This is day 5 of the Become a Better Blogger Challenge. The mission for today is this:
Day 5. Highlight your most popular posts. Linking to your blog’s most popular posts in a prominent location is essential practice, because it gives new visitors a place to go. They don’t have time to search around for good content: the want to see the best you have to offer, straight away. Linking to popular posts can help ensure that the links and comments keep coming, even after the post is several months old.
Woot! This is another one I already have done…I guess I was a pretty darn good blogger already eh? When I had my blog re-designed about 3 or 4 months ago I asked the designer to widgetize the blog so that I could add new header categories with ease. One of the things I wanted the most was a “Greatest Hits” section. So you will find on my Naturemoms blog a header called Greatest Hits and under it are my most popular blog posts.
Why exactly is this important? Well, I chose those particular posts because they draw in the most traffic, the most searches, and the most money. And they are really kind of the best of the best as far as good and useful content goes. When new visitors come to my blog I want them to be able to look at that Greatest Hits list and see other blog posts that they are sure to love. The more they see and like the more likely they will become an RSS or email subscriber and regular reader.
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On to Day 3 of the Become a Better Blogger Challenge.
Here is the goal:
Day 3. Write a week’s worth of posts in advance. Developing the habit of writing in advance will give you a safety net of content to fall back on when you’re lazy, busy or uninspired. Writing and posting in the same time-frame will inevitably lead to an erratic posting habit, because your readers will never know what to expect from you. Write enough posts in advance and you could also earn the right to a blogging holiday.
This is another aspect of the challenge that I pretty much already do. I don’t do it all the time but on an as needed basis. It is typical for me to have 1 or 2 posts a week prewritten and scheduled to go out. I also have quite a few posts saved as drafts where I have come up with an idea that sounds good so I write a blog title and intro and I inlcude relevent links to help me research. Then when I am looking for something to write about I browse through my drafts and select one I want to expand on.
On my NatureMoms blog I do a weekly wrap up of cool links and products I have found. This post exists as a draft usually for about a week collecting new links as I find them and it gets published on Fridays. If it weren’t for this feature I would “lose” a lot of the great ideas I get. Sometimes a blog is a lifesaver.
Technorati Tags: blogs, schedule posts, save as draft
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Well, this is Day 2 of the 31 Day Challenge to Becoming a Better Blogger. Mission for today:
Day 2. Start using more images in your posts. Readers like images — they help set the tone of your blog post, illustrate metaphors and generally make your posts more interesting to look at. You can use a free stock photography service, but you can also use sensational Flickr images.
This is one aspect of blogging that I already have covered…there might be a few in this challenge. 99% of the time I use images with each blog post. Why? Because personally I am MUCH more likely to be drawn in and read the blog if it has cool pictures. I am a very visual person so I am just more attracted to a visually appealing blog with nice graphics.
Several of my most popular posts on my NatureMoms blog are heavy on the pictures. I even get comments from readers that they find all the pictures helpful. When I am recommending a product and telling my readers how awesome it is…I include a nice picture and they are more likely to click on that picture and buy…resulting in commissions for me. If I take my own pictures of the products they also know I REALLY tried it.
Using pictures when you recommend a product (which I do alot) is like a salesman using a demo model. I believe that my Amazon sales jumped so much last year in large part because I starting using pictures religiously. They convey things that your words can’t sometimes.
Even if my blog post is not intended to “sell” anything…I still find that pictures draw people in. So for this challenge I am calling it mission accomplished. 
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