10 Hot Tips for Bloggers

I have been blogging for about two years now. I had made some mistakes but have learned a whole lot. My blog is a reflection of who I am as a person, a teaching forum for others and a platform to have fun with technology. There are thousands of blogging tips and hundreds of plugins that can help you become more effective and to increase readership. Therefore, given my 24 months of blogging I will now share some tips that helped lead to my success.

1. Use WordPress. There are tons of blogging platforms, from Blogger to TypePad, but no other platform stands out from the rest like WordPress. WordPress has so many features and plugins that will enhance the look and style of your blog and it makes posting content so easy that it can be done by web, email and even from your iPhone or BlackBerry.

2. Comment on other Blogs – In my early days of blogging, I thought my blog should be the only platform for communicating and engaging my audience. This misconception prohibited me from seeing the real power of blogging. Most blogging platforms allow you to insert your web url when you comment. What does that mean? Exactly, more traffic for your blog!

3. Have a RSS to Email option: Many people may not be familiar with RSS feeds or how to use and implement them. So allow your visitors to stay updated with your postings, offer that option to provide an RSS feed directly to their email. Feedburner provides this option by simply copying and pasting some code.

4. Use Twitterfeed. Twitterfeed is one of my favorite productivity tools. Twitterfeed allows you to automatically post what you have published on your blog to Twitter and Facebook.

5. Use All-In-One-SEO for WordPress: Not all of us are cut out to be SEO experts. A year ago, I had installed a free WordPress Plugin called All-In-One-SEO. However, failed to realize how essential this tool could have been on my search engine results. The All-In-One-SEO plugin helps optimize your blog for better search engine ranking. Inserting relevant keywords in the title, a short description and a few other keywords, your chances of landing on the first page of Google will be greatly increased.

6. Link Your Social Networking Profile to Your Blog (and vice versa): When I first started blogging, I thought this would be a given, but I still see too many blogs without a link to their Twitter and Facebook profiles. Always, give your visitors other ways to connect with you. Encourage your prospects to connect with you on LinkedIn, follow you on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

7. Avoid free WordPress Theme/Template: Believe me when I say this. “Free” sounds wonderful to us, but you get what you pay for. The free theme looked appealing, but some of the codes are not editable or readable which is usually the case for templates.

8. Use Analytics: I used Google Analytics along with my WordPress stats for tracking and researching. It has been a real adventure watching my traffic grow as a direct result of the tools and tactics I use.

9. Have a call to action: Once again, this is an incredibly overlooked strategy. Ask yourself, what action do you want your new visitors to take when coming to your blog? The first year, I set a goal to brand myself as a thought leader in the Social Media industry. Nevertheless, the problem was how can I make others understand what the heck I am saying and how can I get them to come back for more. Therefore, I decided to create an introductory video explaining what the site is all about and to encourage them to subscribe. Now, that is a call to action.

10. Use Different forms of media: People react differently to visual and audio media versus text. Use other forms of digital media to communicate your message to your audience. Using audio and video help show your true personality and highlights the style of your blog. It is another way of entertaining your community. Not just in a joking manner! Audio and video has made a tremendous impact of my communication strategy. I was told that my videos show my cute personality and my audios show my inspiring but tough love. These are my characteristics, my DNA, my brand.

We are all publishers! Blogging is one of the easiest tools to use to communicate with your customers. Do not feel intimated. Just be yourself, have fun and build a community!