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| from collections at Gaderinge.com |
Does your blog have a purpose?
And do you always remember it when you post?
If you're trying to raise your author/marketing profile you may think publicizing yourself as a writer is enough. After all, you mention your website or blog URL in your bio box whenever you post or guest post. People can find you, right?
We all know that great content will attract and keep readers but wonderful writing is not enough. Remember the disappointment when the article you labored over and polished to perfection had no readers, shares, or comments at all? Visitors only return to a blog regularly when it appears regularly and provides helpful information they need.
The best marketers sell by providing valuable information and reports free for some time before they start promoting their own products. The secret of success seems to lie in the communication between author and readers. The most successful guest posts on my blog--and they're read again and again, year after year--are those written by authors teaching or discussing some aspect of writing for publication. If I don't pay attention to that, I'm losing readers and all ability to increase traffic.
The Mobile Revolution
I'm a new convert to checking out emails swiftly on my mobile phone. But if a site takes ages to load, I delete the email and I'm not the only one. In this week's Boost Blog Traffic , Greg Hickman pointed out that for the first time this year, more mobile devices than desktop PCs were accessing the Internet. My teenage students don't have e-readers, they read on their phones. My older friends read on their tablets.
It's worth checking out how well and how fast your site loads on a mobile device and also how easy it is to read. Anyone who finds you must be able to find your email opt-in box and fill it in easily.
Autoresponders
For those of us running sites on a budget, ListWire is a free autoresponder with a good reputation so I shall be trying it out this month and reviewing it in October. So far, I have worked out how to make some jolly little boxes but not how to insert it into my Blogger blog where I have a dynamic views template. I'm trying out one of these flying hover-boxes which once appeared momentarily in a dazzling shade of blue (my mistake) but was never seen again (probably my mistake again. Still pondering that.)
Breaking News
An email in my inbox this week announced the disappointing news that the Muse Online Writing Conference is not taking place this year but that all registrations will be carried forward to the 2015 Conference.
I have not managed to verify this as yet but am flagging it up as I see people still wondering about how to register. If anyone has any news please post it in the comments.
You can of course follow my Write a Novella for Publication course in October instead--if I ever manage to get the course ready in time--of course I shall--and if I ever manage to fly in opt-in boxes that work. Not so sure about that--all still in the air.
And all tips for increasing visitors to my blogs will be gratefully received in the comments below.
Anne Duguid is a freelance content editor with MuseItUp Publishing and she passes on helpful writing,editing and publishing tips from time to time at Slow and Steady Writers
