Because you think no one will read it...how can people find it?I realized that in all my posts talking about blogging and Pushing People to Blog as a learning tool, I had never specifically blogged about how you find readers - or more appropriately - what should you do so that potential readers can find you. So here are a few specific suggestions to make sure that readers can find you:
- Subscribe to bloggers and get to know what they write about.
- Participate in the Learning Circuit's Big Question.
- Engage me in my 100 Conversation Topics.
- Engage any blogger by posting and linking to them (do item #1 first). They won't respond every time, but they do quite often.
- Comment and link to your post in the comments on blogs. It's better to link directly in a new post on the topic, but if you've already posted on a related issue, feel free to link to your blog in a comment. (Make sure you know how the anchor tag works.)
- Ask Questions and Make Openings Clear in your posts in order to get responses.
- Post Controversial Topics, but make sure you believe your position and can take the heat.
- Participate in Blog Carnivals is the Work Learning carnival still going?
- Twitter about it, especially to twitter groups such as the upcoming TK09 group
- Make sure to include a link to your blog in email footer, social network profiles, etc.
- Include links to your posts (when relevant) to discussion groups
- Make sure your blog is search engine friendly. Good titles and URLs are a must.
What did I miss?
4 comments:
Thanks for this refresher and I'll admit new ideas for me. I did not know about blog carnivals, I also didn't think too highly about putting my blog link on emails...seemed a little too high on the self-promotion scale. I am going to give both a try to see how these options work for my blog.
Tracy
Blog carnivals are new to me thanks.
Another idea, add a blog widget to your Linked In or Facebook profile. This will display your latest posts within your profile. FYI: Keep your profile open for anyone to view, allowing all/more to see your blog posts within Linked In or Facebook.
Kia ora Tony
A great list. What did you miss? Not much. But I might add a few more items, though you may not follow some of this advice on principle:
1 -
Choose a catchy blog title, like Blogger in Middle-earth :-)
2 -
Write (interesting?) posts and give them catchy titles that are likely to get picked up by searches (not unlike your No12 but with a bit more focus on what's catchy).
3 -
Use headers for sections with catchy titles that are likely to get picked up by searches.
4 -
Write posts about the commentsphere and the people in it - people like to read stuff that's about them.
5 -
Approach post writing from the story point of view, incorporating personal stories into your range of post topics - I just learnt about that one :-)
As I said, there are principles that may be breached by following a pattern of post writing that addresses these points above. It's a bit like the singer who'd rather sing her own stuff than stuff that people ask to hear.
Catchya
from Middle-earth
@Tracy, if you don't feel comfortable about adding your blog, then add a LinkedIn profile link which lists your blog. Definitely LinkedIn profile is relevant and quite useful to have in email signatures.
@Jeff - good suggestion.
@Ken -
1. On the name, I agree making it catchy is good, but so is a name that helps a little bit with SEO and quick recognition what the blog is about. In other words, it's good to have a term or terms that relate to your topic.
2 & 3 Your suggestion on titles and headers for searches is good. However, I would focus more on title.
4&5 - great points.
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