Recently, I’ve been thinking about blogging. I’ve been blogging for a long time now (nine years? ten years? who knows!), with no thought of stopping. But maybe I’ll write in a different way. Have you considered changing the way you blog? Stick around while I explore this topic.
Why do people read blog posts?
There are many reasons, but here are a few:
- To learn about something they know little about
- To amuse themselves
- To connect with you and others in an online community
I really liked this article: Do People Still Read Blogs? And you might, too.
How do people find you and your blog?
Of course, there’s the usual Google search. But there’s also email marketing and social media. People may find an enticing headline and jump over from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Possibly a friend may tell them about your blog. If you know how people find you (via your Google analytics), you may want to give them even more reasons to find you. If you have analytics of some sort, then you can see how people are finding you.
Blogging on other platforms
There are different ways to blog besides the cost of getting your own website. For instance, Terri Nakamura blogs on Instagram. She has a much different approach, and I highly recommend her new book, Blogging on Instagram, available on Amazon for a song. If you’d like to connect with others, you’d like this book. Others may want to syndicate their blog posts with an organization such as Business to Community. I did that for a long time and really enjoyed it.
Video blogging
Is video blogging a thing? Yes, it is! Friend Mitch Mitchell talks about quite a lot of different topics on his vlogs. And no, he’s not Jimi Hendrick’s former drummer. If you prefer talking to writing, or in addition to writing, you might enjoy making videos and telling your story that way. You may want to have more than one channel, especially if you have different businesses, or divide your personal and business vlogs.
Blogging as a creative exercise
Some people write because they love to write, and others write because they want more followers or better SEO. Whatever the reason, you may be rethinking your need to express yourself in a standard blog. Journaling may not hold the same interest for you that it once did.
Other types of blogs
Some people create blogs for travel or photography and use hardly any words. That might be a good way to document your life. Other people use all words and barely any images. I’m of the belief that you need both words and images to tell a story or create a blog. There are personal blogs, business blogs, and affiliate blogs, where you make a little money by recommending a product.
Do you have a favorite kind of blog or blog post?
Do tell!
LOL! Imagine what it’s like getting to a blog post, seeing your name in lights and your tagline of not being the better known version of your name! :-D Thanks for that Carol; I fully appreciate it!
As for your initial question, you know I have to tackle it. I’ve been blogging for almost 17 years (ouch!), and what I realized is that it probably took me 2 or 3 years to find my particular writing voice. It suits me so much that I can’t imagine changing it, but it was also a drastic improvement on how I’d been writing before that.
I think that most bloggers subscribe to the Field Of Dreams mantra: write it and they will come. Unfortunately we all know it doesn’t work that way. It takes promotion in many different ways and in many different places, which includes commenting on other blogs properly so that people get intrigued and want to see what you’re writing in your own space. That’s why blog commenting is a big deal for me; I found around a decade ago that it drives more traffic to my blogs than anything else I can think of.
Hi Mitch,
I’m glad you changed your name and added “stories,” since that other Mitch Mitchell is out there! It takes most people a while to figure out their voice, doesn’t it? But those who just started writing think they can get insta-results (yes, it doesn’t work that way). It’s great to be interactive and that’s why I like commenting on your YouTube videos, too. Plus, they’re so fresh and entertaining!
See you on YouTube (or your blog!) lol
Carol