Blogging like a pro

I bet lots of WfHW readers have your own blog, either to support your business or to connect with other people who share your interests. Often what happens is that you start off really keen and gradually lose a bit of enthusiasm as the readers and feedback don’t turn up in quite the way you hoped. The world of blogging changes fast, like the rest of the internet.

I’ve been talking to a few bloggers recently and thought I’d pass on

5 current issues affecting your blogging:

1. The keywords you started out with might be in decline and you’d do better finding other related keywords.That’s certainly the case with ‘work from home’, which presumably isn’t being searched for as much now it’s becoming so common. You can check out keyword trends and compare related keywords on Google Trends.

2. Google algorithm changes come along regularly and often dramatically shake up the results on the all-important first few pages. Being high up now is no guarantee that you’ll stay there forever, so it’s a good idea to think of ways you could rely less heavily on Google for traffic.

3. For example, collaboration with a high quality related site in your niche will help you both and give extra value to your readers. I’ve swapped banners with Shedworking, and The Garden Room Guide has just placed a banner* on one of its pages for me (scroll down), and I’ll be returning the favour shortly. No money involved, just a nice example of collaboration between webmasters with an interest in home offices.

4. And of course getting clever with social media can boost your visitors, although it takes time and experimentation to work out what works for your audience. I’ve always found I get far more traffic from Twitter than Facebook, but I’m told that’s normal, so don’t despair if you’re in the same boat. I’m very lucky to have my partner A to help me out, and the good news is he’s also available to you for blogging and social media coaching!

5. Comments are one of the benchmarks by which we tend to judge blogs and I know lots of bloggers would like to increase the numbers of comments they get. Well, I wish I knew how! In my opinion people are much less likely to comment now than they used to be – we’re all so blasé now about seeing our names and opinions all over the web.

The big hitters will always get lots of comments – a) because people want the quality link, and b) because of the reflected glory of a presence on a popular site. To comment on a less prestigious site people need to feel really engaged, and that is very difficult to engineer.

In my experience the posts I think are a sure-fire winner generate no attention at all, whereas those that seem less compelling get lots of comment and interest. But you can’t use that as a rule either. After all, if there was a formula for things to go viral we’d all use it!

Maybe social media activity is more important than comments now anyway. You can always do a follow-up post sharing the responses you got on Twitter and Facebook (don’t forget to favourite tweets so you don’t lose them as your Twitterstream rolls ever onward!)

Are you happy with the progress of your blog or do you wonder if anyone out there is reading it?

Have you been clobbered by an algorithm change? What did you do about it?

If you know someone who runs a business online, please share this post with them – thank you.

* If the home office on the banner looks familiar, it’s because it belongs to our guest blogger Francesca Geens of Digital Dragonfly. You can see more of it at the bottom of Home Offices Gallery 3 and in Francesca’s review of whiteboard paint. Thank you, Francesca, for allowing your home office to become a supermodel 🙂