Blogging Series

So, I was just looking around in my draft for some unfinished post which I might be interested to get over with and of course some inspiration! And, I came across a set of notes in which I had set some goals for my blog.

Well, as you can imagine, I had very conveniently forgotten about it! But, when I just looked through some of the things I had set for myself, I quickly summarized that some of those goals have been realized long back which obviously is making me a lot happy and that is also why I am sitting in my office and typing away this post!

For any endeavor to succeed, you need to set realistic and just-beyond-the-reach goals. Aim for the moon by all means but the path to success is always defined by the smaller steps you take, right? So, same goes with blogging!

May be you would like to see some new set of people gracing your blog so set such goals. Check out what is the current readership and increase a 30-50% margin and keep it as a next milestone to be reached with in the next 3-6 months depending on how much time you spend on the blog.

For many, motivation for blogging can quickly change to the bucks they see. Well, that is perfectly fine as long as you are true to your readers and catering to them! So, you might decide that since you have been consistently earning X amount, the next milestone should be Y within a T amount of time!

These are the two areas where I can think I would like to set goals but if you have some others, by all means go ahead. Also, always remember that the first and probably the only priority should be readers and you. Money and all the fame would automatically follow! Yeah, there is one milestone which you can probably set!

Most of the bloggers are part-time and then one goes on vacations and sometimes life is just a roller-coaster ride because of which you hardly have time to tend to your blog. So, may be, leaving all exceptional circumstances, setting a minimum number of posts per week would be a great idea so that you at least have a set routine and your readers know what to expect when!

Also, a few other goals which you might like to set if you are too interested are to write a few guest posts or articles on hubpages or wikihow or ehow or any other such reliable forums and communities which might give visibility to your blog and improve your exposure.

If you have been blogging for a year or more, you would realize that any old post is a bane for the blogger. If one has blogged about a trending topic, it is no longer in vogue. If one has talked about some beauty tip, one would like to make sure it reaches every new reader who joins the blog. And, so on. So, how does one make sure that all those previous posts receive equal viewership as well?

Granted that some of your old posts would be a legend and come what may, the traffic to those posts would always remain unbeatable. You would love to see those numbers for your current posts as well but somehow that never happens. That may be simply due to the fact that you have inadvertently placed great many number of keywords in those posts!

If you think I am speaking latin and greek, please excuse me. In laymen terms, once you have written and published the post, your responsibility with the old post is not over. You should consistently modify it and update it so that it is fresh and consistent with your current blog layout.

You must have already noticed my two previous posts, they were the long forgotten ones lying in the archives! In fact, they were the first two posts when I had started blogging. I had been thinking since quite long that I should bring out those posts again but could not find out the best way to do so. It was then I came across the simple tip of republishing the blog posts by changing the time stamp.

This ensures that your old post has been published as new without changing the URL of the post so that any backlinks to the post are not lost! Also, this ensures your readers get to read the things which they might have missed out on or have not come across since they have joined the blog!

But, doing this has one major disadvantage. Your blog layout and blog language might not remain same. If the post which you would republish is very old, like in my case, the language and the structure of the post would be very very different. At that point of time, you have two action items. Either rewrite the entire post, update it or create a new one. Or, edit the post with your current thoughts about it and publish it as it was. And, any changes you might have regarding the post, create a new one and give a backlink to the other post.

This way you would have created new content for your blog and the inter-linking among the blog posts helps boost the page rank. Ok, I have to say this that reviving the old posts might not be the best thing in the world. Why? You might actually get bored editing it or you would be shocked by how raw you were in your hey day!

Blogging Series Vol. 8 – Read and Reread the Posts! 

This is one of the most important tips when you are blogging. This is something I used to not really focus on earlier because I think there was no preview option when I started blogging or may be I was too lazy. 

But now that I have that option, I always keep on checking how the final post looks and accordingly I can make the adjustments to the pics sizes and correct any spelling and grammatical mistakes which always occur.

Keeping a check on how the final product looks shows that you are more serious about blogging. And, good language is very very essential. Otherwise, it can be a huge turnoff for people. No one likes excessive grammatical or spelling mistakes. One or two per post is forgivable but if it keeps on occurring in every paragraph, while focus of the reader goes to the next mistake instead of what you are trying to convey.

Also, one of the key tips while writing is to be as precise and short as possible. Try to keep the posts short to 300 to 500 words and wrap up everything in that. If it goes beyond that, turn it into another post. Keep the language simple and easy to understand. 

And, keep using the preview option till you are satisfied with the final look of your post. Yes, it takes time but it is satisfying when you see the results! Also, when you reread your post, the ideas start flowing and the shape of your entire post changes as it did with me for this particular post!!