Secrets of the Bloggers
Maureen of Trinity Prep has invited readers to share their Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers. Maureen’s list is here. (My favorite: “Be yourself: let people get to know you. We love to hear your success stories but sharing in your failures is when we see ourselves in you.”) Mary G posted her list and Henry Cate of Why Homeschool shared his thoughts on the subject. Over at Principled Discovery, Dana passes along some advice from Greg of Rhymes with Right, such as, “Become an expert. Make yourself a “go-to-guy” on certain issues. I did on the Abdul Rahman case earlier this year, and have written a lot on William Jefferson. School censorship cases are also a topic that I often write on.”
ProBlogger is putting together a bound-to-be-way-more-than-seven list of blogging tips. The running list of contributors is here. Also of interest: this article on essential sidebar content. #1 on the list is a site search engine, which surprised me. I used to have one here but took it down a long time ago. I think I’ll put it back and see if I notice a difference in page views.
Seth Godin has some tips on how to increase your blog’s traffic. Among other things, he recommends encouraging comments “so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.” He also advises the use of Technorati tags and del.icio.us. (The latter is a “social bookmarking” site: you can store your bookmarks there just as you do on your own browser. The advantage of this is that you can access your bookmarks from any computer, anywhere, and also because you can share your bookmarks with others. I like it for marking posts I want to come back and read or blog about later. However, I seem to have really flubbed by importing all my Safari bookmarks to del.icio.us—I forgot about the big long list of bookmarks I never use that came automatically with the browser. Now my del.icio.us list is too unwieldy to use. Anyone know how to delete a whole category on del.icio.us? As in, all posts tagged “Apple”?
Finally, here’s a post from the Deputy Headmistress not about effective blogging, but rather effective blog-READING. Like me, the DHM is a big fan of Bloglines. There’s no way I could keep up with the blogs I enjoy without the help of my Bloglines subscriptions.
Maureen says:
Thanks for helping me with my “Seven Habits” project. I’ve had very positive feedback from many newbie homeschool blogging moms. Love your MomClub site too, Lissa. I was asked to open a site. I’m still trying to figure out what “flavor” I want to be. Haven’t had the time to research a niche for myself. If you see a void over their in any area, ask me if it’s something I can help fill! Thanks again for your contributions to the blogosphere at large!
On June 4, 2006 at 6:45 am
sherry says:
Melissa,
I just wanted to tell you that this blog is my favorite of all the blogs I read! It is so chocked full of information, humor, great links, and adorable pictures of the littles … thanks so much for giving us a glimpse into your life.
Sherry
On June 5, 2006 at 9:39 am