5 Ways to Become a Better Blogger

By Jonathan Walker

It never hurts to go back over the basics of blogging, something all the more important today as bloggers abandon their sites in favor of Facebook. You can make your site stand out, providing a respite for web users who are weary of all the social media noise.

1. Customize

A blog should not just be a blank web page with your thoughts scribbled on it. No, a blog is how you express yourself. It is how you choose to show what is important to you to the whole world. When you design your blog, make sure you customize it to better represent who you are and what messages you want to get across. For example, if your blog is about living green in an eco unfriendly world, you may not want to have a plain black background template with boring fonts for your text. Make it yours! And make sure that your post-customization product is readable and fun to look at.

2. Post

It may seem like a given, but remembering to post articles is a big boost to your blog readership. Many bloggers start out on their first blog swearing that they will post every day. In a few months they have fallen rather short of that goal, disappointing readers and themselves. For your blog, be sure that you pick a blogging schedule that you know you can stick to. If you are busier than others, tell readers upfront that you will only post something once a week. That way readers won’t simply believe that you are lazy or don’t care about what you’re doing.

3. Comments

When your readers comment, I’m sure you read them. But even more important that checking on those comments that they post is communicating with them further. If a reader has taken the time to read a post and to comment on it, the least you as the blogger can do is to let them know that their comment is appreciated and that you encourage them to keep reading and interacting. This is important to the readers, and readers are important to the success of the blog.

4. Guest Posts and Themes

One good way to shake things up a bit if your blog is becoming stale is to get a guest blogger to post send you an article. A featured guest blogger of the month may be a fun way to get a fresh voice out to your readers. It may even excite them that they may be chosen as your guest blogger one month. Also, try having a theme to each week or month. This will give people something new to think about and will add structure and excitement to your articles and topics.

5. Interaction

Finally, be careful what you post about. Though readers generally love to hear about what is going on in the blogger’s life, it is always nice for them to be able to express how their lives and situations relate to yours. When you write a blog post, be sure that you make some part of the post interactive. Inspire thought; ask questions; maybe even play the devil’s advocate once in a while. This leaves readers with the sense that they are not only spectators, but that they are actually significant contributing members to the success of the blog.

Author Information

Jonathan Walker is a blogger and writer for Car Insurance Comparison. Over there he most recently wrote about New Jersey Car Insurance.

Guest Bloggers Now Have An Ally

How many of you write guest articles for other blogs or websites? I must admit I have written only two guest posts in the past year. I’ve been so busy working on my own projects that I have not put much effort into soliciting other blogs to offer my contributions.

But that may soon change.

Thanks to a new site launched in November 2009—My Blog Guest—I may be doing some more guest writing. The more immediate plan, however, is that I will begin to allow people to  contribute to four of my blogs, opening up this site, Auto Trends, and a pair of customer owned blogs.

Ann Smarty started My Blog Guest, someone whose name should be familiar to people who run with the SEO crowd. I am not sure how long I’ve been following Ann, but I remember finding links to her articles on Sphinn–the internet marketing site–which launched in 2007.

Last week I found a wonderful guest article Ann wrote and contributed to Daily Writing Tips where she explained how people can find guest writing opportunities. Though that article was immensely helpful and encouraged me to tweak some of the information on my blogs to attract guest bloggers, the best part is that Ann founded My Blog Guest as a way to bring like-minded people together.

My Blog Guest serves to connect people who would like to write guest posts as well as help bloggers find these people. By joining the site you can search for bloggers by tag or category or go to the forum and find direct solicitations. One forum is dedicated to help you find guest bloggers, another one allows you to post your information, while there are three other sections set up for introducing yourself to the community, asking for help, and general chat.

So why guest post? For several reasons including getting your name out there and gaining one or two backlinks to your site. Sure, the latter can be exploited therefore make sure that you and your guest have everything understood clearly before proceeding. If you are looking for a guest blogger you will want someone who writes well, contributes unique work, and can add value to your site.

That last requirement is why I haven’t used too many guest bloggers on my customer’s two blogs as the quality of most posts did not measure up. Naturally, that is one reason why you will want to see samples of the blogger’s work first.

My Blog Guest is all about unpaid opportunities, so if you are looking for paid freelance work, then you will need to look elsewhere.