Why List Posts Make Good Content for Your Blog

January 6, 2012 By 8 Comments

Sometimes it is best to go into depth about a subject – focusing on only one or two aspects. However, another great way to cover a topic is to make a list post. List posts are popular because many readers want only a three to four sentence description of various options. We all tend to be busy people and we tend to scan content instead of reading it in depth.

Another value of lists posts is that list posts look neater. Each point is highlighted and easy to find and the descriptions are succinct and to the point. I am not suggestion that your blog should consist entirely of list posts, but this is a great way to bring traffic to your blog.

CopyBlogger suggests:

Any headline that lists a number of reasons, secrets, types, or ways will work because, once again, it makes a very specific promise of what’s in store for the reader. A nice quantifiable return on attention invested goes a long way toward prompting action, and as long as you deliver with quality content, you’ll have a satisfied reader.

If you don’t know where to start, the article 10 Steps to the Perfect List Post, by Ali Hale on ProBlogger.com will lead you in the right direction.

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Filed Under: Blogging Tips

Why Blog Events and Blog Giveaways are Beneficial to Your Blog

January 3, 2012 By 11 Comments

I have another blog that I have been working on for about four years. The traffic wasn’t so good. I tried using a variety of methods to get myself more traffic, but it just wasn’t where I wanted it to be. It was then that I discovered blog events. I had hosted small giveaways on my blog before, but I would only get a handful of participants. When I realized that I could partner with other blogs and we could drive traffic to each others blogs, I was thrilled.

How Blog Events Work

Blog Events/Giveaways are hosted by one or more blogs. There are basically two types of blog events: prize provided by hosts and prize provided by your blog.

  1. Prize Provided by Hosts: In this type of blog event, the hosts determine the prizes to be given away and the blogs participating pay a fee to the hosts that goes toward the prize (and sometimes towards administration fees). Each blog will get a number of social media links (such as FB, Twitter, Google +, GFC) on the giveaway form. When a participant fills out the giveaway form, they do certain tasks to gain entries into the giveaway. These tasks can provide likes to your blog’s Facebook Page, followers on Twitter and Friends on Google + or Google Friend Connect. Usually all of the blogs in the event include the giveaway form on their pages harnessing the power of their readers in providing more traffic and social media connections for your blog.
  2. Prize Provided by Blog: Some blog events/giveaways ask that you provided a prize for the event. This prize is given away on your own blog. You provide your own giveaway rules and decided what you want participants to do to enter the giveaway. The benefit is that there is a link list of blogs provided by the hosts that you included with your giveaway post. This link list allows participants to “hop” around to each of the blogs participating. You can gain more traffic and social medial connections as people visit your blog from other blogs on the list.

Sometimes hosts ask that you provided your own prize, but they will have a grand prize as well. There is usually a fee associated with these, but you are also allowed an entry for the grand prize.

Providing a Prize

It would be awfully expensive if you had to provided prizes for all of the events in which you participate. Instead, think about getting a sponsor for your prize. Contact companies that have products that you feel passionately about. Tell them about the blog event and how it will generate exposure for their product. Ask if they will donate one product for you to review and one for you to giveaway to your readers. Be prepared to tell them about your blog and your interests. You may have to contact a number of companies before you get a response.

Finding Blog Events

If you would like to participate in blog events, I have set up a database of blog events that I know about. Are you hosting a blog event? Fill out this form to be included in my Big List of Blog Events!

My Results

Before I started focusing on Blog Events and Giveaways, I had 100 Facebook Fans, 55 Google Friend Connect Friends and 125 Twitter Followers. I was only getting about 1,000 pageviews per month. Now I have close to 6,000 Facebook Fans, 2,000 Google Friend Connect Friends, 5,000 Twitter Followers and over 25,000 pageviews per month.

A Word of Warning

Getting involved in blog events and giveaways will give your blog a boost, however, you must also be focused on providing great content on your blog as well. Make sure that you also blog about things that interest you, products your like, recipes you have tried, or whatever you wish the focus of your blog to be. Good content is what is going to keep the numbers going!

Filed Under: Blog Events, Blogging Tips

TweetBacks Changes

January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

After writing my first post about TweetSuite and TweetBacks, I noticed that the graphics were not showing up.  To get the graphics to show on my blog I had to make a few changes to the TweetSuite.php file.

I changed the following lines:

$rt_this = WP_CONTENT_URL.’/plugins/’.plugin_basename(dirname(__FILE__)).’/rt_this.gif’;

to

$rt_this = ‘http://www.blogzentih.com/wp-content/plugins/TweetSuite/rt_this.gif’;

—————–

(file_exists(WP_CONTENT_URL.’/plugins/’.plugin_basename(dirname(__FILE__)).’/’.$fn)) {

to

(file_exists(wp-content.’/plugins/’.plugin_basename(dirname(__FILE__)).’/’.$fn)) {

____________________

$src=WP_CONTENT_URL.’/plugins/’.plugin_basename(dirname(__FILE__)).’/’.$fn;

to

$src=wp-content.’/plugins/’.plugin_basename(dirname(__FILE__)).’/’.$fn;

___________________

$src = WP_CONTENT_URL.’/plugins/’.plugin_basename(dirname(__FILE__)).”/rt-gif.php?count=$count”

to

$src = “http://www.blogzenith.com/wp-content/plugins/TweetSuite/rt-gif.php?count=$count”;

And then finally the graphic appeared on my site.  I am still looking into if I need to make more changes to the file.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With:

TweetBacks

January 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I have been using Twitter since November of 2007.  I have not been as consistent as I like with it, but have found it useful.  Now, I have found a new WordPress Plugin – TweetBacks.  TweetBacks are similar to Trackbacks.  Instead of listing the blogs that list to a post, it lists the Tweets to a post.

You can include this line of code from Dan Zarella, the developer:

<script src=”http://danzarrella.com/tb.js”></script>

You can style how the list appears with CSS like this:

#tweetbacks {
font-size:12px;
}
#tweetbacks li {
padding-bottom:5px;
}

Or, you can install his new TweetSuite Plugin. The plugin includes the following features:

* Server-side (no-JS or remote calls) TweetBacks
* ReTweet-This buttons for each TweetBack
* A digg-like Tweet-This Button
* Automatic Tweeting of new posts
* A Most-Tweeted Widget
* A Recently-Tweeted Widget
* A My-Last-Tweets Widget
* A My-Favorited-Tweets Widget

Unzip the plugin and then copy the folder to your wp-content directory on your server.  Activate the plugin and then click on TweetSuite under settings.  This is where you can customize your TweetSuite Settings.  You can see the items that I checked:

TweetSuite

Next, head on over to your Design tab and add the Widgets you want on your side bar.  I have added Recently Tweeted and My Tweets to my sidebar.

Go ahead, Tweet this post and see if it appears in the TweetBacks!

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With:

The StumbleUpon Graveyard

November 26, 2008 By 4 Comments

I have been working my way through Caroline Middlebrook’s StumbleUpon course (unfortunately her course is no longer available) and have found it very useful. However, before I knew too much about StumbleUpon, I made a very grave mistake and now one of my blogs is in the StumbleUpon Graveyard.

If you have downloaded the StumbleUpon toolbar, you will find a very convenient thumbs up (or thumbs down) button. Click on this button and another window opens up for you to submit the website if it is not already submitted. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT click on CANCEL! This will send the post to the StumbleUpon graveyard and it will receive zero traffic, even if another stumbler finds the post and gives it a thumbs up!

How to you avoid getting into a page in the StumbleUpon graveyard? First, if you hit the thumbs up, always follow through and write the review. Second, make sure you are using the latest toolbar. Third, you might want to consider asking others to Stumble by putting a StumbleUpon symbol on the post. If they don’t know what they are doing, the page could end up in the graveyard.

StumbleUpon can give your blog or website lots of traffic, just be careful when using this great tool!

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Linking Tagged With: ,
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