Casiella Truza over at Ecliptic Rift wrote a great post on how to publicize your blog (http://rift.chromebits.net/2009/12/29/8-ways-to-publicize-your-eve-online-blog). I started to write a comment and it turned into something rather lengthy. So, rather than clutter up his blog with a TL;DR comment, I decided to write a post.
That brings me to one of his points be discusses, point number 8, comment on other people’s blogs. This is a great way to hold a discussion or in my case here, create inspiration for a blog post.
Some more tips to consider in no specific order:
- I have to point out Mynxee’s comment, then point to it again and again and again…It takes time to grow a following. Well written posts on a fairly consistent schedule will keep readers coming back. Many bloggers start out trying to write a post every day. Protip, don’t. Write at least two posts a week max when starting out. Don’t overdo it, you will burn out.
- Write posts in advance. I take time every Sunday to sit down and read. I read the EVE forums, I read blog posts from other bloggers that I have starred in Google Reader and I decide what I am going to write. I write out a few different draft posts and touch them up over the following week.
- Mur Lafferty has a wonderful writing podcast, I Should Be Writing. She has a great quote and I can’t remember it verbatim, but this is the sentiment, “It’s okay to suck. Write and suck at writing. The only way you will get better is to write, suck at it and write some more.” Write that piece of fan fiction and let it bomb horribly. Need some examples of bad fan fiction, read my stories. They totally suck when compared to many of our talented fiction writers like Roc and Shae Tiann. It’s okay that my fiction sucks, it will get better in time and more importantly, I enjoy writing the stories.
- Don’t topic spam. This is a very hard one to do. With 500 blogs listed in our OPML file, the potential for posts that are on the same topic is very high. There is nothing wrong with people talking about the same topic, say an upcoming expansion, but when there are several posts with identical content, the general reader base may tend to skip over your post. Sometimes it’s better to keep that post as a draft and use it later, perhaps revise it with a different perspective after a day or two.
- In reference to point number 7, I found it useful state at the top of my bio about having auto-reject turned on and to in game mail me so that I don’t encounter an ill timed chat request. I also turned off my in game email charge so that people can contact me without having to pay isk. When someone does contact you in game, do try to respond to them.
- Tags. Use tags for your posts and try to use similar tags for similar topics. Search engines love organization and if you are consistently using tags and categories in your blog, you will increase traffic to older posts. Just because a post is not on the first page does not mean that someone will not read it. Remember, people add blogs to their RSS readers all the time. Your first post from 2 years ago may be brand new to people today.
- Spell check. Do it, your readers will thank you.
- Read your post aloud before you publish it. Things you write always seem to look fine when you read them in your mind, hearing the words in your ears helps to smooth out language. Again, your readers will thank you.
- Revisit old posts and write new ones. It’s funny, your perspective on something in game can change over time. You may have really hated warp bubbles in nullsec when you were trying to take a shortcut a year ago but you may really love them now as you may be a HIC pilot. Write a new post about how your perspective has changed and why.
- Publish your blog to the Kindle. I know, it sounds silly. Why subscribe to a blog on a Kindle when you can read it in a RSS reader or web browser. Well, some people like to subscribe to blogs and read them while traveling and while they are NOT connected to the online world. It’s another way to expand your reader base and best of all, it’s free!
- That’s all I can think of for right now. If you have some tips or tricks on blogging, do contribute to the discussion over on Casiella’s blog!
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Blog Tips and Tools, Discussion Point
December 29th 2009
