11

Sep

Enhancing Your Blog’s Performance

Many freelance writers have an online presence with a blog. It allows them to write on subjects that interest them and also creates an interest in them from web users, particularly readers who are into the same themes. For a lot of online writers, the blog is where the writing craft is learned. Some allow the blogger an insight into how much traffic the blog is generating. This is useful as the writer can see in real time how much or how little internet users care for the blog.

Here are some tips in producing a better blog; some simple ways for you to enhance your blog and attract a higher readership:

Keep it updated. Respect your followers by providing regular updates. Interest will soon cease in your blog if you haven’t updated it for several weeks.

Make it visually interesting. Give your readership a quick understanding of what your blog is about with something visual. This could be done in the use of photographs, videos, colored font, cartoons, and widgets. Consider the colour scheme your blog uses. Don’t bore the reader with a bland palette but similarly do not dazzle them in colour that they have to use sunglasses to read what you have written. Use colour wisely and appropriate to what you are writing. Visuals will make your blog eye catching.

Don’t write long paragraphs of text. Split up your blog with headings, sub headings, line breaks, numbered lists etc. A long paragraph may turn off the reader. Shorter paragraphs may make your blog easier to read.

Stick to your theme. Pick a theme and stick to it. If your theme is film reviews then don’t begin to write articles about steam trains. Your readers have come to your blog because the subject matter interests them. They will want you to be creative in your approach to the theme but to suddenly or regularly mix the blog up with something else will send them away. Your blog may be a random stream of thought, a diary, your ramblings on life. Variety is key as your imagination flows. That’s great, but again stick to the style of writing. Don’t turn your daily musings into a recipe page. Do what you set out to do and if you have other ideas then create another blog.

Connect with other bloggers. There is a large blogging community out there so get in touch with them. Provide links to their blogs. Allow others bloggers to write guest blogs for you and vice versa. Hopefully others will link your blog in with theirs if you form good relationships. This will generate higher traffic and greater respect for you in the blogging community.

Be Google friendly. Check out this link for a previous article  on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). There are  similar articles online which can  help you get a grasp of what this means for your blog. Using SEO correctly will ensure your blog will show up higher on any search list such as Google when people want to read something on the themes you have written.

Be yourself. There may be many people writing blogs similar to yours. However, you have something they don’t. Your own unique voice! Don’t follow others and copy the way they write. Use your own feelings, passion, and humour to write about the issues and themes you care about. Be a real person to the reader and not a clone of somebody else. Your blog is about you and the subjects that interest you. Celebrate that and create something that is profoundly you and not somebody else.