that together. Have a wonderful evening!
Laura
on June 3rd, 2008 at 5:39 pmOh, I definitely want your WG list! Could I link to it from my sidebar? It would be a great way for everyone who did that WG theme to be able to hook up with others who do it.
As far as the feed suggestion, I have an RSS feed thing on my blog that never works! And I have some widgets to add more RSS buttons, but they also never work! It’s so frustrating. But I know a lot of people use google reader to read me, so I hope that’s good enough.
The no excuses thing is something I never feel certain about. I don’t really miss posting ever, so there’s no need to make excuses about that. But we live in a place where our electricity goes out at least once a week all monsoon season, and my husband thinks I should explain every time why my blog was out. I figure people just see it’s back, if they noticed at all. But do they really want my post explaining something they didn’t notice showing up as a new post in their reader? I don’t think so, but he thinks it’s just polite.
I totally agree that you have to figure out what sort of blog tools you want. I use wordpress, and when I recently started a small personal blog, I used Blogger, and wow, I absolutely hate it! It’s so frustrating and inefficient and non-intuitive and just UGH. I don’t know how people who use it to blog in every day can stand it.
Anyway, I don’t do some of these things, but I am not a very savvy blogger, really. I just stick to my own little universe, much to the frustration of a few more techy people I know.
on June 3rd, 2008 at 7:51 pmP.S. HATE snapshots! I stop reading blogs that use it.
on June 3rd, 2008 at 7:52 pmRebecca – It only takes a moment to come up with a informative title. I’m glad you’re in agreement.
Rebecca Reid – Not a problem to set everything straight. It’s worth it!
Laura – Hi! And welcome to my blog! I’m glad that you found the post helpful. I’ll be making my way over to your website.
Dewey – Are you self-hosting Wordpress? I’ve been wondering if people are interested in plugins for Wordpress and could put up a list here. It might help.
I can understand an explanation if a blogger goes a much more longer time than normal from their posting. But I get bugged when I see somebody say, “Oh, it’s been a couple of days, or sorry no posting over the weekend.” I’m not sorry so I don’t think they should be either.
I once signed up for Blogger as well and hated it just as equally as you. I couldn’t stand the fact that there was no pages and the back end was so confusing. To each their own!
What do you mean you’re not very savvy?! I’ve been quite impressed with your set-up. I can tell that you’re doing quite well! And I emailed you about Weekly Geeks. Let me know what you think and we can get everything set up.
And now I’m so glad I took off Snapshots. After participating in a forum where everybody HATED it, I decided that they were probably right.
on June 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 pmAn impressive list of blogging tips! And I do agree with you on the paragraph thing. It’s difficult for easy reading when bloggers tend to write their whole post in one big, chunky paragraph! Gives me a headache and not good for the eyes, I think. =D
on June 4th, 2008 at 3:53 amAnd yes, you could put a list of plugins for Wordpress users like me and lots of other book bloggers to use! I’m always on the lookout for new, interesting and helpful plugins to make my blog better.
on June 4th, 2008 at 4:02 amOoh dang i just wrote a big comment and when i hit reply it came up blank! Please please tell me it worked right? I dont want to write it again if i dont have to! Either the blog glitced out or i am an idiot, the latter doesnt surprise me lol.
on October 28th, 2009 at 10:21 pm