Sunday, July 01, 2007

How to Get Someone Other Than Your Mom to Read Your Blog

Did you just start blogging and are wondering how to get more readers? I get asked about this a lot so I thought I'd share some advice that I sent to my friend Wendy, who just started a blog about homeschooling called, Playing Hooky (where this photo is from). Please feel free to add your own tips in the comments.

1. Read other blogs about your topic. Search on Google Blog Search and Technorati--two blog search engines, for other people writing about your topic. In Technorati you can search for when your topic, in Wendy's case, "homeschooling" and
"homeschool," shows up in a post, or by posts tagged with "homeschooling" and "homeschool." Do both searches.

2. You can also find other blogs writing about your topic by searching on del.icio.us and ma.gnolia for sites and blogs that people have bookmarked with a tag related to your topic like, homeschooling and homeschool.

3. Link to other people's blogs about your topic in your posts.

4. Put blogs about your topic in your blogroll.

5. Comment on other people's posts about your topic.

6. Tag your posts with tags related to the post, like and
, so that Technorati can find them. To create a tag, put a piece of HTML code, that looks like this into the bottom of your post, when you are writing in the HTML mode (rather than Compose mode).

If you look at the bottom of any of the posts on Have Fun * Do Good, you'll see Technorati tags.

7. You'll also want to register on Technorati, "claim" your blog and "ping" them whenever you post. "To ping" just means to let a site like Technorati know that you updated your blog.


8. You should also register on some other pinging services like Pingoat and Pingomatic and "ping" them whenever you write a new post. They will let other blog search engines know that you have added a post.

9. Add a stat counter to your blog like sitemeter, StatCounter or Google Analytics so you can see when someone links to your blog. If they link to you as part of a post, you might want to write a thank you in the post's comments. If they add you to their blogroll, you might want to reciprocate and add them to yours.

10. Write regularly.

11. Be passionate about your topic. If you are excited about your post, your readers will be too, and they might pass it on to their friends.

12. Add images at the top. People decide within seconds if they are going to read something. Images can sometimes grab their attention. Same thing with the title and the first sentence. What will grab their attention during the millisecond that you have it?

13. If it is appropriate, write about current events that people might be searching for on Google.

14. Make sure your blog has an rss feed so that people can subscribe to it in a feed reader.

15. Add an email subscription capability with Feedblitz so that people who aren't familiar with rss feeds can subscribe via email.

What are some other things that you think help to attract more readers?



7 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:23 PM

    Hi Britt,

    Great post. I suggest a couple of additional items:

    1. Submit your post to Digg.com using a subject line that will capture people's attention. This can result in several new readers.

    2. Submit your posts to appropriate Blog Carnivals. This is a great way to get a link from other related sites. Details are available at BlogCarnival.com.

    I love reading your blog. Keep up the great work!

    Roger

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Roger. So, is it ok in the Digg culture to submit your own post? I've always wondered about that.

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  3. Great list Britt, you know.. my mom doesn't read my blog! :( lol.

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  4. Anonymous6:31 PM

    Britt,

    In the Digg.com FAQ it says they welcome you to submit your own content, but they do not want you to overdo it. You can read it at http://www.digg.com/faq in the "Spam" section.

    DO NOT submit every one of your blog posts to Digg. Also, submit blog posts and websites written by others that you find interesting and think others will be interested in.

    You don't need to worry about submitting this post yourself. It deserved to be submitted. Check it out here.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous6:33 PM

    Matt,

    My Mom sends me emails when she catches a typo or grammatical error on my website...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous12:52 PM

    Hi Britt,

    Excellent post and thank for your suggestions. I'll share a few things I do regularly to bring attention to a blog post:

    1. Post the article to your del.icio.us account tagging it with as many keyword variations as you can think of.

    2. If you wrote a summary about another post, send an email to that blogger and let them know about it. You can also send an email to other bloggers about a particular post you think they might be interested in.

    3. Finally, link to others and to things in the news as much as you can.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for more good suggestions Soha, and thanks for submitting it to Digg, Roger!

    Yay for nice readers (:

    ReplyDelete

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