Who Blogs and Why Blog?

The answers simple - everyone and anyone for numerous reasons.

All different types of people blog and there are endless reasons to blog. Here are some of the people who blog and why they blog.

• Students blog for all different reasons - voluntary or not. Whether they are blogging for class or blogging about gossip, a blog can help students get internships and jobs. Bottom line, blogs are a great addition to a resume. 
  

I started blogging as a student not because I wanted to but because I had to. Now I blog for fun and to enhance my resume. My blog has already helped me land a job as a freelancer.

• Reporters blog to connect with users and make their job easier. Some reporters blog for "blograising" which is when they ask for financial contributions on their blog. You'd be surprised how many people actually donate.
  

• The unemployed blog because of the economic downturn. They blog to promote themselves and hopefully become employed or make money off of their blogs.
  

• The employed blog for personal branding and to save themselves from getting fired in this economic downturn. Some of the employed blog for company communications and to help with business.
  

• Good Samaritans blog for a cause. Some people blog to raise money for philanthropies.
  

• Many soldiers blog to keep in touch with people back home. Contact with loved ones is vital and hard to maintain but blogging makes it more accessible.
  

• Travelers blog to share information and to write about their travels and adventures.
  

• There are personal bloggers and professional bloggers. Some people blog for fun and some people blog to make money. Blogging is sometimes used as a diary. Other people blog to boost their professional career for resume enhancement.
  

Everyone blogs for their own reason but the blog topic you pick is always something you spend a good deal of time thinking about. You need to be an expert and basically obsessed with your blog topic, so choose wisely. I chose television shows because you will not find a person that is obsessed with more shows than I am. I dare you to try. 

The Secrets of the Great Blogs

What makes a great blog?

This is not an easy question to answer. There are many qualities that make a blog great and these are some of the key qualities.

First of all, it is very important to have a well designed blog. No one is going to sit and read your blog if they don't have something clean and pretty to look at. Making your blog visually appealing can really keep a reader's focus. 

I tried to implement this in my blog through my template. It is colorful and visually appealing without taking away from the blog. If you have one of the standard templates on your blog it is a clear sign that you are new to the blog world and frankly it's just plain boring so change it immediately.

Another important quality of a great blog is keeping the paragraphs short. Basically, don't say in 20 words what you can say in 10. 

Two short paragraphs are much more appealing to the eye than one long paragraph. When blogging just make sure you are clear, concise and to the point. Check out this post on my blog for a great example of paragraph length.

A strong voice is vital for a great blog. Letting your opinion be heard is one of the perks of a blog so finding your voice is really essential. Freedom of speech wasn't invented for nothing.

It is important to keep your writing conversational when blogging. The reader wants to feel like they are listening to a friend so let your personality shine through.

The quality of your content on your blog is also important. Be an authority and own your topic. Make sure you are putting your own twist on the information so your readers aren't bored.

Lastly, it is important that you are consistently posting. You cannot expect your readers to consistently check your blog if you are not consistently posting.

Writing Web Content that Grabs Readers

Writing web content that grabs readers isn't as easy as one might think. 

When I first started blogging, my paragraphs were lengthy to say the least. Forget about the content - when readers came to my blog they were quickly scared away by my endless paragraphs so they never actually got to my content.

Honestly, a good headline is all it really takes to get a readers attention. Getting their attention isn't the hard part though, it's keeping it.

If you want to keep a readers attention, you need to be an authority on your topic. Readers want to hear from an expert, not an armature. If they feel you are just another Joe Shmoe they won't care what you have to say.

A good way to show you have done the research and really know what you are talking about is to use linking. When your links are well chosen and well placed, they give you credibility. It is important that your links make sense. Linking effectively can make a huge difference on a blog. 

When I first started blogging I would link the word website which clearly doesn't make sense and will not grab any reader's attention. A good alternative is to link the name of the website. Some examples of good linking can be found on my blog in my "The Opportunity of a Lifetime . . . Literally" post.

If you want to grab a reader's attention and keep it, you need to keep your posts short and concise. As a beginner in the blog world, I would write and write and write. It is important to know the average blog post consists of 100-250 words. 

Readers want to get their information and fast. As Chris Brogan simply said "keep it brief". If you make it hard for them with long posts, they are going to find their information elsewhere.

Building Traffic

When I first started my blog I was worried no one would even look at it. 

Through social networks like Twitter and Facebook, I was able to easily and quickly promote my blog. There are a few key tips that can help build traffic for your site.

How do people come across your site? Usually people search the web for a keyword which leads them to different sites. 

I found using Google Keywords is a great way to find out what words are searched the most so you can use them in your posts and tags. Google Analytics is also really helpful in finding out what specific words brought people to your site the most. This is an easy and fast way to build traffic to your site. 

Using Google Keywords I discovered "celebrity apprentice" was being searched quite often. So I quickly wrote a post on the show. Checking my Google Analytics recently I discovered "Celebrity Apprentice" is one of the keywords that led people to my site.

This brings me to my next point - tagging. You have to use tags to your advantage. Tag as much as possible because the more tags you have, the better chance someone will land on your site. 

For a good example on successful tagging look at my "ER's Big Goodbye" post. You can see that nothing worth tagging was left untagged but all the tags make sense.

When you have a new blog, you should create a blog roll and follow the blogs that relate to your niche audience. Now to build traffic simply comment on those niche blogs. 

By commenting on blogs related to your topic you are putting your voice out there. This will generate traffic not only by hopefully evoking a comment back from that blogger but also from all the followers of that blog.

Once you have done this, the next step is to use backlinking. Getting other websites to link back to your site is a great way to build traffic. An example of how I used backlinking effectively is in my "Bachelor Spoiler Alert or False Speculation? We shall see . . . " post . I backlinked to Steve's site which inevitably created traffic for his blog and mine.

Finally and most importantly, pick a unique and searchable name for your blog. The name of your blog is the first thing readers see. If your blog title isn't easily searchable, you are going to hinder the traffic of your blog.

I realized recently that my blog title was hindering the traffic to my site. Finding the perfect title can be very tricky. 

My blog used to be called "My Longest Relationships" which I thought was unique and very true. I found that most people were coming to my site for relationship advice so I decided to change my blog title to something more relevant and blunt. My new title is "Television Addicts Anonymous"  which, according to Google Analytics, seems to be increasing my traffic a great deal.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving quality of traffic to a website and increasing the number of visitors to a website from search engines.

A big problem many people in class have had, including myself, is increasing traffic on our blogs. There are some easy ways I've tried to fix that problem. 

Many of these practices are small and simple, but combined with each other, they can produce big results. By following a few easy tips, applying them to your personal style of writing and maintaining your website, search engine optimization will help put your blog on the map of the Search Engine Results Page.

The first SEO tip which I have found to be effective is the usage of good, searchable headlines.  

A good way to promote traffic to your website is to find out what specific words are searched for most often. By identifying these words through Google keywords tool you are able to use them effectively in your headlines. 

I recently wrote a blog post on the way this tip was used in one of my television shows, Celebrity Apprentice. This tip was used very effectively on the show and I wanted to apply that to my blog.

Another useful tip to increase SEO is to link to other websites and blogs. By doing so, this will increase the likelihood that bloggers that you link, as well as their followers, will visit your website or blog.  

The chance that they will use some of your blogs as links on their personal page becomes higher. With a higher number of visitors comes more recognition from Google and other search engines. I use Google’s blog search to find blogs that have similar topics to my personal blog in order to link to them.

Similar to linking other blogs is backlinking, which is linking to your own past posts. This is an efficient way of getting followers or viewers to go through your blogging archives to read more about your topic, and hopefully they will become a frequent visitor.  This will add to your traffic, which will increase the analytics on your website.  

On my blog I used backlinking well on my "Bachelor’s ex-fiancé" post, in order for people to gain an interest in looking at previous entries.  By looking at more of my blog posts, it gives the readers a better feel for my voice and opinion on the topic of television shows.

Using tags properly and successfully is another great tip on how to increase SEO. It is important to tag all relevant topics that one might search related to your blog post. It is crucial to leave nothing out but not over-tag. 

A great example where I learned how to optimize tagging was when I realized that I could tag the names of people related to a blog post topic. 

For example, if I wrote a blog on American Idol, I could tag every person who has ever been on the show, but since that would be over-tagging, I would tag the most popular and current people like the judges. On the other hand, sometimes when I use tags to increase SEO, I use words that are related to the topic of conversation. 

The content combined with a clear, concise voice is my final tip to improve SEO.  Using proper content and simple language related to blog posts are key to gaining traffic.  Followers look for clear, concise writing in blogs to answer questions and to entertain.  

Readers do not want to read a 500-word blog post on “The Bachelor”.  Instead, the reader would rather the blogger get to the heart of the information related to “The Bachelor” quicker, and then get useful links.  This is one example of how I implemented this tip in my blog to increase SEO.