What does it mean to be an effective blogger? It means you have a great quality blog and are very good at generating a following. While I can speak of Blogging, I speak of it from the point of view how I do things and what Blogging means to me. Here are my tips on how to be an effective blogger.
1. Be passionate about what you write about.
2. Write with your personality and style.
3. Give out good information.
4. Be Helpful.
A good Blogger loves what they do. They write about information they know about. They do it consistently. (Whether it’s once a day, once every two days, etc). Set aside the time to write about what you want to write about, but remember a few things.
People come to the internet looking for information. If you have something to share, you should share it. Don’t hold back! Just let them know what it is you want to write about.
Write with passion about what it is you know. Put some entertainment into the blog. You’re not writing a textbook.
Remember to turn on your RSS feed or Atom feed or both. People and other sites will subscribe to it.
Notify the search engines when you write a post. This can be done in a series of ways, but the best thing to do is to sign up for google and bing webmaster tools, update your sitemap, and make sure the search engines are notified. As you write more and consistently, they’ll come back to you more and more.
Tag your blogs with information that actually refer to your post. Think to yourself, what question would someone type into a search engine to get to your posting? Those should be your tags.
Leverage Social Media. Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit. These are all very important tools. Submit your posts.
Let everyone you know / meet know about your blog. This includes your facebook friends, colleagues, etc.
Humility. Write with humility. Don’t be nasty towards anyone or company (unless it is completely your intent to do so), although, I can say that it’s not about hurting someone. It’s about helping.
Give away information freely. Don’t hide the tricks of the trade. Share your experience. Explain how you got there. (the conclusion).
Tell stories sometimes. People love a good story.
Enclose pictures and diagrams whenever / wherever relevant.
Make sure you have a GOOD Blog host (like me) [shameless plug]
Make sure the experience is good to the client.
Monitor for broken links. ALWAYS make sure your clients can get to your postings.
Before you start your blog, make sure you know what your permalink structure is going to be and NEVER change it. Changing your permalink structure causes broken links. So once you start with something, you’re stuck with it unless you’re extremely technical and know the workarounds.
Get involved with the discussions that happen on your blog. Thank people when they send you letters or comments of gratitude. It goes a long way.
Backup your blog daily. (or if you’re hosting with me, that’s never going to be an issue). [another shameless plug]
If you follow these little tips, you can watch your readership grow by the week! Don’t get discouraged. Take your time and things will happen.
Just one more point. If you host with me, I give you very much direction on how to be more effective. (Not that it matters, but I’m around 1800 unique visitors a day now and growing).
Impressive for a blog, but then again, I do it not for the numbers, but because it’s a part of me.