I sent this in response to a post by David Farland called “Nobody Wants to Read Your Blog”. Farland runs an e-mail list which is simply awesome and highly recommended (Comment if you want info on how to subscribe to his list). This is a list of helpful tips for writers looking to draw people to their blogs

Anyways, here it is:

I’ve studied blogs fairly extensively because I create them in my night job as a webdesigner. Here’s a brief list of things that I tell clients.

• Write regularly. Not everyone subscribes to your blog via e-mail or a feedreader. If you publish content, publish it on a specific day of the week (say, Friday). That way people will know when to look for new content. It’s a truism that the more articles you write, the more your blog will get read. All the top blogs (Boing Boing, Whatever, Engaget) post upwards of five times a day. You don’t have to write that much. Aim for once a week, and then gradually aim for more.
  
• Become an authority. Concentrate on a few topics, and become a resource for them. For example, on my blog www.withoutreallytrying.com, I’ve added a page which centralizes all of the important Writers of the Future related articles and resources I could find on the web, and I am doing the same thing for Clarion West. When people search for these topics, I show up on page three of a google search (and climbing).
• Have a hook. A hook is something that will draw people to your site (for me, it’s a win in Writers of the Future, but it could be anything that separates you from the herd). People just don’t want to read about your recent rejections, or even your semi-pro sales–more specifically, it’s not that they don’t want to read about it, it’s just that there’s so many places they can already read about rejection, that they don’t need to go to your blog.
• Become part of a community. Go to well read blogs like Whatever or Jeff Vandermeer’s blog, or even Mamatas’ Nihilistic Kid and make intelligent comments on a regular basis. People will click on your name and follow it back to your site if they like what you have to say on these blogs.
• SEO your blog (and make it look appealing).
  • No ugly colours, and at least one picture with every article.
  • Exchange links with every author friend you know.
  • Make it easy to subscribe to your blog with a “Call to Action” right out front (a subscribe button for instance).
  • Get listed on Technorati and other big directories like DMoz. Make sure Google and Yahoo can find your blog.
  • Enlist a site designer to create a sitemap and add meta tags with keywords you want to target, as well as making sure your blog is pinging the right directories.
  • If you’re on WordPress, you can add widgets that rebroadcast your content to your LiveJournal, Facebook, and even twitter accounts.
  • Set up some Google Alerts (they’re free) on your name, and your blog’s name so that you’ll be notified immediately when someone posts about you, so that you can respond professionally and courteously (that’s key. Flame wars kill reputations and sometimes careers).

Now, it’s important to note that if your blog takes away from your writing time, DON’T BLOG. Always remember that the goal is to have your blog work for you, not the other way around. If you’re not writing, you’re not getting paid. This is the reason I haven’t done an all out push on my own blog. I’m too busy writing a book!

Tags: blogging