Note: This can apply to any new blogger but since I use WordPress, I am specifying WordPress bloggers.
New bloggers have approached me for my secret to blogging. I don’t have one. There is no secret to blogging. At least not one that I know of.
Let me start by saying that I never consider the information I give advice. What happens is that the information, (proving helpful to bloggers) is referred to as advice simply because of those who find it useful and valuable and for this I am thankful. As for me, I am just sharing what has worked or is working, my experiences and recommendations but nothing is set in stone.
That said, there’s no step A and step B to how to build up a blog. I receive decent traffic and new subscribers are coming in daily but understand that this has taken me three years to build. I started out with no likes or comments just like you. I started with little to no traffic just like you. I am no one special.
Recently, many of you have emailed me asking questions based on my blog posts. I find this humbling and I hope this post is helpful to you.
Positioning
If you are wanting to be a successful blogger, writer, business person or anything in life, then you must put yourself in a position to be successful. We know that success is a definition that can mean different things to different people but in context, I assume we all want:
Increased Blog Traffic, Increased Views, Increased Subscribers
Basically, we all want someone to read our work and to care. That is where being in position comes in.
My husband loves gardening. He’s a green thumb. You may assume I am because I’m a woman and you would be wrong. In fact, I am not very “girly” in that sense. I don’t care for pink, I don’t wish to spend three hours shopping and I’m not into gardening. At least not like that. Moshe (hubby) on the other hand, loves to plant. I love it that he does too because we have fresh tomatoes and herbs that I love cooking with. Anyway, he set up a garden on our enclosed back porch. I’m telling you, the man can grow anything (he can even start from a plastic cup). Because of how our back porch is made, he sets pots out to catch the rain water. Rain water as we’ve come to understand, makes plants grow as if they are on steroids. It could be because rain water is clean. That is, water free from chemical additives, such as chlorine or salt. We’ve been getting lots of rain. Here’s our tomato plant:
Tomato Plant after the rain.
It’s almost too big for the small space. This would not have happened if we had not put the buckets in position to catch the fresh water (which is when it grew like crazy).
Being in position is all about being prepared for whatever comes. Having the cup on the table when the water comes, your hands open and stretched out when the football arrives. It’s about being ready to receive what it is that you want.
If you’re not ready to receive then you will not have what it takes to hold onto what you do get or to expand into something greater. Positioning ourselves for success is a challenge because it requires discipline and time. You can be in position for a long time before you see results.
Examples of Positioning
If you are getting traffic to your blog but there’s no follow button, then people will not subscribe to your blog. You cannot receive new subscribers because you are not prepared to receive them. In this instance, it has nothing to do with your writing abilities. It is not about posting as much as you can or speaking as intelligently as you can. This is why blogging is not just writing. Writing is one thing but all of these other elements is blogging. In this instance, you are not increasing your numbers because you are not in a position to increase them. You do not have the one thing that can guarantee followers: a follow button.
When you go into your WP dashboard and add tags to your post, these are not to make it look pretty but they actually serve a purpose. Tags act as keywords that help increase traffic and engagement to your blog. By ignoring adding tags and categories to your post, you are leaving traffic on the table (or if your blog is monetized, money but since my blog is not monetized, I will leave that for someone else to discuss). Having a tagging system is another reason why blogging is not just writing. Writing is writing but to blog successfully there are other things that must be done. These “other things” are things like tags and categories.
If your tagging sucks like mine did in the beginning then you can be losing out on views but don’t go overboard. Personally, twenty and thirty tags to a post are not necessary.
A better system is to remember that tags are like keywords that readers would potentially search for. Think about fifteen that you want to use on your post, with a category acting as a tag so fourteen tags, one category. Of these 15 some of them should be tags that are overly used. Words like Blog, Blogger, WordPress, Writing, and Poetry. These tags are used a lot and can be helpful in people finding your blog.
I will tell you now, I am no SEO (Search Engine Optimization) expert at all but I do not believe you have to be. I have read that Tags don’t impact the SEO (meaning its more so keywords used within the post itself), but based on my own search experience I can tell you that it does help improve SEO when you have multiple articles with relevant content linked by the same tag. For example:
Say you just wrote an amazing piece on “The Best Cheeseburgers Ever.” When someone opens Google and types “Recipes for Ground Beef”, (as I often do that’s why I am using this as an example lol) in this example recipes and ground beef are tags you may have included in your post about “The Best Cheeseburgers Ever”. Searching using these words, I just may find your article if you post a lot about recipes which leads me to your blog and, if I like what I see, I will follow your blog (if there’s a way for me to do so).
Another example is if I’m a reader who wants to scroll through your blog. If you have a search bar, you just made this easy for me. Using the search bar on your blog, I can type in words and the post containing those words will come up. I can easily access that post, read it and possibly share it with others. Just by adding a search bar, you’ve just gotten yourself in position for more views.
A real life example: I wrote a blog post two years ago on voting. Because this past Presidential Election was so different, that post got thousands of Facebook shares and counting. It took two years but the post was in position for the traffic it received (although I couldn’t foresee it). This is why I said it can take a long time to see results but being ready is always worth it.
Mostly, categories and tags allow visitors to easily browse related posts with the primary purpose of augmenting the user experience.
As you can see, content (your writing) is just part of how this works. It wasn’t just your writing alone that led me to your blog but a combination of things.
What I want you to see here is that because you were ready for me, I was capable of following your blog with no problem. You were in a position to receive me.
This same thing can be said of about pages and even the WordPress theme you choose. If your text is hard to read (too bright, too small, too fancy) people won’t want to read what you have to say. Why? Because you have not prepared them.
It is said that we have attention spans of goldfish. One vibration, text, or email alert and our internet addictions lead us elsewhere. In nothing short of seconds someone can forget all about you. For this reason, blogging is more than pushing the publishing button, you also have to be ready to receive the traffic you seek.
If you are a new blogger struggling to receive the kind of traffic you want or are having difficulty navigating the blog in general, I want to help you get into position. Ifyou would like me to take a look at your blog and offer feedback, I have set up a separate mailing list specifically for blogging.
In the meantime, I have added the links to some of my most helpful blog articles on blogging for those of you new to this blog. I have determined their value based on the feedback they have received so that I know these links are helpful to you. This goes back a couple years so excuse any information that is outdated. I have not gone through them to edit.
Don’t forget to Thunderclap! I am twenty people away (at the time of this writing) from my goal. It’s free and SUPER easy to participate- click THIS LINK and then click “support with Facebook” or “support with Twitter” or “support with Tumblr” or all three if you are feeling obliged. Thanks so much in advance!
Are you speaking your goals into existence or waiting for a miracle to happen? You are the miracle! Speak it. Believe it. Act on it. Receive it. Thanks Sue for having me.
This picture was taken last year at a restaurant in Atlanta. I had just finished a book signing for the release of Book 3 in The Stella Trilogy and was to act in the stage-play Blakk Amerika: From Prophets to Pimps the next day. Hungry, me and two sisters decided to sneak off from the group and grab a bite. This is me posing with the daughter of one of the sisters with me.
This picture is significant because it is at this dinner that I explained my vision for my next book, Nora’s story. The ladies were encouraging as we discussed our thoughts on The Harlem Renaissance movement and the ideas for the book. I wanted to create an environment where the character would, literally, interact with history. What if you were seventeen years old and had the chance to be in the presence of such persons as Langston…
– A woman who chooses to stay home either to raise children or not is not suffering from an identity crisis. She has not lost sight of who she is as a person and what she wants just because she chooses not to break the glass ceiling. Staying home does not mean watching TV all day and spending eight hours in the kitchen. Instead, it gives women a chance to be creative and to pursue dreams they probably never thought possible. With time on their hands and the financial support of their men, these women go out into the community to volunteer and get involved in all sorts of creativity. They are proud to spend all day with their children or their husband if they have no children and to prepare healthy meals for their families. These are the women who do not stuff small mouths with junk food and candy. They take their time purchasing only the choicest goods, they cook and they clean. These undervalued skills contribute largely to the physical, spiritual, and psychological development of the youth. Children who are fed well and loved well can better focus at school among other things. In short, these women are not bored just because they choose the one career underappreciated the most in this society: Family.
Submission = Abuse
The image at the start of this post is very disturbing to me. Even more disturbing is that we believe this is what submission is because the Ads, TV commercials, and Hollywood movies told us so. A woman who submits to her man is not being abused by him. Abuse can happen in any relationship at any time, it has nothing to do with submission itself. Because abuse can happen to anyone at anytime it is critical that women understand their value and their worth before trying to find it in a man. You are what you attract and no one, man or woman, who has not learned to love themselves first has any business trying to love anyone else. That said, a wife who submits to a husband simply respects him and his decisions within the family structure as head of her household. It does not mean that the woman is weak or is in any way less capable of leading. Submission simply means to be in agreement because no family can thrive if the house is divided. All parties must be on one accord and as a man’s natural position is to lead, he handles this role well. By nature women are attracted to men in who they see strength. While it is natural for women to get caught up in the everyday life of children and work her love and attention to the man should not cease. I like to call this “Keeping the Spark”. A man who gets this kind of attention from his woman gives it right back (that is if he is a man) and is less likely to seek it elsewhere. Otherwise, it will be difficult for that man to thrive in a home in which his own woman doubts him. The contented face of a happy man has no equal. By happy I am not referring to sex. Though important, sex is not marriage but a part of it. A man provides more than sex and money but leadership, guidance, and discipline for our children. In the 1960s Black marriages were at its best. Black men accepted their roles as natural leaders and black women followed. We stood by them, we supported them, and our homes thrived.
She is Unhappy
The problem here is that we have devalued the role of the wife and mother; as if there is a position higher than this. Being a stay-at-home wife or mother is a prestigious position, one that no Hollywood job or high-class position will ever be able to fulfill. Not all women are made to fit this role nor do all women want to and that’s their business. But for those who do, they are not unhappy and depressed just because they choose to treat their men like Kings and make leaders of their children. More wives would keep their husbands if they understood one simple truth: treat him as if he is the most important man in all the world. As far as you are concerned, this man can rule the world with you by his side. There is no man like your man. Is this not how you want to feel? Like you’re the one woman who can rule the world? That you are queen? Why would he want anything different than to be lavished by the woman he loves? When a man feels like he can conquer the world, he will.
Got something short and to the point for you this month on The Story Reading Ape Blog (because next month is eck! Release month!…but I digress…lol) With every book I write I learn something new. Here are 15 things I’ve learned so far in my journey.
I’ve been writing for eighteen years now and publishing books for ten. Over the years I have learned so much. Sometimes it can be overwhelming as you’ll begin to feel as if you are always two steps behind. That’s how I’ve felt lately. There’s so much to learn and to understand that I often feel I’ll never know enough. Then I realized that’s the whole point. The person who stops learning is an empty person.
I present to you 15 things I’ve learned so far in my journeys. It was difficult to downsize to a 15-item list but I managed it. The top five things are the last five at the bottom. It will seem that some of these things should be further down the line. That’s because the most important lessons I’ve learned are not about just writing alone but also how I’ve changed or grown as a person…
Since I spoke about blog comments yesterday, it’s only appropriate that I share this article on Spam. Not all comments are good comments. Liz shows how to identify a Spam comment and what to do.
After writing about keeping people engaged with our blogs last week, I started thinking about those people we DON’T want to engage with – spammers. In the first part of this series I’ll talk about why people might spam comment on a blog and why we shouldn’t allow them to. I’ll move on to discuss how to identify a spam comment, and then how to deal with them.
What is a spam comment on a blog?
A spam comment is a comment that isn’t relevant to the blog post it’s commenting on and is placed simply to encourage people to click through to the website the spammer is promoting. At its “best”, this is used to promote a website, usually by a third party, but at worst, it could link to a dodgy site that could contain malware or viruses.
Wondering how many revisions you should make before submitting to the professionals? Technically, as many as you want but I found this article most helpful. I love how they break it down into steps so it’s not overly complicated. I also like the idea of self-editing / revising twice then submitting the third draft to betas, and then revising once more after that. I also love the rules for Betas. Check out the post at the link below!
(BTW, it’s not a good idea to publish a 1st draft. A first draft is after you’ve finished writing the story for the first time and it has not been revised or self-edited before being submitted to an editor.)
The PBS Blog 