Blogging Helps

Seven Ways to Grow your Blog

February 26, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

As one of my goals is to grow my blog I’ve been doing some research on it lately. I thought I would share seven ways to grow your blog. Increasing the readership of your blog is rather important eh? After all, why write if no one reads it right? Now, one thing I have learned is that growth of a blog isn’t always present in comments received. So you mustn’t let comments be your sole indicator of the success or failure of your blog.

What active steps can you take grow your blog? Read on!

Publish content your audience wants to read. Sounds simple enough eh? What do people want to read in the market you are targeting? Are you focusing on preschoolers?.. then it makes no sense to right about highschool students. If your focus is on homeschooling, tossing in articles about tentmaking in Africa doesn’t exactly fit your paradigm does it? Or perhaps you’ve been happily blogging away only to discover that a series you are doing is garnering lots of attention… that might be just what YOUR audience is craving. Feed them more. Feed the audience that you have.
Engage your readers. Ask them questions. Respond to their comments. Make them feel like they are important, because you know what? They ARE important.
Build an email list… YES I KNOW.. I have to do this yet. Still figuring all the little stuff out. I should hire someone to do all the behind the scenes stuff for me cause GAH.. I hate doing that stuff. 🙂 BUT if you want to increase your outreach… you gotta do that stuff you know?
Pretty up your blog posts. Use images, pictures, graphics, colour, headers, and more. Make your posts visually appealing. Mind that you pay attention to copyright.
Reach out to other bloggers. Offer to write a post for them. Do this with bloggers who are in the same niche as you are in. Write what you know and write it well. Share it on their blog, then cross promote.
Use Stories. Oh people like a good story right? Give them a story as you write your posts, give them a reason to keep reading on and coming back.
Share your posts on social media. This may mean learning new skills with developing graphics, or learning what hashtags are and good ones to use, or even opening up accounts. Use social media.

What ideas do you find work for increasing the readership of your blog? Share them in the comments below.

Write a Disclaimer

February 12, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Write a disclaimer? I have to admit… when I tend to think of having a disclaimer on my blog I tend to think of the legal stuff we need to do for reviews. Something like what I have on the top of every post. Or the amazon one I have at the bottom of my website or the one I use with reviews. (see below). I wonder about the need to have anything more in-depth than that.But as I work to put my website together better, I am learning about having a broader disclaimer on my site (and no, I haven’t done this yet). … but it is DEFINITELY on my to-do list. What type of disclaimer? One that states that I am not a professional, this is my opinion only at the time of writing, my thoughts and opinions belong to me, and individual blog posts might not even truly represent what my blog is all about.

Why would I want to do this?

Because this is a sue-happy world we live in! I blog because it’s fun and if it makes me money down the road WOOT WOOT! (that is a goal) I don’t want someone thinking that just because I have a different opinion than they do, and they have an adverse reaction to it, or I recommend a book for a middle schooler with MY values in mind, and find their values are different and they get all mad at me. or someone makes one of my recipes without thinking it all through and gets sick… and then wants to sue me… well, that’s not something I want to worry on eh?

What have I learned so far?

The type of disclaimer you put up depends on what you do. For instance, I put recipes on my blog (on Saturdays) so in that post I should put something like “use at your own risk” cause I don’t know what people’s allergies or food tolerances are like. Seems a bit silly in some ways, but when teenagers eat tide pods…. you gotta watch out for the no-brainers right? Not meaning that in a bad way but sometimes people don’t think decisions through until after the fact.. I’ve done it myself! This means you want to include as much as you can to make it clear to folks that this is your blog and you can do with it as you will, and since it is your blog, you can do with it as you like. You have the right to change it, delete comments, change your mind, give your opinion on different matters or materials and such like. You just want to easily spell it out to people as you write a disclaimer.

What to include:

1. Your right to monitor and delete comments.

2. Your right to publish letters that people write to you, unless they specify that you cannot. Or you should at least tell them what you DO with the letters you receive (toss them, save them, use them for a book or a blog post, etc)

3. All materials are use at your own risk. You are giving your thoughts and opinions, sharing something you know about, but they are making the choice to come and use learn from you. It’s their risk if they take it. Your site is for educational as well as entertainment purposes, and not a professional service.

4. All materials on the blog are yours and others can’t publish or reprint it without your expressly written consent.

5. Explain that if someone buys something from one of your sponsors and has a problem with it.. take it up with the sponsor not you. All you are doing of providing a service, with your own opinions, not acting as the sponsor with ownership of their product.

6. Errors and omissions happen! Be clear with your readers that this can happen and not to hold you responsible for it. For instance, I’ve learned a lot about disclaimers but I don’t know everything that’s for sure, ergo if this post spurs on your interest to learn more or create your own disclaimer… do more research! 🙂

Wording

Make an easy to read disclaimer. Spell out everything you need to. Be serious or have some fun with in as long as you make your point well. Cover yourself… don’t get in trouble with others over not having a disclaimer. Better to save a headache then to create one eh?

If you do a search on-line you can find all sorts of disclaimers. Read what other bloggers do, learn from them, see what to add. Don’t make it too long (at least what’s on your blog feed), you can always refer people to your full disclaimer. You want it to be easily read and understood. Stay safe with your blog eh?

Purpose in Blogging

March 3, 2017 By Annette1 12 Comments

Recently I have been reading that if a person wants to have a successful blog they need to be great right from the start, honing their craft right from the very beginning. That if they don’t have great material right from the beginning that they might as well not bother, cause all people will remember them for is their less than stellar work.

Do we really have that much expectations of people?

To expect perfection right from the beginning? Do we not allow learning curves anymore? Why do we put so much pressure on folks?

All this information out there on this is the way to a bang buster blog…..but you have to do it all just so and write perfectly and have great graphics, and pin everyone else materials and …. the list goes on.

So much pressure to do it all correctly or …. the message is….don’t bother or expect only for others be noticed or bothered about cause that first impression is all that matters.

I find that sad.

What about seeing what the true purpose is….honing a skill, sharing information important to the blogger, teaching/giving a reader new information.
Walking your way through what is most important to that person.
Knowing that telling folks to do it all perfectly right from the start is the only way to go, or you might as well forget about it.

Is there one grace allowed, no time or gradual growth? Should one really give up if they haven’t perfected the craft in blogging before they even begin?

Is there really no point? No purpose?

Sometimes I wonder….

————–

This is a five minute Friday post. the word prompt is brought to us by Miss Kate. Today the word is purpose.
What is Five Minute Friday? Well it’s a party of a group of like
minded folks who gather on Friday to do a five minute free write around a
singular word. AND THEN we take the time to offer up encouragement to
each other on this writing journey. It’s fun, though it’s not always
easy, but it is always good. Come join us won’t you? You are always
welcome.

Blogging Helps

Seven Ways to Grow your Blog