I’ll say it again, blogging is a wonderful way to promote
yourself and your writing work, or actually any work. But if you are going to
take the time to blog, make the time spent on it a worthwhile endeavor.
So how do you make your blog stand
out among all the others?
Design & Professionalism:
Remember how we doodled all over our notebooks in middle-school, so much
so that often you could barely read the title or see the background color? Well
DON’T do that anymore.
Your blog should be easy to read (watch those color
combinations!) and easy to navigate. Huge blocks of letters with no space
between the lines is liable to turn a reader off. Use a font that is readable
against a background that doesn’t blend in with the text. Put spaces between
the lines and break up the paragraphs. Sprinkling a few relevant graphics will
help to draw attention to your page, but be careful not to overload the page
with videos or other files so that it takes forever for the page to load on the
reader’s device — a few links to graphics, even animated, YouTube or audio
files is okay so long as it doesn’t slow (or crash) the page loading. One easy
way to load graphics is to use “thumbnails” (a small snapshot) and link it to a
larger picture stored on your site so the reader can decide if he wants to see
the full or higher-resolution image. For an easy to read article on making
thumbnails go to http://smallbusiness.chron.com/create-thumbnails-52583.html
Write about trending topics: If the topic is trending then it’s
easy to get the attention of readers, after all, everybody is already talking
about it. How do you know what is trending? If you are writing your blogs
within the day of posting, it’s easy to find trending topics through social
media, online news reports and newspaper headlines. Social media tends to be
up-to-the-minute, I’ve learned about several important happenings even before
the TV news broke in with an important announcement! Twitter is a popular go-to site.
Google Trends allows
you to customize your search based on your interest or blog theme (i.e.:
entertainment, politics…). Visit REDDIT and look down the page for “trending
subreddits”, you can even choose a geographical location to search.
If you are diligent and schedule your posts in advance it’s a
good idea to create a blog calendar just like the editorial calendar so many
magazines use. A good way to choose your upcoming topics is to use a regular
calendar and note holidays and observances. A good online source is World
Holidays and Observances at http://www.holidays-and-observances.com/
where you will find a list of holiday dates by month, country and topic, this
list includes special events like the SuperBowl and more. Another good site for
your blog calendar is through the ALA Programming Librarian at http://programminglibrarian.org/node/338.
If you are promoting your book(s), a product then try to tie
the specific topic in to your book with a SUBTLE reference to your story, but
do make sure it is relevant. Remember you don’t want your blog to be a blatant
advertisement. Periodically check your site to see which posts have garnered
more interest.
Remember to promote your blog AND
yourself: Share your blog to all of your social media
accounts. Place share buttons at the bottom of each post so that your readers
can share the content as well. Visit other blogs with similar themes and
comment (be polite and supportive, NOT confrontational) and make sure that your
signature includes a link back to your site. Build cooperation and support from
others by using the share buttons on their blogs as well and re-Tweeting and re-posting
their publicity as well.
Writing
Exercise: Decide on a general theme for your blog and
set up a tentative blog schedule for the next two to three months. Remember to
schedule regular posts (two to three a week is good). You can alternate between
editorial posts, photos, snippets from a book and character interviews…
remember to tie them into the scheduled topics.
Writing
Prompt: Visit at least ten other blogs with similar themes to
yours. Make a list of items that appeal to you and how you could use those concepts
in your posts.
Challenge
Exercise: part
1-If you don’t already have a blog site, create one now. And part 2-Write or create at least three to
five posts for your blog.
