Climbing the Mountains of Blogging
by Dan Miranda on April 12, 2009
in Contests
Because of the recent contest presented to me, Terry Heath of Bloggity suggested in his post that I come to terms about five things that are challenging me personally as a blogger. As I am a new blogger, there are a vast majority of monumental goals I have in store for myself. I hope to travel leaps and bounds with each day, while simultaneously acquiring a supportive and fun-loving community.
- Lack of SEO. Blogs that don’t optimize search engine hits generally don’t go far. If I’m eventually going to be successful I’m going to need to learn ways in which I can do this.
- No comments. This has to do with building a community. I’m not sure exactly where to start, but I comments are vital to any blog. It’s almost necessary, but I actually haven’t managed to grab any yet. Fortunately, this blog is new, but I don’t want to put valuable posts to waste.
- Low amount of site views. This goes with the comments. How do I gain viewers?
- Producing quality content. Content is king. You’re probably not going to get anywhere with a blog if you don’t have it.
- Optimizing social media. This something else that bloggers have been known to use successfully recently. I want to be one of them.
It’s difficult to open yourself up to the general public, but take my lead and join this excellent contest!
Credit to Flickr user Roby©
Hi Dan,
Glad to see your entry and that you are thinking about how to make your blog more successful. Great entry and a great post!
Ha, that’s all I’m thinking about Terry. It’s the reason why I found your contest so intriguing. Thanks a ton, appreciate it.
Hi Dan,
I am a big fan. Sean showed me your site. He read everything to me out loud as this is a common practice in our household when we working together. Impressed and gushing with comments to him, he said, “No wait… go to his about page.” My eyes widened. I have been a teacher for 20 years and your abilities, tenacity, and adaptability to the new frontier of cyberspace blew me away and inspired me. Thank you for teaching me. I am completely on board and looking forward to correspondences in the future. You are the future.
Brilliant friend!
I’m honored. I really am. Your writing (particularly Writing is A Lifelong Habit) inspired me to take action in my life with writing. I hope you continue to read and enjoy here at Command Your Time, thank you for your appreciative words – and wisdom!
Lots of things going in your favor.
1. You have your own domain name and you’re self-hosted. I started on the wrong foot – I’m still with blogspot.
2. You have a clean, nice theme.
3. You sound very eager to learn and you’re passionate. All these initial hurdles will be a walk in the park for you because you’ve passion. It will serve you well in these dreary days.
Cheer up. Lack of warm bodies to interact with in the early days of blogging seems to be the norm. It’s our baptism of fire. I went through it myself. But this phase will soon pass. Just enjoy doing what you do best.
1. Any chance you would change to a self-hosted blog? I think it would be one hell of a site.
2. Thank Eric Hamm for that. Check out his Thesis theme here: http://frugaltheme.com
3. I hope this is a short phase indeed. The motivation from fellow bloggers helps me stay afloat.
Dan,
Really enjoyed reading some of the posts on your site. As I have just recently started a blog of my own, I am dealing with all of the same issues that you discussed in this post. Glad to see that you finally have some comments! You are definitely on the right track, keep up the good writing!
Sean