4 Blog Networking Tips

How do you find people to read your blog? How do you direct traffic to your blog?

The answer to these two questions may seem simple to seasoned bloggers but not to the beginning blogger. If you are an empty nester with lots of free time, retiree, a person that lives alone or just plain bored, you can easily direct traffic to your blog by the following steps. It takes time, and that's one thing you have if you fit in one of the previously described categories. If you're like me, you work a day job, drive an hour one way to that day job, buy groceries on the weekend, do home chores on the weekend, and do everything else requiring your time in the evenings and on the weekends. Blogging this way, it will take you longer to direct traffic to your blog. It can still be done, though. You have to prioritize and manage your time wisely.

Before you begin these networking tips to bring people to your blog, check your content. Include how-to information, tutorials, and other interesting content in your posts. Offer something people need and want. Oh, and remember to use photos and/or videos. Look up the subject of your content online to find out what people are looking for.

Now with your content in place, look up blog linking parties on Blogspot or other blog websites. Link up to the blog parties. Usually, you can find parties for every day of the week. Join them. Visit the other blogs linked to the parties you join.When you visit the other blogs linked to the blog parties, follow those with similar interests. Comment on their blogs, letting them know you have become a new follower of their blogs. Gradually, other bloggers joining the same blog parties as you will follow your blog, too. This is a great way to begin building your list of followers and to drive traffic to your blog. As a courtesy, visit your followers daily, weekly, or at least monthly. Once your blog grows to a large number, you won't be able to visit each blog as often. However, you can choose to list posts of blogs that you follow. You can tell when they have posted on their blog daily. Check the post titles, and visit those of interest to you.

1. Visit blog linking parties weekly.
2. Follow other blogs.
3. Build your list of followers.
4. Visit your followers periodically.

There is so much more, but this will get your off to a good start.

Happy Blogging!

Write Often

How do you write a blog or a book?  

Write often.

Does it matter that another blogger is more successful than you? Do you have to do and say everything that the majority of other bloggers or authors say? Do you have to take pictures of every subject you blog about for someone else to read? 

The answers are no, no, and no. If you have writer's block and you feel that your writing and blogging are inferior to others with more experience, then you need to just sit down and write. Blog. Write a page, a chapter, a sentence. Just write. The world would be a boring place if every writer wrote the same thing, showed the same photos, gave the exact how-to-blog-directions or how-to-write-a-book directions. So write how you write. Write down the things that interest you. Take photos of what inspires you. Share those things you write and take photos of on your blog. Photos do help others see what you're writing or blogging about, but the bottom line is to write and keep writing.

Often, we allow hindrances to keep us from our goals and desires. I have learned that if I write down goals and desires, I will begin to believe that those things will happen. The more I write about them, the more I believe in them. The more that I write toward those goals and desires, doors begin to open. When I talk about those desires and goals, people learn of my interests. Then when they hear of opportunities that I might not hear about in my own environment, they inform me. That is social networking.


Writing is therapeutic. We write to inspire. We write to be inspired. When my mother died, I planted a garden. I didn't know much about how to. I just did it. Not everything I planted grew, but some things did. My yellow summer squash grew. That was the most important thing I planted. It was a comfort food for me because Mother always grew squash in her garden. She would cook it and freeze most of it. When she knew I would be coming home for a visit, she took some squash out just for me. I wrote about that squash and my memories of Mother and cried a lot of tears in that garden while sitting on a little white bench beside a Joshua tree. Writing about the wonder of nature all around me became a solace. I had never made cactus pear jelly until then. There was a cactus plant just outside my little garden. I had fun learning how to take the pears off of the plant and making the jelly. It was fun, the jelly was good, and it was therapeutic for that grieving time of my life.

My little comfort garden area

Cacti near my garden

How to Choose a Blog Hosting Service

How do you choose a blog hosting service? By research and word of mouth. I have tried TypePad, WordPress.com, and Blogger.com. I think the determining factors are whether or not you intend to use a free hosting service or pay a fee. I think Blogger.com is very easy to work with, and it is free. However, not everyone is satisfied with Blogger.com. It is good to research the positive and negative aspects of various hosting services. Here are a few places to begin:

• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/reasons-to-not-blog-using-blogger-or-blogspot/7100/
• http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/04/07/typepad-and-blogger-compared/
• http://bloggingonthefreeweb.blogspot.com/2005/03/bloggertypepad-comparison.html
• http://www.typepad.com/features/the-right-choice/ 

There are tons more articles on the Internet that you can read on hosting services. The best way to learn is choose one and get started blogging. You learn how to blog by blogging. It also helps to visit other blogs and forums and ask questions. Learn from other bloggers. 

Until next time, 
Angi

10 Simple Steps to Become a Successful Blogger

How do you begin a blog? How does one become successful as a blogger?

Here are ten simple steps to becoming a successful blogger:

1. Determine the topic you want to write about.
2. Begin a blog through Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad or whichever blogging service you choose.
3. Write often.
4. Visit blog linking parties weekly.
5. Follow other blogs.
6. Build your list of followers.
7. Visit your followers periodically.
8. Post photos, preferably ones taken by you.
9. Utilize videos, UTube, etc.
10. Never give up!

First, let's talk about topics to blog about. Blogging wasn't a new thing when I picked it up the first time. I started out with one blog about writing.  Eventually, I added other blogs. Write It Down Therapy is a fairly new blog. Then my husband and I began a fixer upper cabin project, and I turned my focus to blogging about that and other home and garden topics. However, writing is always a constant topic in my life. I am a member of a very active writers' group and have made some changes with my writing priorities. Blogging is a topic of interest in my group. A writer may be successfully published and not have a blog. Some writers don't see the need to have a blog. But for writers who have thought about blogging and want to know where to begin, the list above may be of help to you.

Begin with making a list of topics you are interested in. List them in three columns: A, B, and C. List the topics you are most interested in under Column A. List those of secondary importance to you in Column B. List the third topic categories in Column C.  Most likely, you'll begin with one of the Column A topics.

You'll want to research the topics in Column A. Look at blogs about your choices, and find out what others are saying. Pay attention to problems and needs that people discuss about the topics you research. A thorough research on your topics will give you a better idea of which topic from Column A you should choose first. After you become more familiar with blogging, you may want to begin a second blog about one of the other topics.

Now go start your columns of topics, and do your research. Then come back for the next step to becoming a successful blogger.