What articles did you find the most helpful? Why?
1. I read Seth Godin's blog on helpful tips. While yes, some of them were helpful...there were a few where I have to blatantly disagree.
11. Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids. *No, I really think writing about cats is ok. I think about some of my favorite blogs including I Have Cat, Conscious Cat, Catsparella and Covered in Cat Hair and I realize that you can even make a living while writing about cats.
49. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful. This advice is definitely something I would even reccomend. Give credit where credit is due. If you got an idea for your blog off of someone else's...mention them and link their blog to your post! You scratch their back (promote them) and they almost always help or return a favor.
3. Chris Garret from Chris G - I read his post Art of Getting Things Wrong.
4. Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs Journey and I learned about a really cool type of blog post, called Pillar Article.
Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. I love writing articles that tell people what to do. Wait, that sounds mean! I like to write articles helping people learn something new. Informing people about different cat subjects makes me happy.
5. Jeremy Schoemaker from Shoemoney - I didn't find anything helpful here, because I'm not in blogging to make money at the moment.
1. Choose the Right Blog Software (or Custom Build) -I am honestly not sure how I even found Blogspot to host my blogging needs. I started my original blog Cape May Chick back in March 2009 for my personal needs. I wanted to share my love of Cape May, in a form that other friends and family members could read. I didn't know that I would start Sandpiper Cat Blog in April 2010 and really take off after that.
14. Use a Human Voice - I don't necessarily agree with using a human voice. I feel like if a blogger does it right, they could get away with writing in the voice of their animal. Of course, there are certain blogs such as Bocci's Beefs and Preston Speaks that are written in the dog's perspective/voice. I did my most recent post with a little help from Piper and Sabrina, a review of Junk Food Flyers. I did the basic...add "z" to many of the words, and just write in the voice I think Piper and Sabrina would write in. I'm not saying that it's something I will write a whole blog in, it was just an interesting experiment to test out.
3. Chris Garret from Chris G - I read his post Art of Getting Things Wrong.
"Fear of feedback is just one of many reasons why we can all aim for perfection to the point where we don’t get anything meaningful done," said Chris in his article. I really thought that this quote made a lot of sense. I love good feedback and really don't get that much anyway. I do get comments occasionally from my parents saying "Rachel, you spelled something wrong." Well, we can't all be perfect with spelling. I don't often use spell check in my blog even though I should. I know now, that even if I get negative feedback, not to linger on the comment,b ecause like Chris says, you won't get anything meaningful done. I think this also applies even for me in school; writing a paper that gets a comment I don't agree with or a low grade because someone doesn't agree with my writing. It's a lesson that carries true to everything.
4. Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs Journey and I learned about a really cool type of blog post, called Pillar Article.
Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something.
5. Jeremy Schoemaker from Shoemoney - I didn't find anything helpful here, because I'm not in blogging to make money at the moment.
6. Liz Strauss from Successful Blog - here I read about tips on getting readers to post comments.
1. Look before you speak. When you’re on a new blog look around for minute, don’t just read a post and comment. Take in a bit about the blog and the blogger. Read the comments that came before yours as well. Think about what you’d say if you were in a discussion with all of them. Folks will recognize that your comment has substance and take you and your comment more seriously. I absolutely love this tip. I've abided by it, but I hope that other readers will do this. before I leave a comment on an blog post I have something to say about, I always poke around their blogosphere and learn about their posting styles and find out if the are a blog that I want to keep reading.
Why readers don't leave comments
1. What you write is so complete, that I don’t know what to say except good job. I feel silly writing that, so I read and move on. I try to make my writing a complete thought, but often I have run on sentences that go on and on and on and on and on and on.....and on. I try to make sure I leave my posts open for interpretation and hope that like art, everyone will read my post in a different way. So always leave a post if you have something to say! I promise I will read it, reply and not laugh at you (unless you are joking!)
7. Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips - Lots of useful information here
1. The user must know what the site is about in seconds - I think it is pretty obvious that my blog is about cats. I think it is evident from my posts taht I have a blog about pets. Correct me if I'm wrong.
2. Make the content scannable - Other than this post, all of my blog posts have short comments that are user friendly and are easily readable. I hope that people don't turn away from my blog, because I'm a writer and like to write like I'm writing a newspaper article.
8. Chris Brogan from ChrisBrogan.com
1. Look before you speak. When you’re on a new blog look around for minute, don’t just read a post and comment. Take in a bit about the blog and the blogger. Read the comments that came before yours as well. Think about what you’d say if you were in a discussion with all of them. Folks will recognize that your comment has substance and take you and your comment more seriously. I absolutely love this tip. I've abided by it, but I hope that other readers will do this. before I leave a comment on an blog post I have something to say about, I always poke around their blogosphere and learn about their posting styles and find out if the are a blog that I want to keep reading.
Why readers don't leave comments
1. What you write is so complete, that I don’t know what to say except good job. I feel silly writing that, so I read and move on. I try to make my writing a complete thought, but often I have run on sentences that go on and on and on and on and on and on.....and on. I try to make sure I leave my posts open for interpretation and hope that like art, everyone will read my post in a different way. So always leave a post if you have something to say! I promise I will read it, reply and not laugh at you (unless you are joking!)
7. Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips - Lots of useful information here
1. The user must know what the site is about in seconds - I think it is pretty obvious that my blog is about cats. I think it is evident from my posts taht I have a blog about pets. Correct me if I'm wrong.
2. Make the content scannable - Other than this post, all of my blog posts have short comments that are user friendly and are easily readable. I hope that people don't turn away from my blog, because I'm a writer and like to write like I'm writing a newspaper article.
8. Chris Brogan from ChrisBrogan.com
6. It’s okay to use a personal voice. In fact, there’s no point blogging if you’re going to write like a cold robot. But keep personal and useful in balance. Why wouldn't it be okay to use personal voice? I enjoy writing in personal voice, becasue most of the time I can't when I'm working on the school newspaper. And I know that eventually I will have a job where I probably can't write in first person. But that's okay because my blog is an outlet for that.
21. Put your blog posts on a diet. Read them with your audience in mind. Can you thin them out? Remove unnecessary words. Make them tight. If I'm posting, there is usually a good reason. It normally means that I want to share my thoughts with the world and I hope that you, as the reader, believe it's worth reading.
33. Add your blog URL to your email signature. I actually just did this before I read this post. Yay!
35. If you’re going to promote your blog via places like Twitter, be sure to do it tastefully instead of just dumping links into the stream. Consider asking a question, or pointing out a rather insightful comment. I try to be tasteful when I post my blog post to Facebook. I also try to give a little "taste" so people want to continue reading the post.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who got behind on the 31DBBB tasks! My posts are going to be very belated as well.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post, thank you for sharing all you found.
another super good point, be sure to reciprocate w/comments on blogs/bloggers who care enough to comment. That is a most important point. People like to feel heard and cared about. Julie above is a regular visitor of my blog and I love her for it!
ReplyDeletefirst visit here. nice blog dude.. thanks :D
ReplyDelete