The Business of Blogging

Since I’ve launched my blog I’ve become very interested in this subject. I want to know, of course, if I’m doing is correctly, but instantly discovered that everyone seems to have has a different idea of what “correctly” means.

First of all, people blog for many reasons — to keep a kind of diary of events as they unfold; to reflect on various topics of interest the blogger; to support a position, political or otherwise; to serve the needs of the blog’s readers; to display one’s creative abilities; to market a brand or a product; and to entertain, educate, or enlighten. I’m sure I have barely scratched the surface.

Second, there are the many ways blogs are designed. Some are plain vanilla — no frills, just text —which encourages the reader to concentrate on the words. At the other extreme, are beautifully designed, truly artful blog/websites that are a pleasure to look at, as well as read, like Riehl Life, my friend Janet’s blog. Some are so busy, you don’t know where to look; others are cleverly but simply designed. Mine, I think, is somewhere in the middle. It’s really simple because that’s all blogspot allowed me to do in terms of design, or at least it’s all I have been able to figure out so far.

So, I’ve been reading about blogs and discovering there is a lot to learn! Last month the SLPA had a speaker on blogs. His name was David Strom. Here are a few points he made that I found very helpful:

1.Social networking is about creating conversations.
2.Keep your blog entries simple and searchable.
3.You are a source of content for other blogs, as well as your own.
4.Think about your target audience.
5.Solicit stories and comments from readers.
6.Digg.com will drive traffic to your site.

Julie Hood of the OrganizedWriter.com generously sent me a link to WellnessCoach.com with a series of articles by Erica Ross-Krieger on “What should I blog about?” If these articles are excerpts from a book, I want to read the book. Here are a couple of gems:

• Go back to basics. What do your readers want to know? Do keyword research with the word tracker keyword tool to see how they are looking for that phrase. Create a post with a commonly used keyword phrase in the title and in the post.

• Comment on current news in your topic area and add your own spin to it.

Here are three tips are from an article on that same website by Alexandria K. Brown, the Ezine Queen. She lists 11 quick (and good) content ideas for your e-zine, website (or blog).

1. Jot down 8 questions your clients have asked you in the past, and answer each in a short article (or post).
2. Think of three areas in which you’d like your clients to think of you as a resource. Now develop content in those areas
3. Recommend books and resources you use and offer full reviews on them.

In 7 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Online Marketing Presence by Bobette Kyle, one great suggestion is to “Identify 10 Bloggers in Your Category. Then send them your product as a gift. The idea is to expose your product to influencers in your category by giving them an opportunity to try it free. If they like it, they may give it a mention in their blogs. Note that this is a subtle online marketing technique. The idea is NOT to advertise to them, ask a favor of them, or ask them to blog about the product. Choosing to mention (or not mention) your product should be solely up to them. You can find and read blogs by searching blogging directories such as technorati.com.”

When I started The Writing Life I thought I would just muse about my favorite subject, but obviously, musing is only a small part of the package. One has to muse with purpose. My purpose is pretty clear to me — to help writers write — but there is much I have to learn about how best to achieve it.