Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today
If you want to develop your community and/or build a business relationship via your blog, you need to step up your game. There are too many options out there for us to read. People don’t have time. For a variety of reasons, here are some things to consider with regards to your own blog:
- Hire an editor- I recommend YOU for the job. Before you post anything to the blog, ask whether what you’re doing adds value to your community, and whether it’s useful information. (Looking over my last seven posts, I can see a few questionable ones, myself).
- Be the About- Make that ABOUT page rock. If you’re not shy, add a picture. Add a name. Tell people who makes this thing, what you’re into, and hint at how one might do business with you, should business be your goal.
- Use FeedBurner - Take your RSS feed and run it through FeedBurner. There are TONS of things that service does to improve and extend your RSS. Take advantage of them.
- Pay attention to the FORMAT of your writing- Break things up, so that eyeballs don’t feel buried in text. Use the occasional (or frequent) picture or graphic. Use bullet and number lists occasionally. Try visually laying out your posts, is what I’m saying.
- Make it easy to comment- If you require people to login to comment, consider changing that. If you’re using horrible captcha (I’d argue that it’s all horrible), consider another scheme (if you can).
- Tell us something new- Review your last 10 posts. If 5 or more are pointing out what other people are saying, you’re phoning it in. Get creative.
- Start storing up posts for rainy days- You don’t have to blog daily, but everyone hits a wall. When it’s your turn, have something ready to post. I have about 7 things at all times.
You’ve got a goal of reaching out to a community. It might be a church. It might be a business community. It might be the users of your product or service. But that doesn’t mean we have to love your blog. That comes with you upping your game and striving to improve.
What other ways can we all improve? What would you recommend *I* do to improve this blog?
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The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
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Photo credit, Will Hybrid
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Comments
Very good advice, a good checklist to go through about blogging. Really get you to think about how to improve your content.
I’m glad it is only seven at not ten.
I feel much better knowing I’m not doing seven things than knowing I’m not doing ten ;-)
Nice list!
Great ideas, Chris. I would add that in addition to editing for content, it is important to check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. A lot of people think that good writing skills are not required online, but they are critically important. Someone who can not construct an understandable sentence is not going to get my attention.
Thanks for the food for thought. I see a couple of things that I need to implement (or at least implement more consistently).
Chris, this is the first post I’ve read on your blog and it was like an informative lullabye(that’s great). You have a quintessential way of communicating.
I agreed with everything you said from short and clean formatting to not making readers sign up.
And I love this last sentence. “If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.”
Do you put this at the end of every post?
You are SO unobtrusive that people might just want to hang around you or your words. Even the lightness of font color. Oh this is too much adulation! I’ll keep reading your blog to give you constructive feedback after I’ve cooled down.
Kidding but honestly, it’s a 10!
I just can’t get used to #7. I like to post for the “now” not the “later”. Maybe that’s because I’ve yet to hit a serious writer’s block.
Chris,
Excellent Post. I have been scratching my head on some blog ideas and this definitely put me back on the right track. Adding something of relevance to your community is a very important detail. Thanks for this.
best,
4four1ones
http://www.thedailysamurai.com
http://www.battletweets.net
So glad you’re back–have missed you! This is a great list and I’m forwarding now to my clients who blog–thank you!
[...] Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today :: Chris Brogan - Chris has a few suggestions for improving your blog and while I am pretty terrible with number one on his list I can’t disagree with much of what he says. [...]
Hi Chris, gawd I’m so guilty of point # 6 and seriously working on changing that.
Point # 5 is a total turn off, if someone makes me jump thru hoops to participate, I probably won’t.
My own point # 8 would be to add some spice with graphics, a lot of great blogs suffer from the “wall of words” syndrome. Hope you had a great Easter…
Put an OBVIOUS way to contact you - that seems like a no-brainer, but it’s apparently not. Got privacy concerns? Set up a spare GMail account, open up a K7 line, and create a digital identity you can manage.
Good points.
I also don’t like when the entire article is not sent with the RSS feed, and the author tries to require you to visit the site to read the full article.
Thanks for this post. I just re-read the bio on my blog, and it was horrendous! I just re-wrote it and added a picture. I may re-write it again after some more caffeine.
These are some great points to consider, a good checklist!
Walk the talk and re-write your “aboutchris,” section, which is like all the other social media “evangelists’” (I dislike that expression, btw, for any who are reading) self-description.
Mika, thanks for your tip, because I didn’t know abbreviating the feed irritates some people. Will people reading from a feed miss my images (if I remember correctly, some of my feeds show images and some don’t)? Writing for a visitor center, my images are important. (Anyone is welcome to help with this question by emailing me at jmdaum@carrborovisitorcenter.com.)
One of my tips, gather a group of interesting people and ask them to regularly comment on your posts so the comments add value, and they aren’t just a love-fest (not that an occasional complement isn’t welcome, but Chris did write that people’s reading time is valuable). My twitter friends let us know when they’ve posted something, and that’s a great way to get comments from people you respect (if you follow them for that reason.
Best wishes, @netd
I really need to work on #7. I’ve started to use MarsEdit which lets me write and store drafts offline (Mac only) and it’s giving me a good head start- a bunch of titles waiting for content! Maybe if I set aside a day a week just to write.
Two other ideas:
Watch your length. There are good topics for long blog posts, and good topics for concise ones. Know the difference.
Also, mix it up a bit. Use audio, use video, use images. It’s getting ridiculously easy to add multi-media to your blog.
great suggestions! and one suggestion from me. please consider fixing this language: If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
It should read: If you enjoyed this post, please consider LEAVING a comment or SUBSCRIBING to the feed TO RECEIVE future articles delivered to your feed reader.
I only suggest bcs I care. And I took you at your word with tip #1!!
:)
Hi Jeanne- That’s baked into the theme so I’ll look and see where it is to fix it. Thanks for that. : )
Loved the list, Chris! In fact, I’d write a post about it on my blog, but then I’d be violating number 6 :)
It is in my article links on my front page, though.
[...] Posted on March 24, 2008 by suzemuse The other day Chris Brogan wrote a post about easy ways to improve your blog. One of his tips was to use photos to break up the text on your posts. A great tip, images can [...]
Chris,
Great post! There’s a lot of #6 going around, but mine was #5. When I first started the blog it didn’t take me more than a week to get over myself and realize I was not on a scale to get spam, so I got rid of the comment moderation. I realized that if you read one blog, that might not irritate you, but comment moderation is a scourge if you read more than one. It becomes the blog you won’t bother to comment at.
Fast-forward… captchas don’t bother me, but I’ve been informed that some consider that one little step like “whips and chains,” so after all this time, I took out the captcha last week. I haven’t seen any huge increase in comments, but it’s had no ill effects, either.
One tiny thing for you: here in the submit area, under “email,” should that say “URL”? Unless something’s wrong with my screen, it appears to say “URI,” which I gotta say gives me thoughts of medical issues. :(
(Sorry!)
Regards,
Kelly
All good ideas that I will share with authors marketing books online.
“Storing up posts” is an excellent idea. One client tells me that he write well in advance of business startup issues, posts go up 3 times a week.. says there is hardly ever a week without some positive offline connection with a post.
I asked him “what did you do to promote?”.. he said nothing.. just let a few friends and clients know.. now it’s picked up by papers and other media.
Blogging doesn’t have to be a full time job to get done right.. content is what matters. Get it out there.
@Kelly - European and other parts of the world use URI (Uniform Resource Indicators). It’s one of those semantics issues that I don’t fight over. Toe-mahhhh-toh.
Ohh, I didn’t know that. Still gonna look odd to a lot of your readers…(On the other hand, I just only noticed now, probably ’cause you asked? I commented elsewhere a few days ago and didn’t see a thing.)
:)
Regards,
Kelly
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I liked #7 because yep it happens to all of us and theres times when you dont feel very creative or your mind needs to rest. Im going to store at least 4 and try to post with more regularity.
Good list. Especially got me thinking about the “About” page. Currently I just have a link to my LinkedIn profile, assuming that would enough. I think you are right that there is value to making your about page rock.
Thanks for the tips.
Great insight Chris! - And it was a pleasure meeting you and listening to your talk at SOBCon08!
Thanks!
I too need to look into some of these points…