11 Hot Tips for Writers With Blogs
December 20, 2007 · Written by Melissa Donovan
There are bloggers who write, and then there are writers who blog. What’s the main difference?
Bloggers are immersed in the technology and community that is blogging, while writers’ expertise is in word craft. Sure, the two make for a successful marriage since bloggers must write, and writers can reap great benefits from having a blog. Still, there’s a lot to master in both of these worlds. Here are ten things you, as a writer, can do to make your blog a little (or a lot) more successful:
- Subscribe to Problogger. Darren Rowse will teach you everything you need to know to run a successful and profitable blog. Since he earns over six figures a year as a full time professional blogger, he’s certainly got the information you need! At first, a lot of it might seem like mumbo jumbo, but after a few months, you’ll be talking about CPMs right along with the best of them.
- Break it Up. Writers are used to reading and composing long strings of text, but this is not the world of print. Unless your blog post is relatively short (250 words), break it up by using sub-headings, images, and lists.
- Open up comments. I recently visited a blog that was asking for feedback via comments, and when I went to oblige the request, I found that I had to register in order to leave a comment. Who needs another ID and password? And who wants to go through three security steps just to leave a comment?
- Ads. Don’t be shy about wanting to earn money from your blogging efforts. Some folks bury ads way down at the bottom of the page as if they were shameful. If you put a lot of effort into your blog (otherwise, why have it at all?), there’s no reason not to display your ads in highly visible areas (they will perform better if they can be seen), but…
- Don’t overdo it. Don’t clutter up your site with too many images, ads, or widgets. Keep it simple, and if you’re not sure which blog community widget or ads you want to display, try each one for a couple of weeks, track the results, and settle on the best. Oh, and never insert ads into the middle of your posts. This just makes your blog confusing and difficult to read.
- Be tough. Expect copyright infringement. People will steal your content, so be prepared, and don’t flip out. Blog about it, discuss it, and handle it. Also, be prepared to receive negative feedback. Eventually someone will give your blog or a post on your blog a negative review, either on their blog, in your comments, or on one of the many social networking sites. When this happens…
- Listen. If you do get negative feedback, take it graciously. Even a harsh criticism will probably hold some kernels of truth, so use it as a learning experience and figure out how you can apply it to making your writing and your blog even better.
- Make sure your blog connects to any other web site you have, especially anything connected to your blog’s topic. Whenever you mention your other site(s), include a link. This makes it easy for folks to find out more about you and what you have to offer. There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion!
- Make it easy for readers to subscribe. The whole RSS thing might be new to you, or, maybe you’re familiar with it but you still don’t really understand it. Nevertheless, it’s important. I recommend Feedburner and placing subscription options near the top of your page.
- Be an active participant. If you want people to come to your blog, you best become a blog visitor yourself. Make sure you leave comments wherever you go, and these should always include a link back to your blog (I use a signature link as well). To make it easy on yourself, get set up with a blog subscription service, which will help you manage subscriptions to all the blogs you like. I use Bloglines and love the way they let me organize blogs in different folders.
- Link love - give it! Links are how blogs get higher ratings. Don’t be stingy with links. Include a blogroll, and make an effort to mention other blogs (both those with higher and lower rankings than your own) and link to them. I recently read somewhere that you can use some special code to include a link that won’t register on Google. That’s not nice! If a site is good enough to link to, let them reap the benefits!
Bonus: Keep it fresh and focused. Don’t regurgitate everything that’s circling the blogosphere, especially in your own niche. Try to come up with unique and interesting posts. Subscribe to Copyblogger, where you can get some great ideas for generating original content. As for focus, nobody wants to come to a writing blog only to find posts about the antics of this writer’s kitten (you should see him, he’s so cute!). If you want an open-topic blog, start one up, otherwise, keep the focus on zoom.
How do you rate?
Do you practice most of these things already? Are there any other tips you’d add to this list? Do you think writers are Internet and technology savvy? Have questions of your own about being a writer with a blog? Let me know!
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I followed from a comment you left at Problogger. You have a nice site.
I am doing research in the process of deciding where to take my writing and blogging forward. My current blog I started in January as a personal workshop or internship in public writing since I wasn’t finding a traditional publication at the time (when I went back to university I wrote in the student paper and the annual nonfiction journal).
You have written a lot of fodder to consider as I plan my move to WordPress in the near future. A couple of items that jumped out at me:
I had to smile at #6 though it is a serious subject. I told my husband and brother to “expect cheating” when they started teaching college and they looked at me cross-eyed. Expect it and pre-plan how to handle it.
#3 Comments are an issue on Blogger in general but especially right now. I haven’t had but one or two problem commenters but I still use open comments with one security step. Sometimes I can only review comments once a day and a lot of damage could be done by spam commenting in that time. I wish all commenters comments still went to my email but they don’t and I disagree with “OpenID.”
Thanks for such an informative post.
Hi Deb!
You’ll be happy to know there’s a great plugin for WordPress comments called Akismet, which does a great job filtering spam. Darren at Problogger says it’s saved him months of work in comment moderation.
I’m a huge WordPress fan, and very biased in that I haven’t really experimented with other blog formats, save for those on a few of the social networking sites. I started out on WordPress because it came highly recommended from the A-list bloggers I most admired and I have no complaints so far. Good luck moving to the new platform!
-Melissa
These are great tips, Melissa! I only recently started blogging this summer so it’s been a whole new experience. I’ve noticed that my posts are longer than some and not as long as others. I’m still in the midst of figuring it all out. I do love blogging and networking and enjoy the friendships that have evolved here in cyber land.
I love that you point out the possibility of negative feedback. As far as I know I haven’t received any at this point. If I do in the future, I’ll keep #6 and #7 in mind
…you can use some special code to include a link that won’t register on Google.
I didn’t know that!
Thanks for a very informative post!
Smiles,
Michele
Hey Michele,
Yes, I finally got some negative feedback on the post “The 22 Best Writing Tips.” That post got an overwhelming amount of traffic and attention. I think with that much exposure, you’re bound to pick up a couple of naysayers. Since the good far outweighed the bad, I didn’t worry myself over it. You can’t please everyone… (you can only try!)
-Melissa
Be confident. Blogging feels strange to some people who don’t like to expose their writing. Know that you’re good enough to put your work out in public.
Be realistic. THERE IS NO MONEY TO BE MADE IN BLOGGING UNLESS YOU ARE JOHN CHOW.
Thank you.
I’m probably more a writer who blogs than a blogger who writes, but since I write almost exclusively for the web, and built websites as a freelancer for a while, it’s a pretty even mix.
Copyscape can help with the copyright infringement, and the code that drains the “link juice” from your outbound links is called the nofollow tag (and there are some good reasons to use it judiciously, particularly in your comments).
Item #2 can be such a challenge for Tamara and me. We get downright wordy in our posts sometimes, but we’re learning to break it up for easier scanning. I’ll be adding this post to my “Freelance Advice from the Blogosphere” tomorrow, as it fits nicely since I’ll be doing a “Blogging Edition.”
I have been subscribed to this site for only a week and already I’ve learned more about writing for blogs than I did in the past two months. Thanks.
Kim
James,
I don’t know… I think there is some money to be made in blogging, even if it’s just a means to land a job with a super cool writing team
-Melissa
Kat,
I am definitely a writer first! I may be blogging and freelancing but I haven’t given up my dream of publishing a novel one day!
Copyscape, I’ve noted that and will definitely have to look into it further.
Nofollow… yes I can understand using it in comments and on forums, but it just seems wrong to use it, for example, when writing a post about a blog. The article I read specifically discussed using it to prevent other (similar) bloggers (competitors) from ranking higher than your own blog in Google. I’m not sure if that’s ethical.
Any other thoughts or opinions on that issue are definitely welcome!
-Melissa
Lorna,
Should I call you lornadoone, as you sign your name, or is Lorna okay? Silly question, but I can’t help asking.
Thanks so much for the link! I really appreciate it, and it’s a special compliment to be featured on Freelance Parent, which I read regularly!
Melissa
Thanks Kim! What a compliment, considering this is a writing site. I guess a focus on blogging is warranted though, so there will be more posts on blogging in the coming weeks and months. Thanks so much for stopping by and I’m glad you like Writing Forward so far!
Melissa
Hey Melissa,
You’re welcome. You work hard at your craft.
Cheers,
Kim
Fantastic tips, Melissa!
I’m anti-nofollow tags myself. I’m also the sort who lets google do as it pleases and ignores my page rank. I love some of their applications (toolbar, reader, gmail) but others I could take or leave.
One of the things I love about the web is the link love system. It’s amazing all the sites we could wander across. Search Engine robots should enjoy the same journey for honest search results. The nofollow tag kind of defeats that purpose to me.
Akismet is WONDERFUL! I thought The Writer’s Round-About would be insignificant enough to avoid the majority of spam issues but when I was bombarded the other day I leapt onto Akismet. It’s been a saviour since. 7 days 700 spams caught and deleted.
Now if I could just master shorter posts I’ll be doing well. I try to break mine down for readability but I still find they’re often too long and encompass too much information than would be idea of blog entries in general. Then again, my comments in other blogs suffer the same wordiness issues. *blushes*
Wonderful ideas. Thank you. I have so much to learn. I’m impressed by how willing bloggers are about sharing ideas. I’ve just started blogging so any other leads to further my education is appreciated. I’ve bookmarked so many great blogs. Any tips on keeping things organized?
-KG