12 responses so far ↓

• Carl Coddington // Aug 10, 2007 at 6:24 pm

  I’m not entering the contest, but… I would have to say that “contests” are the best way to get and generate traffic and buzz. I hope this contest works out well for you.

• Rose DesRochers // Aug 10, 2007 at 8:07 pm

  Carl, I hope it does as well. We’ll see.

• sognatrice // Aug 12, 2007 at 9:06 am

  I’m not eligible for the contest, but I’ll share a tip anyway: check out the Technorati blog reactions of blogs similar to yours and visit those who haven’t been/linked to yours yet–you’ll probably find not only blog owners (and readers) that would like your blog too but also more places to visit for you

  Best of luck with the contest (I’m having one at my place now too)!

• David Airey // Aug 13, 2007 at 2:00 am

  Hi Rose,

  I’m not eligible to win either, but sognatrice makes a good point. When drafting an article I like to search Google’s blogsearch for relevant posts to link to. Everyone likes to have their articles mentioned, so it’s a good way to give to relevant authors.

  Good luck with the contest.

• Duane Forrester // Aug 13, 2007 at 6:36 pm

  Here are two plug ins that folks often overlook but are worth their weight in gold!

  Akismet - controls spam rather well for you
  Track Back Validator - checks to ensure the site dropping the link is legit

  Between those two plugins, most spam is caught and chopped.

  Saves loads of time on a busy blog.

  Hope this helps someone.

  Duane

• Rose DesRochers // Aug 13, 2007 at 7:50 pm

  Thank you sognatrice and David.

  Duane, thanks. I use Akismet here.

• Michael // Aug 14, 2007 at 4:59 pm

  Hi Rose - Thanks for inviting me to enter this contest. Sadly, I live in the UK so I can’t really enter, but I’d happily share a tip anyway.

  My best piece of advice is to ask someone else what they think of your blog. If possible, someone in real life (You can watch their expression, ask questions etc. that way), but online is good too. A single questionnaire put to your readers can be more valuable than a year’s worth of Google Analytics data.

  It’s amazing how many things they’ll find that should be improved on (little bugs, navigation etc.)

• Fox Tucker // Aug 16, 2007 at 6:03 am

  My Top Tip?

  Use your own domain name from day 1!

  Most blog platforms will give you a subdomain.

  But understand that they will ALWAYS own this!

  Sure you may not deem it essential from day 1, but what if you’re blog becomes uber-popular and you want to sell it? You can’t.

  What happens if you blog platform (and their domain) is penalised by a search engine? Your loss, nothing you can do about it.

  What if you want to move it to another platform without losing your search engine rankings? You can’t

  So use your own domain name from day 1.

• Grace // Sep 4, 2007 at 5:38 am

  My blog tip to share would be to read, read and read other blogs. There are so many people who write about blogging and how to be efficient on it and investing time to check these out will make you write better and even give you loads of ideas to write even in your most uninspired day.

  Even Problogger admits he spends more time reading than writing his blogs.

• Marcia // Sep 5, 2007 at 12:17 pm

  I am still convinced the most important blogging tip is to be true to yourself first… whether that means being who you are now or tailoring your blog to the person you want to become. The honesty of being yourself or the person you wish to become will read through; you will enjoy blogging more and that will come through. Then you can make use of all the other more technical tips to make it the best it can be.

• Anastasia // Sep 7, 2007 at 12:31 am

  My blogging tip? Write about what you love! Nothing is more boring than a blog without passion or knowledge. We often just assume that because we know a lot about something, that other people know it too. THEY DON’T! So find what you’re knowledgable and passionate about and blog the hell out of it

• Hopeful Spirit // Sep 9, 2007 at 3:37 pm

  Here’s my tip: Pick the best blogging platform at the outset and stick with it. That platform is WordPress. I started out on Blogger, transitioned a couple of months ago and am still working on getting everything updated and working properly. Starting on Blogger was a huge mistake because the software is so limiting.

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