Successful Blog

2.2 A Reign with Purpose

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Interview with Ellen

2.2 A Reign with Purpose

Interview with: Ellen
Her Blog: The Reign of Ellen
URL: thereignofellen.blogspot.com
Her initial purpose: to share her cartoons and to connect with other media junkies
Things to note when you visit: the open spirit of community; the royal gallery; the multiple kinds of interactivity; the connection between Ellen and her readers; how the open, friendly, design supports the concept; the special features and unique ideas

Ellen had been blogging for almost two years, when she decided it was time for a new beginning. That’s how The Reign of Ellen came to be.

How did you decide on a name for the new blog?

I’ve actually been blogging for several years. My former blog was Sugar In The Raw. After I had my daughter last February, I decided that I wanted a fresh start. On my old blog, I had just written a post about taking over the finances from my spendy husband. I was calling the new financial regime, “The Reign of Ellen.” One of my readers suggested that would be a good name for a blog, and so I yoinked the idea.

What made you start the new blog?

I feel like I’ve had two eras of blogging, each with a different focus.

Sugar In The Raw was simply an online journal of my life. I’ve probably filled up about fifty journals since I was 16 years old, and blogging was an extension to that habit.

With The Reign of Ellen, I wanted to create an “Ellen playground” I wanted a place to share my cartoons with other moms, to get feedback . . . and crack jokes with other media junkies.

Ellen Cave Cartoon

From Sugar in the Raw to The Reign of Ellen, Ellen’s purpose for blogging shifted. It went from maintaining an online journal to sharing her cartoons and her sense of humor with other moms and media junkies.

Do you think that Ellen is meeting her purpose of making a playground to share with like minded readers?

Like-minded readers . . . what do you have in common with your readers? Is your purpose their purpose? Should it be? When should you and your readers have a common purpose? When should you have a purpose different from your readers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blog Hooks that Bring Readers Back

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Since this is Building Readership Week at Successful Blog, I have to share this with you.

Some posts are a 10 out of 10. Darren Rowse’s post Blog Hooks – Elements that Draw Readers Back is one of them. In it he lays out the qualities that hook readers into becoming devoted fans. He says

We are blogging in a context where there are literally millions of blogs, in some niches there are hundreds (if not thousands) of alternatives for people to read. Successful blogs do something that makes them distinct from the rest.

They are not ‘just another blog on ((insert topic here))’ – they are ‘the blog that….((insert ‘hook’ here))’

He then lists what he thinks are the seven most intriguing hooks for readers.

  • personality of the blogger
  • design element
  • readers participation and community
  • thought leading content
  • latest news
  • practical tips
  • readership levels

Some appeal to readers who are thinkers. Some appeal to readers who are feelers. All tell readers that their time is well invested. Every one in some way tells readers this is a quality experience.

Imagine a blog that has 3 or more of Darren’s “hooks.” How could a reader leave without planning to return?

Sometimes you have to say, “I wish I wrote that.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Directory Listings as Blog Promotion

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The blog looks great. You’ve been through the Blog Review Checklist. You’ve got several posts with great titles and compelling content–to let readers know you’ll be around, when they come back. Now it’s time to let people know that you exist.

List your blog in the Blog Directories. Which ones? All of them–every one that you can find the smallest reason to. Listing is a slightly longer and more involved task than changing phone companies. However if you take the time, your work will last for the life of your blog.

Prepare a document with the following information before you start. Keep this document. It’s your blog’s biography. You’ll have reason to use it as your blog makes friends and influences people.

  • Your username Pick one with no spaces. Many directories and forums require that, and no one needs too many usernames.
  • Your email address This email address will get directory updates and be used for verifications. You may want it separate from your personal email address. You’ll need a system to keep track of directory correspondence. Much of the login/password email that you want to keep will have subject lines that start with blog-something.
  • Your password I’m sure you know the cautions and rules about passwords.
  • The name of your blog Be sure that you have the spelling, spacing, and everything about the name exactly as you want it. Some directories make it difficult to go back to change it later.
  • The URL This is http:// (nameofmyblog) .com
  • The feed Some directories will ask for your RSS or XML feed. You should be able to find that address within your blogware documentation. It will look like your URL with an extension.
  • The description Though you’re probably anxious to get done, don’t hurry through this one. This is your advertising, and it will be out there a long time. Again, in some places you may not be able to change it later. Make two versions one under 150 words and one under 300 words. Some directories have stricter length limits.
  • Keywords Choose keywords that readers would use to look for a blog like yours. Review them to make certain that they’re not so broad that they apply to every blog, or so narrow that only you would know them.

Then start with one of the lists below. Approach the task as suits your nature. I did a few every day until I was done. That way I could work on writing and do things on other parts of my blog too.

Here are three blog directory lists to get you started. As with all things on the Internet, Directories may have changed since these lists were compiled.

Google’s Blog Directory List

Robin Good’s RSS Top55 – Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites

Free Web Directory List From Smiley Cat

–“ME “Liz” Strauss

Intra-Linking as Promotion

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Do you know Yaro Starak’s blog, Entrepreneur’s Journey? I follow it because he’s always testing things. I dropped by today looking for something on search engine optimization and found the most-like Yaro tip.

Yaro calls it intra-linking. He places keyword links at the bottom of each page. These key content words link to other pages in his blog. He chooses words that he uses often in his entries.

The idea is that this will get search engines to fully spider his blog.

It’s a short post, and an easy thing to try. The post is called A SEO tip.

He also offers up a link to SEO CHAT which I’ve copied here in case his blog catches fire one day.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blogger Forums as Promotion

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Blogger forums are a great place for networking. It’s amazing what we can learn just by showing up and participating. Enthusiastic learners and generous teachers are attractive human beings. We draw others to us, and every good-natured, authentic interaction is one step to relationship building. Nothing out does the fast-pace give-and-take of a blog forum for teaching-learning, story-swapping, and bloggy brainstorming.

There are some great benefits to becoming a member of a blog forum in my niche.

  • Forums offer a chance to gain visibility, form relationships, and establish a reputation for what I know. Serious blogger forums are like mini-seminars. They’re a great place to ask and answer questions. The very act of participating lets people know that I’m out there and willing to help. People who like what I say might stop by my blog for more, and I’ll have a place I can go to when I run into a bind that is over my head.
  • Talking about my blog is a natural part of the conversation. What would be shameless self-promotion in other venues is using examples in the context of my forum. Pointing a forum friend to an article on my blog that meets their need is something they say thank you for.
  • Leaving a signature link when you enter a thread can be common practice. I realize that I’m joining a group that has it’s own protocols. I look at how others sign their names before I make my signature. If the forum is a good match, I try to have posts in five or six threads. For the first day or two in Forum Land, I do as the forumers do. (In editorial we call that 2.3rds of a pun–p-u).
  • Some forums ask me to introduce myself and my blog. I take those opportunities very seriously and pull together three important points–the purpose of my blog, a little of my strategy, and what I think readers come to see. I chose those three because I want the forum to know me as a multi-faceted thinker who takes blogging seriously.
  • Search engines see forums as a hotbed of content. When the bots come they find plenty of tag-relevant words being used, my link in that mix gets indexed too.

Some forums may be part of an association, directory, a webring, club, or alliance. These groups offer the advantages of a forum and additional opportunities to network with people about your blog. They might even offer opportunities in which you plan blog promotion events together.

Whenever I start out in a new forum, I keep in mind that I’m building new relationships and a new reputation. I take care not to bring out my complete sense of humor too soon or too often, because I want to be taken seriously, and I want the people I meet to know I take them seriously as well.

Don’t join just any forum look around and be choosy. Find one that will be a mutually-beneficial experience for you and its members. Also read Hart’s comment after Blog Promotion Basics [for Everyone]â€? to find out how he learned that the wrong forum is worse than being in none.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Title Tags and a Poem to Technorati

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I promised you a Tuesday post on tags and this is it. One thing this successful blogger knows is that you don’t tell your readers that you’re going to do something and then not follow through with it. I’m following through with it.

When I started getting my notes together, I knew something about tags. I had put keywords deftly in my template just as Darren Rowse describes in his article, The Importance of Title Tags in Search Engine Optimization. In fact, I had done things so much like he had, I’d done the same things wrong.

This post explains the importance of title tags in how search engines look at our blogs. Darren added a two-word term to his. Then he graphed what happened. In just three days, his position on that term at Google changed from 65th to 10th. On MSN, his listing went from 40th to 1st. The comments that follow the article also add some new information, including how to respond gracefully when you mess up your host’s template.

Now for something completely different–a poem to Technorati Tags.

Oh Technorati
you fickle one
you really had me going
thinking if I chased enough
I might find solid ground.
But your faint mystery
was finally unraveled
when I found Improbulus
who carefully explained how the
premise is structurally unsound.

In other words, I found a post by a writer named Improbulus, Technorati tags: an introduction that provides everything you’d ever want to know about tags with a capital T and probably more.

I’m a saturation learner, so I found it fascinating to see exactly how the Technorati system might be used. Improbulus provides subheads to guide us through this well-organized analysis of the possibilities. Be sure to read the end where Improbulus gives an opinion of the downside of the system.

–ME “Liz” Strauss