Brand New Blog - Helpful Tips?

[nestories87]

I'm attempting this whole blogging thing. Part of my new years resolution was to read a book a month for the year. A few days after coming up with that resolution I thought about starting a blog.

I've been a fairly gifted reader (adult reading level by the time I was 10) and would love to discuss my thoughts about books I've read, trends I've seen in reading (or the lack of it from kids) and just general "You should check this out" books.

I'm not sure where to start with getting the word out there about my blog. I've made a few posts and mention it on my Facebook when I make new posts. But I'd like to get a bit of a wider audience than my friends and family.

Any helpful hints for a newbie blogger?

[ChickenFreak]

Hiya! I really like the idea of your blog. Some random pieces of advice:

- On posting, I think that it's good to post more rather than less, and it's good to be fairly predictable. I'd recommend that you post at least once a week, and a few times a week is even better. Fresh material seems to show up sooner in Google, and when people stop by your blog they're more likely to make a note of it if they see that it's active.

It's hard to do all that writing when you don't know if anyone's reading your blog. It's a little easier if you're posting stuff that you think will be as useful in a year as it is now - then you can console yourself that when you do get readers, they'll benefit from these posts in the archive.

- Writing relevant comments in other blogs with interests similar to yours is good, especially if the blog is one where someone reading your comment can click on your name and get back to your blog. (It's unwise to actually include a link to your blog _in_ your comment, IMO.) This can take a while to result in traffic, but if people on a blog start to become familiar with you, some will eventually click your name, click your blog, and start reading.

- Do you have anything installed to track your traffic, like Google Analytics or something like that? Only a fraction of readers comment, and only a fraction Follow, so without something to show your traffic you could go a long time without being sure if anyone's reading. Seeing some readers on analytics is comforting. It also tells you what your readers like - if, for example, someone links to one of your posts, you'll see that.

- On the books subject, "J. Kaye's Book Blog" is running a challenge to read 100 books in a year. You can sign up at J. Kaye's Book Blog: Sign Up Page: 2010 Reading Challenge: 100+ Reading Challenge
and include a link to your blog. I got a few hits from this. And, of course, this looks like a good book blog where you could make those comments. (I'm not familiar with it yet - someone just recently pointed me to the challenge and I liked it.) And many of the other people signing up also have blogs where they discuss books where you could make comments.

- Have you considered posting every day? You could sign up at NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and get on the monthly list of participants. I've gotten a little traffic from there.

- It may take a while. Don't worry if it takes a good long time for your traffic to creep up.

Edited to add: One last comment - I realized that the link to your blog was in your profile, and went to have a look. I'd recommend against the ads attached to links inside your text. Those ads mean that I don't trust those links, so I won't click on your links, so it pretty much makes it impossible for you to have any internal links in your blog. If you're going to have ads (and I'd recommend against them for a new blog, but that's another matter), please make them clearly and obviously ads, instead of disguising them as hyperlinks.

[robelwilson]

I have the exact opposite problem...I've been getting views from people I don't know. But, very seldom do I get hits from my friends.

I actually started my blog on Jan 1 and about a week ago I started getting about 60-100 hits a day.

I've been commenting on other blogs...I submitted my site to google...All the work is starting to pay off.

[nestories87]

Chicken Freak - Thanks for all the hints. I had no idea I was linking to ads. I thought I was just linking to the Amazon description of each book. That is something I will definitely fix.

I don't have enough time to post every day but I have been trying to get posts up once a week at the least. And I will definitely check out the suggested sites.

[ChickenFreak]

Hmmm. Y'know, I may have misunderstood those links - I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions. They had the feel of ads, though, and many blogs _do_ have ads in their text, so even if they're not ads, they could affect reader trust. (Obviously they affected mine, but I'm a little on the paranoid side.)

To have the helpful Amazon links without any distrust issue, you could clearly call them out as links, maybe at the end of the review. (If I were doing it, I'd do it as: "For more information on _Ramona the Pest_, see: Amazon's page, and Joe Smith's review, and...", where 'page' and 'review' would be links.)

Once a week should do the job - that still counts as an active blog in my book, and as the posts pile up, readers who want a "fix" can read your older material. If you can think of a useful quick topic that you could do a little more often, that could be good, but it's certainly not essential. (And then it's easy to fall into the trap of doing _just_ the quick posts and skipping the long ones. I have a tendency to relax when I've posted a non-review Scent Of The Day, when I really should be working on a proper full-length perfume review or other article.)

[ChickenFreak]

Oh, and a nitpick: I think that you mean "excerpt", in your posts, instead of "exert".

[maccam87]

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[nestories87]

Balls to auto-correct spelling and my poor spelling skills. Always been able to say big words but ask me to spell them and I'm totally lost.

[Scribnia]

Could write a whole book here, but instead I'll suggest that you start regularly reading:

ProBlogger.Community
Copywriting and Content Marketing Strategies | Copyblogger
How To Make My Blog ? What bloggers need to start blogging

And have fun with it. If you're not having fun blogging, you won't last.

[hopeful1]

Scribnia: Thanks a heap for the links. I will definitely check them out. I've already bookmarked them.