It is with great dignity and pride
that I announce and present
the official badge of achievement
of SOB to all who have been named
Successful and Outstanding Bloggers.
They take conversations here back to their readers.
I invite them to take this badge of achievement
back to their blog and to display it with pride.
For the complete honor roll and details on becoming an SOB, see the Successful & Outstanding Bloggers page.
In the spirit of a community blog, articles from readers are a regular feature here. Know that I read them all to ensure the content belongs in the context of Successful Blog. Know that not every submission makes it here and that some get revised before they pass muster. Still even then, not every one of them will be right for every one of you.
To be respectful of your time–who needs me going on and on?–I ‘ve made a snapshot form to help you determine easily whether the content suits your personal needs. When you keep an article, it can serve also as a summary. If you have suggestions for changes to the form, just make a comment after an article whenever you think of them. Now on to the article. . . .
Katy Whitton of Katy Whitton.com sent us this article on how to Market Your Blog and Keep Your Readers from her blog, Flipping Heck!
Target Audience: Beginning Bloggers
Article Type: Overview
Content: Katy mentions the main points of bringing your blog into the world of blogging, including choosing an appropriate name, content considerations, Permalinks, pinging catalogues (directories), posting frequency, advertising, and stats. She also provides links to additional information.
Notes: This is an overview that will get a new blogger thinking on what there is to do and hopefully bring him or her back to Successful Blog to find answers to any questions the article might prompt. Katy’s writing makes her article an easy read, an investment of a few minutes. Her writing voice lets the reader know that he or she can do this.
Thanks, Katy, for contributing to the Successful Blog community.
ME “Liz” Strauss
A successful blogger is always asking the question, How does this serve my readers?
To many of us design is the fun and “creative” part of building our blog, talking and tweaking design can take up more time than writing content–if we let it. A checklist can help keep my creativity at uptimum levels and keep my focus on how my choices will ensure my readers enjoy their stay well enough to return again and again.
Blog Design Checklist.
Use this checklist to remind yourself not to let too much design creativity take the “fun” out of reading your blog. Then get started. Have fun tweaking.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
And don’t forget the other checklists in the set:
Blog Review Checklist
Editing for Quality and a Content Editorââ¬â¢s Checklist
Checklist for Linking to Quality Blogs
A Bloggerââ¬â¢s Personal Narrative Checklist
Checklist for Starting a Directory Listing
. . . Successful Blog is a community blog where every voice is welcomed and every contribution is valued.–MES
Except last night most of the Succesful Blog community wasn’t heard.
Remember when I said this on December 4th?
I can talk about building community by answering comments relentlessly, but itâââ‰â¢s so much more powerful when I do it, and my readers actually experience how it feels. . . .
I was talking about Successful Blog as a place where we try out practices and test how they work–where you can see my shining successes and flaming-out failures. See blogging-in-action and analyze the consequences–Successful Blog as Community Test Blog, so to speak.
What better use for a community blog than to use it
to try out what works and to see how to fix what doesn’t work?Some folks might think that last night’s discussion was a screaming success.
But when I think of my readers, I’m not so sure.
We have been talking about why people don’t comment. Now I think many of us have experienced a reason or two for ourselves. It’s as if a bunch of new readers rented the community hall for a party last night. A few of us came, but the rest of us kept our distance. The new visitors were welcome and wonderful, and I hope they all come back. Their intent wasn’t to quiet us, but that’s what happened. Isn’t it?
So many who discussed Brian’s article chose not to hang out this time–so many of the same voices went without a word.
What a great case study–right here in real life. Are you as curious about this as I am? It’s an experience worth exploring. There’s something here worth learning about.
What do you think happened last night?
What could I have done differently to bring your voices in?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Have you ever thought about collaboration as a creative way to make new links? It’s a great way to build community relationships as well as relevancy. How the collaboration works depends on the people involved and their blogs. I thought a few posts on collaboration links might be fun.
Collaboration Link 1: Image and Text
One person provides the text, the other the image.
I surfed a photo blog and this fabulous photo caught my attention. It had a caption that said
“You’re a photographer?” the child asked.
“No, I take pictures.”
I left a comment describing exactly what I liked about the photograph and how the caption inspired me. Then I emailed the photographer to say I would like to write a story about the photograph. Would he be interested? Would he share the photograph?
He said he’d like to see what I did with it and kindly agreed. What resulted was this collaborative link, “You’re a Photographer?”
A few weeks later a friend came to me. We had discussed working together, but we hadn’t yet hit on an idea–what should come first image or text? Then one day, he asked if he might use a story I posted to inspire a piece of art. Did I mind? I could hardly wait. What resulted was this collaborative link, “Dance with Me.”
These collaborations strengthened the blogging community. The links made the content on both blogs more interesting, more connected, more relevant. Personally, I enjoyed the chance to change things up a bit. It was cool to be blogging with a new friend and to feel like I was blogging on two blogs at once.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Collaboration Link 2: Topical
Collaboration Link 3: An Event
Collaboration Link 4: Movable Posts
Collaboration Link 5: An Interview
Collaboration Link 5: Begs the Question
Collaboration Link 6: Media Events
Successful bloggers are constantly trading ideas and talking about things.
Remember tonight is Tuesday Night Successful Blog Design Discussion Night.
Here are some more blog designs you might check out.
Living with Music about collecting music and all that goes with it.
I Remember about brief experiences and feelings.
A Venture Forth about venture capitalism.
Travel Dive about scuba diving.
Phil Renaud blog page “35 sexiest websites.”
Come if you can. If not it will be just Javier and me, figuring out how to comment on everyone’s blog.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles:
NEW————->> Cool Designs April 2006
Call for Designers
Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal
GAWKER Design: Curb Appeal as Customer-Centered Promotion
Turning Reluctant Readers into Loyal Fans
Blog Design Checklist