Facebook is one of the most useful tools for attracting blog traffic. For those that don't know, Facebook is a social networking site. Anyone over the age of thirteen can have a Facebook account. Users have personal profiles and can post "statuses" that your friends can see in the main area called the "news feed."
Facebook has mutated a few times since it first started. It is now much more blog/business friendly. In addition to your personal profile (which would contain personal information), users can now set up a "page." A page looks like a profile but it is for something other than you. In other words, Alain Gomez would be my personal profile where my friends could see me.
Under Alain Gomez I have started a page for Non-Techie Blogging: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Non-Techie-Blogging/248296061940076. The information you see on a page is strictly about the business. Nothing there is about my personal life but I can choose to interact with people "as" Non-Techie Blogging.
Facebook is useful because it provides a medium for announcing new blog posts to your friends and it allows you to connect with new readers without having to let them see personal family photos.
The key here is not to become spammy. If all you do is use your personal profile to announce blogs, your friends will start to ignore you. Just like how no one wants to hang out with someone that's always trying to sell people their old junk. But sprinkled here in there can provide huge traffic boosts. They are already your friends so they would already be that much more interested in seeing what you have to say on your blog.
A page specifically for your blog allows people to stay current on your latest posts. Unless you have the posts sent to an email account you check regularly, it is easy to forget to keep tabs on your favorite blogs. Most people who use Facebook enjoy browsing through the news feed. If they are following your blog's page, they will see updates for new posts.
Provided that your content is something people want to read, Facebook is an excellent and easy way to keep readers coming back to your blog. Maintaining a healthy blog is all about having a consistent readership.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Monday, December 2, 2013
What to Write About
Something that seems to make people shy away from blogging is that they "don't know what to write about" like a successful blog can only be run by someone who has a really interesting life. Not true.
A blog is only as limited as your creativity. You don't have to write anything. You can use it as a medium to post pictures you take every day. Or even videos.
Web serials or web fiction are other popular blog styles. If you don't think your life is interesting enough to write about then make up some fictional characters. Each post can be the next installment in your story.
Review things if you have lots of suppressed opinions. Tell the world what you thought about a TV show you watched or a book you read. With ebooks and self-publishing changing the entire book industry, reviewers are highly sought after by emerging authors.
If you're good at something make a how-to blog. Explain the steps and explained what you learned from the last thing you created.
A blog doesn't have to be a journal of your personal activities. It's a medium. A way of sharing your ideas with the world.
A blog is only as limited as your creativity. You don't have to write anything. You can use it as a medium to post pictures you take every day. Or even videos.
Web serials or web fiction are other popular blog styles. If you don't think your life is interesting enough to write about then make up some fictional characters. Each post can be the next installment in your story.
Review things if you have lots of suppressed opinions. Tell the world what you thought about a TV show you watched or a book you read. With ebooks and self-publishing changing the entire book industry, reviewers are highly sought after by emerging authors.
If you're good at something make a how-to blog. Explain the steps and explained what you learned from the last thing you created.
A blog doesn't have to be a journal of your personal activities. It's a medium. A way of sharing your ideas with the world.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Non-Techie Blogging: Getting Started
Amazon
Apple
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Smashwords
Sony
A short startup guide for those that know next to nothing about blogging. This manual will give an overview on large-scale concepts that the average non-blogger does not know but needs to understand in order to run a successful site.
This manual is approximately 4,200 words.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Monday, September 2, 2013
Making a Static Website with Blogger
I wanted to make a "hub" author website where people could connect and find links to all of my work. After considering/toying with my options I decided to with Blogger. The only downside to Blogger is that the end result will not look as sleek as some other design engines such as Wordpress or Joomla.
For me, this was an acceptable tradeoff. And the result so far is this: http://www.authoralaingomez.com
So certainly not the swankiest looking website but I'm pretty sure I've seen worse. I plan to eventually improve the site with a custom designed header and whatnot. I do feel like the information I wanted to convey is clear and easily found. It's also really easy for me to update which was important.
My first step was registering a .com domain name with GoDaddy. I feel like that alone goes a long way in making the site feel less blog-like. Even if you're using Wordpress, people will immediately assume they landed on a blog if they see a mysite.wordpress or a mysite.blogspot.
To keep it feeling more like a website, I limited the number of posts that appear on the home page to one. So that eliminated the trademark blog look of scrolling down to older posts. I went to the post layout and and got rid of a lot of extra information like post date and post author. I also removed the about me and blog archive gadgets that come standard on a fresh Blogger blog. I do want people to know who I am but, again, I felt like these looked a little too blog-like.
Instead, I replaced the about me with an about page. I also stripped out all the ways to subscribe to the blog and replaced it with the subscribe by email gadget. I called the email subscription a "newsletter" but really all they're getting is my latest post.
The rest is pretty self-explanatory. I made sure to include html buttons of all the ways I wanted people to connect with me on the sidebar. Again, the purpose was to make a website, not a blog. I didn't want my audience to spend hours sifting through old articles (blog). I wanted them to have a way to find my stuff (website).
For me, this was an acceptable tradeoff. And the result so far is this: http://www.authoralaingomez.com
So certainly not the swankiest looking website but I'm pretty sure I've seen worse. I plan to eventually improve the site with a custom designed header and whatnot. I do feel like the information I wanted to convey is clear and easily found. It's also really easy for me to update which was important.
My first step was registering a .com domain name with GoDaddy. I feel like that alone goes a long way in making the site feel less blog-like. Even if you're using Wordpress, people will immediately assume they landed on a blog if they see a mysite.wordpress or a mysite.blogspot.
To keep it feeling more like a website, I limited the number of posts that appear on the home page to one. So that eliminated the trademark blog look of scrolling down to older posts. I went to the post layout and and got rid of a lot of extra information like post date and post author. I also removed the about me and blog archive gadgets that come standard on a fresh Blogger blog. I do want people to know who I am but, again, I felt like these looked a little too blog-like.
Instead, I replaced the about me with an about page. I also stripped out all the ways to subscribe to the blog and replaced it with the subscribe by email gadget. I called the email subscription a "newsletter" but really all they're getting is my latest post.
The rest is pretty self-explanatory. I made sure to include html buttons of all the ways I wanted people to connect with me on the sidebar. Again, the purpose was to make a website, not a blog. I didn't want my audience to spend hours sifting through old articles (blog). I wanted them to have a way to find my stuff (website).
Monday, August 5, 2013
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