1 Read a good blogging book
2 Post every day
In my opinion.
Firstly, you will get into the habit of daily writing, which is the most useful habit a writer can have.
Secondly, after a year or two, you will find writing becomes swift and easy. After two years of daily blogging, I can get a first draft of a post in 20 minutes, and get it revised and posted with an image and links within an hour. Not always, but very often.
Thirdly, the surest way to get loyal readers is if people can come to your blog daily, knowing there will be something somewhat interesting and thought-provoking. I get irritated when I visit blogs which are irregularly updated, and get out of the habit of visiting.
3 Write as well as you can
Not as well as you can’t. One learns to write by writing and reading, and by daily writing, you will soon become a whole lot better. When I look back to last year’s posts, I am surprised at how much better I’ve become, over a year of daily “publishing” posts!
4 What should you write about?
Follow your bliss. Choose something you can write about every day without getting bored. I tried 3 blogs: a literary blog, a “life, love, culture and the universe” blog, and a Christian blog. The latter was the most absorbing, so I incorporated the other two into it.
However, while everything I write is from the point of view of a Christian, I do have occasional “secular” posts like this one, or updates on my family, our travels, my reading, and myself!! And a few photo-essays.
The ideal post length is 250 to 800 words, to which I mostly adhere. If the subject is important to me, however, I make the post as long as it needs to be!
4 Blogging is a new form. It is capacious, and as varied as bloggers are. Read other blogs in your niche to find out what the form can do.
5 Comments
Leaving comments on other is the best way for a new blogger to introduce herself and build blogging relationships.
For the first two years, I visited the blog of everyone who left me a comment, and left one in turn.
I can no longer do this, alas, partly because I started doing “real” writing in addition to blogging. And partly because of my limitations of organization and energy. And besides, blogging is busy!!
5B Responding to Comments is Sheer Good Manners!
I have neglected responding to comments when too many came at once, and I was busy, and then I fell further behind, while hoping to catch up with the old ones. Some of those commentators have never returned.
I myself never comment again and often won’t revisit a blog if I have left a long, carefully thought out, deeply felt comment, and the author does not respond.
So respond to comments, as long as you possibly can. It’s just good manners!
(Though, as blogs grow, this may not always be possible!)
6 Twitter and Facebook
I haven’t figured out what I am doing on my Twitter, and just hope I am not annoying people!! So the only authoritative thing I have to say about Twitter is that I enjoy it!
However, engaging on twitter has been responsible for my blog readership’s tripling in six months.
And it has introduced me to several bloggers, and several interesting people. And I hope to “learn” it.
Facebookis another nice way to meet and keep in touch with bloggers.
Ah, do you see the black hole of the blogosphere opening before you? Seek God as to how much time you should spend reading blogs. I used to limit it to 30 minutes, but now read my favourite blogs as they pop up on Facebook.
Your blog probably needs a Facebook fanpage for the increasingly number of people, who, like me, only read blogs on Facebook.
8 Give and you shall receive.
If you want links, give links. If you want comments, leave comments. If you want page views, read blogs. If you want retweets, retweet.
I say this shame-facedly, again, as because of limitations of energy and organisation and absorption in my own writing, I am failing on all these counts. When I remember, I try to be generous
Give value. Be a blessing to your readers.
I sometimes write a post for the pleasure of writing and sharing experience and ideas or working something out.
However, I often ask myself: Is this going to help my readers? Be a benefit to them? Inspire them? Do some good?
If not, I put it on the back burner (unless I feel a silly broody love for the idea).
I truly like my readers, those I have met in real life, and those I have met in cyberspace, and want to write things which might be a blessing to them.
10 The greatest pleasure of blogging is the community.
When I come across a blogger on the same wavelength, who writes on the same subjects in the same way, I put them on my “radar,” read their blog, and if possible, try to meet up in real life.
Many writers whose books I have loved have been disappointments in real life. But I have met, oh, at least 20 bloggers in real life, and all of them have been as I imagined from their blogs, lovely, or, in one case, not-lovely but as I expected! Perhaps with daily blogging, it’s harder to keep a mask in place.
The friends I have made through blogging have been one of the best things about blogging!
And, of course, some blogging friendships will help your blog; some will be a delight, though not directly helpful for your writing; and some friends you will be able to help. But, all that is secondary to the joy of friendship!
11 Honest blogging grows your blog most rapidly.
Don’t bother to appear nicer than you are, or more spiritual. It will ring false, and be less interesting. A) People will smell a rat; b) Blogging will no longer be a joy!
Our hearts hunger for truth. To really know people. Their real lives and emotional contours. Memoir is one of the fastest growing genres. An honest blog is captivating. Be yourself, be real, and the note of raw undefended honesty and immediacy will shine through and captivate readers.
It’s important spiritually and for your writing to be honest and real, even if you sometimes disappoint your core audience. I am trying to push through barriers of propriety, and fear of alienating my audience to be more honest.
I am sometimes told, “Anita, this post does not show you in a good light.” And I leave it up, thinking, “Why should I give the impression that I am perfect? It is showing me in an honest light, if not a flattering one!”
Because one person who will not be alienated, but in fact, will be rather pleased by my honesty will be the Lord Jesus (even when I have got my thinking wrong!)
12 Controversy, negativity and attacks get more page views than positivity and inspiration—but at a (too) high price
I occasionally write negative posts for the therapeutic value as I work something out; or because I feel angry and indignant about something. Or because I truly believe hypocrisy or injustice or abuse should be exposed,
Doing negative posts is not wrong. Jesus said lots of negative things about the religious hypocrites of his day, for instance.
But negativity extracts a cost from the blogger, in terms of one’s own mental state and happiness. So I try to minimize them.
I also ignore hostile comments, and try not to get sucked into fruitless arguments and controversies in which I have little interest.
Attack is a double-edged sword. Only use it when it needs to be used!!
Remember what Jesus said about those who take up the sword…
But remember too that he can heal wounds inflicted by swords!
Incidentally, I no longer follow predominantly negative blogs, twitter streams or facebook feeds. I want to keep my thinking as positive as possible. You too will be happier if you do not follow predominantly negative, sarcastic or “bad news” blogs.
13 Track your page views and analytics daily. Understand your audience
Use Google Analytics, and track your stats everyday. The most important metric is Unique Monthly Visitors. Then, when your stats drop, you can use some of these suggestions or Pro-blogger’s suggestions to keep growing.
Also track the page views each post receives. That way, you will understand your audience.
Negativity, attack and scandal always get views, but I attempt to minimize such posts them for the sake of my own soul.
My theological posts surprisingly get a lot of views, perhaps because I tackle theology in a layperson’s language and style. So I am going to do more of them.
Gardening and travel are popular, as well as time and life management and some embarrassingly personal posts.
Monitoring your stats will let you know what your audience loves, and what makes them yaaaaawn!
It will tell you when your titles let you down and sink an otherwise good post. The title is the most important line in the post. Many a good post has vanished because of a boring, non-descriptive title chosen at the last minute. And has been resuscitated with a good title.
14 Design Matters
Everyone likes pretty things.
My blog’s appearance was a weakness for a long time. I am kind of fond of it now, though it can do with improvement.
Please give me some feedback on its appearance!
15 Your Archive will be your Best Friend.
If your blog grows, most of today’s readers will not have heard of you a year ago.
It’s wasteful to write a long beautiful post which will languish unread in your archives. After my second year of blogging, I have started posting about three archive posts each week, which I have freshly edited. I zero in on the main point, cut the fluff and add value. The end result is always a better post, since it retains what has stood the test of a year’s thinking.
Not every post, of course, is worth reposting. I probably repost the best 5 or 10%.
Use Link Within to increase your page views.
16 Guest Posts grow your blog.
They do take energy and organisation and correspondence (and ironically, for me, more work than writing out my own post!!) and I haven’t done one for a while, but probably will return to them.
I use them when I have a question I want answered. Do the meek inherit the earth? Can the years the locusts have eaten be restored? Can the Lord really renew our strength so that we soar on wings like eagles? Or I have done series on my interests like favourite books or Christian heroes.
17 Pray before you write. Read Scripture before you write.
Doing the former will save you immense time. Your unconscious, or God’s spirit in your unconscious will give you ideas, and sort out the post in the most logical and effective fashion.
Reading Scripture gives me ideas for what to write, and sometimes condemns what I had been planning to write!!
19 I believe a worker is worthy of a hire, and a blogger should earn something from her labours.
I have barely monetized my blog, though have had cheques from Google Adsense, and sold some of my own books through my blog.
I will probably explore ways to monetize my blog.
I would be grateful for your ideas on monetization.
19 All that is alive grows. Beware of plateaus.
Last August, I realized that I had to increase my readership, or I was wasting my time blogging.
And so applied some of these tips. My blog tripled to 15,000 page views a month (according to Blogger stats) within six months. Since mid-Feb, however, I have plateaued.
So if the Lord gives me strength and energy, I will soon make another push.
And I welcome your ideas on how to grow my blog.
20 Have fun.
Don’t hesitate to write the bad posts to get them out of the way, for the good posts to come. The niggling small posts sometimes need to be written to get the skill to think about and write the big posts. And sometimes what we thought was a trivial idea was just the tip of the iceberg of an important post.
If you don’t love it, and are not enjoying it, just stop!! Blogging should be a joy, not a misery.
Though please don’t stop reading my blog.
So, what have I omitted? Please share your tips.
Read my new memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India (US) or UK.
Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnitaMathias1
My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) or UK
Hi Anita, thanks for this a lot of great insight. I don’t blog daily but I do blog regularly and have found that it has improved my writing. Blogging actually takes me a lot of time generally because it comes out of my pain experiences and then all the images etc. I was shocked to hear your results using Twitter, I can’t understand it personally – would love to hear how you got it to work for you.
Maybe I’ll write about it some time. Google using social media, like Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog
Thanks for the blogging tips. They are very helpful. Debra Seiling http://bible-passages.blogspot.com and http://christian-overeaters.blogspot.com
Thanks, Debbie. Must rewrite that post sometime, as one keep learning new things, and adopting new best practices as one continues to blog!
Thanks, Tanya, and thanks for the retweet, which brought some traffic to this old post.
Thanks for reading, Kathleen, and welcome to my blog. I'd love to be a globe-trotting mum or granny, and do do it as much as I can.
Hello Anita,
I am an example of someone who is reading your blog because you followed me on Twitter. This post is very helpful on growing a blog. We have much the same interests, although my blog focuses on travel, and the small things that are the same and different about people and things around the world. I am also a Christian, and often bring that out in my postings. Thank you!
I'm late to the party, I know, but SO helpful. Thank you – it's awesome to learn from you!
Thanks much, Taylor. And welcome to my blog!
Anita-I am new to your blog but delighted I have stumbled upon it. I truly enjoy your perspective and the quality of your writing. Keep up the good work!
LA, let's meet in semi-realer cyberspace if you're on Facebook. Here's mine https://www.facebook.com/anitamathias
Lacy, delighted we follow each other on Twitter, and that you liked this post.
Perpetua, I sometimes get captivated by a blogger's life, point of view, writing style, ideas and insights, and then like to read them whenever I am down, or bored. And yes, so I do like blogs which are updated daily. I should clarify
in the post, that I meant posting daily for starters, till one develops a winsome blogging style, good writing skills and discipline. As you say, people vary in their blogosphere needs and habits!!
You make some good points, Anita, but I do disagree with you about daily posting. Unless a blog is exceptionally good, there is just no way I want to read posts every day from the same blogger. Two or three times a week or even less if the posts are long and thoughtful is about right for me.
I subscribe to the blogs I follow in Google Reader, so never need to visit a blog just to see whether it's been updated. However, I'm an amateur and am far more interested in the blogging conversation than in anything else, so I guess it's a case of doing what suits one's own situation.
I like the fact that you are a layperson. Sometimes other priest-blogs I read get so jargon-y that they're hard to follow and I end up getting lost in hopelessly endless mazes of jargon-ed comments. Sometimes I like the mental challenge they pose, but many times I like to read something even more meaningful and relevant like your blog. Thank you for your labors, they are welcomed by this commentor!
Hi Anita!
We follow each other on Twitter and though I'm not sure how that happened, I'm glad because I really enjoyed this post!
I just started a blog in order to help me improve my writing skills as I'm hoping to become an editor 🙂
Even though I didn't start my blog hoping to get many followers, it wouldn't hurt to apply some of these tips! 🙂
Hi Beth, I think the secret of writing every day is “lowering the bar” as to what is “worthy.” There are always things burning in people's hearts. The key to developing the journalling or blogging habit is recording and developing the stray thoughts, perhaps 1 or 5 things one is grateful for, for instance. Then we begin to see life through writerly lenses.
Wendy, exactly–the hardest part is getting started, and then the world seems full of ideas, and blog posts and inspiration. Daily writing is also the discipline of training oneself to view one's thoughts, and experiences through the lens of one's art form–blogging, or poetry, or the essay (or photo-essays…).
As to blogging and the priesthood, many of the interesting female–and male–Christian bloggers in the UK are priests. Perhaps the priesthood makes one more reflective?
Blogging is hard work, and it can take a while to develop your audience, and experience the considerable rewards of blogging, so perhaps its best to ascertain that it is your call, before you carve out the time for it?
Miss Mollie, thank you for your comment, and I agree:-)
Thank you for this post. It is very helpful. I do think the most important aspects of my blogging is the joy, the connections I am making with people(like your friendship), and the discipline of writing, as well as God teaching me patience. Generosity is the prime focus and I see that in your blog.
Hi Anita
I just wanted to say that I found this blog really helpful. I wish I had more time to just learn how to work out all the technical stuff. And as a priest, I struggle to find time to write, and wonder what kind of a priority blogging should be. I don't think I could write every day, but I hear what you are saying about the dicipline of writing. The hardest part is just getting started. Thanks for addressing some of my questions and for being courageous enough to keep going.
Many thanks
Wendy Thomson
Twitter: Canoewoman
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LOL…I think I typed “quilty” up there instead of “guilty”. At least it scans.
this makes me feel quilty and inadequate…kinda. I admit to posting erratically, but without much angst about it. Eh. I don't want to just post if I don't have something burning in my heart. Maybe I should…?
Wow, thanks everyone, so glad you liked the post.
Thanks, Ang for liking the candour!
DJV, I am honoured that you look forward to it. No, I have no intention of stopping, as I believe blogging is a calling–though I would love to slow down enough to finish my book:-)
Great post Anita. I've been forced to take a break due to changing jobs. Am reinspired and will be back at the weekend. Thanks
Hi Anita
I am hooked by your Blog , in fact I look forward to it , some new challenging thoughts and reflections
or just some lovely experiences shared with all of us; please dont stop, your blog is a blessing.
I love this list~especially what you said about how you formed this blog from three. I maintain two now (and one for a business client) but eventually may combine my two into one. I also like what you said about organization and time limits–otherwise, social media tends to take over the day.
Thanks for the great ideas!
Writing daily can be a challenge, but I understand that consistency is important — thanks for the reminder. 🙂 I always appreciate the honesty and candor in your posts, Anita.
Great post!
I just moved away from Blogger because the stat page made me crazy, and I needed a format that didn't have them. I know I can't judge anything I can't measure, but analytics are my biggest weakness. Maybe someday I can get them back. (And yes, the Jeff Goins blogging course is great.)
Anita, thank you for writing this after I'd asked in my blog yesterday for help in learning to blog! I really appreciate the gentle, honest and inspirational way you have laid it all out so clearly. You have a wonderful way with words anyway (but not numbers it would appear ….!!!! ) and so many of your blogs have been a great help.
This spirit of generosity within the social media world has really struck home to me recently.
Thank you!
– Penelope
Hi Gillan, (God and Politics)–As long as your blog is growing, you're doing the right things, and don't need to worry about all this. I start trying to “sharpen the saw” when my stats flag.
Where do I go from here? Well, I hope to keep blogging as long as I am compos mentis, as I love it. And, as I said, the writing part takes less time as I gain experience, while the “social” side (comments, Twitter, FB, meeting people) takes more time.
I would love to gain the organization to write books as well as blog. And I am slowly becoming more organised and disciplined.
Diane, indeed, many of these ideas have been written about before, and are second nature if you've been blogging for a while. It so happened that 2-3 people in the last week sort of asked me if I had any useful blogging advice, and I blanked out. So I thought it would be useful to write it out, once and for all.
Charlie, I am so glad you found me on Twitter. I've only been on for 9 months, and I despaired of being able to say something sensible in 120 characters–but, like anything else, I suppose it comes with practice.
Thanks so much for your very kind commendation:-)
This is superb, Anita. One of the most helpful posts I've read on the subject as I tentatively make my way into the blogosphere. I am a good example of most of the errors you so gently but clearly identify!
You are a pleasure to read, positive and uplifting, but without the saccharine dishonesty that attends so much Christian writing. Your delight in God and creation comes through beautifully. BTW, I'm one who found you on Twitter.
Excellent points Anita. My main problem is lack of time. When time is limited you then have to prioritse which aspects are most important. I'm still working on that one.
I'm glad you've had success with your blog. I suppose the question is where do you go from here?
I really like this post, Anita. So many good ideas, some also written about by others, but I like how you've listed them all here and how you share your experience with them.
I just started up posting again after a couple months' break. I intended to do every day M-F, but have settled on M-W-F for now. I think you ARE right about daily posting though.
Diane
Eileen, removing analytics, and ignoring readership is okay for Joyce and Proust and archdruids and geniuses, but for lowly mortal bloggers….
Ah, if I had the guts to follow the path of genius.
Path of Treasure, thank you so much!!
Excellent suggestions. Thank you for sharing!
So you're saying that removing all analytics and paying no attention to readership was wrong then?