Making your voice heard
Way back when WWW was an embarrassing typo, publishing your work was about as easy as convincing a panther to become a vegetarian. Many different “gatekeepers” (as we call them) stood between the common man and the world at large.
Then the wall came down. WWW came to mean World Wide Web and letting your voice be heard online became easier than getting new credit card applications. It wasn’t long after the Internet started becoming widespread that web logs or “blogs” also became popular. Anyone from anywhere can create a blog. In fact, it is estimated that more than 150 million public blogs exist.
Nevertheless, not all blogs are created equal. Early in my Internet career, I myself started a blog. After all, it’s both easy and free. Why not? I thought. So I sat down and did it! I went to www.blog.com and within minutes I had my own blog. I wrote my first post and . . . there it sat for days . . . then weeks . . . then months . . . and finally years. I would give you the link but I don’t remember it. I don’t think I ever got any followers either. My blog was a pretty lame.
So how do you make a “non-lame” blog? How can you boost the number of people that follow it? How can you make your blog appear more readily in search engines?
5 Tips for Young Bloggers
- Keep your readers in mind — While writing your blog entries, remember who you are writing to. Are you writing to teenagers wanting to jazz up their skateboards or to retired people researching different types of dentures? You will certainly use a different style of writing for grandparents than you will for high school students. Even in a certain age demographic, your style will vary. My roommate knows what a cytoplasmic membrane is and might be interested in reading about your recent frog dissection. I, on the other hand, might recognize that cytoplasmic membrane was a biology term and would have no interest at all in whether or not the appendicular region was present in the frog you recently dissected.
- Don’t “wax eloquent” — Most people don’t like reading online epistles. It is better to write seven one-paragraph posts in one week than to write one seven-paragraph post in a week. Break up your text into paragraphs to make it more readable. Keep your paragraphs short; seven sentences tops. It helps to stick to one topic per blog post.
- Develop relationships with other bloggers — Find blogs that are similar to yours or that cover topics that interest you. There are many different places where you can search for other blogs and also list your site. These include Blogdex, DayPop, Digg, and Technorati. Comment on the blog posts of others. Ask questions, give compliments. Once you’ve developed good relationships with other bloggers, set up cross-links between your blogs. This will help increase both your readership and the readership of your friend’s blog by making your sites rank higher on different search engines.
- Use multimedia — Adding a picture, video or other link makes your blog more interesting and give your blog a little more variety. Linking to other articles keeps your blog fresh and can introduce other voices to your site. It also shows your readers that you are making an effort to research the topic you are writing about and adds credibility to your blog.
- Keep writing! — My first blog (the one I mentioned earlier) could have revolutionized the world . . . but it didn’t because I didn’t keep it up. Start a habit of writing just a little bit each day. As mentioned earlier, you don’t have to write a novel each time you open your blog. Write a few paragraphs and call it good.
Blogging is a satisfying way to share your experiences online. It can also be a rewarding way to connect with others and read more about topics you are passionate about. Following these five simple tips will help you connect with the world.
Good luck!
Guest post by: Derek Gurr is a writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them understand which online courses and online schools they can choose from to reach their goals.
As with anything in life, if you want to be a pro it pays to start young. Blogging is exception and although the most successful blogs are ran by well established, authoritative, big players, there is no reason why you, as a young blogger, can’t get your content out there and make an impact. Internet usage is extremely high amongst teens and even pre-teens so if you are aiming for this demographic there is plenty of opportunities out there to gain traction. The blogosphere is heaving with content and popular topics include tech news and posts about how to make money online, despite the reams of content out there, there are in effect an infinite number of niches, if you can generate a healthy following by blogging about a particular topic, you will have a captive audience on which you can begin to build and improve.
So what are my top tips for all the budding young bloggers out there?
Pick a platform, and stick to it
There are many different applications out there which can facilitate your blogging adventure. You could easily spend months trawling through all the different platforms to find the one that’s perfect for you, but in my experience you’ll just be spinning your wheels. At this stage, the relative merits of Tumblr over Posterous are irrelevant. A successful blog isn’t grounded on bells ‘n’ whistles, but great content. Pick a platform and start writing, you can make changes to the look of your blog at a later date.
Stick to a Niche
Pick a subject you want to write about, and stick to it. Writing solely about that subject, exploiting every little intricacy, and keeping up with the latest news is far more valuable than going off on a tangent. Doing this alienates readers and will likely leave your blog with very few visitors. It doesn’t matter if the subject matter is Apple products or pet Newts, immersing yourself in a niche is far more rewarding than taking a scattergun approach to blogging.
Keep an Eye on Your Traffic
If you really want your blog to be successful, you need to know how it’s performing, the best way to do this is to keep tabs on your traffic with Google Analytics. Despite its scary sounding name, the software is free and easy to use. With analytics you can get an insight into traffic fluctuations which can go some way to helping yoyr blog become more successful, for example if you recognised a traffic spike on the same day as you published a post about the best feed for pet Newts, then you’ll know there is a demand for information on this particular sub topic. You can then leverage this knowledge to gain more traffic in future.
Promote your blog
If you don’t promote your blog, no one’s going to know about it, and no one’s going to read it. The best way to promote your posts is through existing networks you might already have in place. This means publicising your posts on social sites like Twitter and Facebook. You could even create dedicated feeds that compliment your blog, which will get you more targeted followers.
Be Regular
If you can, make a post everyday. It doesn’t have to be a considered, one-thousand word article, it can be anything from a top 5 tips post, few sentences accompanied by an image, or a funny video. Whatever it is you chose to post, regularity is important, if visitors come to your site, see a great post but recognise that your blog hasn’t been updated they will be more likely not to come back. If you can’t post everyday, make it every other day, or even twice a week, so long as your posts are spaced evenly and are predictable.
Respond to Comments
If your posts are funny. Controversial, or informative as they all should be, the likelihood is they will attract comments. Reply to these comments. Ignoring comments will not only turn readers off, it will make them think of you as rude and arrogant, hardly the way to build a large following.
Heed these tips, sprinkle in a little passion, dedication and knowledge and you as a young blogger will be able to take on the best.
Guest post by: Joe is a blogger working for a company that specialise in personal car leasing
Crenk has been rated as one of the UK’s premier sites for technology and media news. Ranking 23rd of all UK sites, and having a world wide prescence online, it takes people truly connected to the pulse of the industry to keep this site alive.
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For more information please email info@crenk.com and let us you’re interested.
Photo Credit this is your brain on lithium
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