Tuesday 30 August 2011

A Blog Post about Blogging

It seems a bit weird to blog about blogging, and to be honest there are loads of resources out there to help you improve your blog, and to get it "out there". I am so excited that at the moment there seem to be more blogs springing up than ever, and so many of these are showcasing the life of a premature baby, and I think that's exciting.

So, a blog post about blogging. I started my blog on Blogger for one simple reason. That is what my sister used, and as a regular reader I felt comfortable with Blogger. One of the main other options is Wordpress, which has enhanced functionality, and I think, a slightly better look to it. Some really clever people go self hosted, using either Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org which gives higher functionality again. I have considered it, but I like to spend my time blogging and supporting my blog through social networking, and haven't got the brainspace or technical expertise to do it myself. So I am quite happy plugging away as is, for now. I did look into hiring someone to help me set up, but the cost was prohibitive.

A lot of people ask, how do you promote your blog? Initially I didn't promote it much I just typed away, and put the odd post on Facebook. I also put the link on a couple of forums that I visit regularly. Eventually I joined Twitter, and started tweeting my posts. However just tweeting posts isn't enough, and I will talk a bit more about Twitter. I also joined Networked Blogs, which I think is very nifty, every time you post it publishes it to Facebook and Twitter without you having to lift a finger, which I find really useful. The bulk of my readers come to be from Networked Blogs.

I have learned, the exceedingly hard way, that it is important to label your posts, for two important reasons. Firstly readers can click on topics they are interested in and find related posts. Secondly, it enhances Google's ability to find you. I am quite proud that my Google hits have gone up since I painstakingly labelled posts I had neglected to do. So if your new to blogging, label. Don't put it off!

Twitter is a great blogging tool, but it is time consuming. Just putting your posts on there can help a bit but the best thing to do is to support that by reaching out and making friends, starting conversation and joining in. I've found a huge community of people on Twitter, and its a great way to get your message out there, and to keep it relevant to what people are talking about.

There are increasing ways to measure your online influence such as Peerindex and Klout. In addition regular readers will notice I have joined the Tots 100 and Wikio indexes. I did this for one reason, to track my own performance. I don't see blogging as a competition sport. I love to blog, but to be honest, one thing I miss about working, is being measured. It takes me by suprise as I hated being listened to and scored on calls at work, and appraisals leave me cold, but I wanted a way of measuring how I was doing as a blogger.

And, that's one of the reasons I use a few tools rather than one, they all have their limitations, and to be honest, at the end of the day, if my blog has helped one person to come to terms with the premature birth of their baby, then I am happy, and my job is done. The measures are just a bit of fun, and also to keep me accountable.

If your blogging already, what are your top tips? If you haven't blogged I hope I have inspired you to give it ago!


12 comments:

  1. Hi Kylie,

    I'm a very recent newbie and this post is very helpful. Thank you. I found your blog a week or so ago, and have been visiting recently. Your birth story was beautifully written, and brought a tear to my eye. I've enjoyed reading, and once I have actually worked out how to follow someone.. I will be following you :0)

    Claire (aka Mummy Plum)

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  2. Thank you for visiting, please feel free to post the link to your blog here. It's all a bit daunting to start with, but it does get easier. The birth story was hard to write, I am glad you enjoyed it.

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  3. In all honesty tots100 will not help you see your blogging performance! It's not popular with many people who work in media and understand rankings.

    Any kind of ranking site is pretty lame in my opinion and the best tool you can use to view your blogging pedormance and influence has to be google analytics and alexa.

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  4. That sounds all very hard- it was meant to be helpful my lovely xx

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  5. Thanks Fi, this post was aimed at new bloggers who are doing it for a hobby, like me. I'm not working with media/PR so haven't gone into that level of detail. But thank you for commenting for those who are looking at blogging in more depth.

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  6. Hi kylie, thanks for this post. I started a blog at the beginning of July, having read your many informative posts I was inspired to give it a go myself, mainly for therapeutic purposes.
    Despite all the new blogs about at the moment, yours does remain the mother of all blogs as it's consistent, informative, sensitive and sensible!
    My blog lingers shyly in the background only to be stumbled upon by the odd random, but I don't mind this so much, I'm not sure I could cope with the pressure of a huge following, it might bring on a case of writers block.
    One thing that does annoy me about blog spot is how hard it is for readers to leave comments, I tire of seeing a big fat zero next to my comments section!!

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  7. Great post, and some really good tips for getting it read by a wider audience. I've got a really new blog, and was considering some of those ideas so am certainly going to look into those. Can I put your blog on my blog roll?

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  8. Thank you for your kind comments. That's how I started too, just blogging away without really sharing, as I got more confident, I started joining stuff.

    When it works, Disqus that you are using here, is fab, as it makes it a bit easier, people can sign in with twitter or facebook.

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  9. Thanks for writing this. I've recently started a blog about my little girl. She was born at 27 weeks on my wedding night, of all nights. Trouble from the start lol

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  10. Wow talk about making an entrance! What's the link to your blog Kayleigh?

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