One of my aims all this year has been to become a better blogger.
I feel I have learnt a few lessons so far but have quite a way to go.
Here are some of the things I feel I’ve learnt:
- choose topics that others want to know about
- don’t make your postings too long
- use a bit of white space to make it easier to read
- use tags to help search engines etc. to find you
- connect to the blogs of others if you can.
- when you visit some one else’s blog, let them know you’ve read it: write a comment.
- be on the lookout for blogs of others and list them in your RSS reader - getting time to read them is something else!
- Today I’ve learnt from my friend KerryJ how to put an image in- so here I am last Friday in Brisbane airport doing my posting.
Today I have come across a couple of sites that may help you with the same process.
First of all the 2008 Comment Challenge.
Challenges are very popular with bloggers of all walks of life. By taking on a challenge you challenge yourself to learn or do something new. The 31 Day Comment Challenge is running from May 1-31 2008, but don’t let that put you off. There is a list of activities, one for every day of the month
- Day 1: Do a Commenting Self-Audit
- Day 2: Comment on a blog you’ve never commented on before
- Day 3: Sign up for a Comment Tracking Service
- Day 4: Ask a Question in a Blog Comment
- Day 5: Comment on a Blog Post You Don’t agree with
- Day 6: Engage another commenter in a conversation
- Day 7: Reflect on What you’ve learned so far
- Day 8: Comment on a blog outside your niche
The second site I found today was Sue Waters’ blog Mobile Technology in TAFE. Sue’s recent posts have been related to blog cleaning, layout, and what she calls the weight problem.
Perhaps you have some tips for me or some good blogs for me to visit?
4 Comments
G’day Kerrie, You have found one of the best bloggers to give you hints and clues to help you in your blogging and that is Sue Waters. I have only been blogging since January this year, and everytime I leave a comment with Sue, I also leave a question and within hours, she has either answered the comment or sent me an email.
A tip for you would be to develop a blogroll of the links to those blogs that you find interesting. My list developed from visiting all those people who made comments on Sue Waters personal blog or the education al one she writes called “the Edublogger”.
Hi Kerrie
Thanks for linking to my blog (and your comment on my post). I hope you decide to join us in the 31 Day Comment because the team are all learning some really cool stuff. Meanwhile if you are looking for tips on blogging I suggest you check out my other blog The Edublogger. This post Here’s My First Five Tips For Writing Better Blog Posts — What Are Yours? has been really popular. And Darren Draper has been writing an excellent series at the moment.
Sue
Thanks for the “challenge”. I love the idea and am going to try and do some of your activities listed above, great stuff.
I’m not sure that I agree that you should write posts about what others want to know about. I think blogging is much more interesting that that - it provides the opportunity to actually talk about the things that don’t necessarily get a lot of thinking time, or new ideas that haven’t get been mainstreamed. I think blogging should be much more subversive than just talking about what people are already thinking about. The other question is whether you actually care whether people read your blog or not. Maybe that’s an odd question, but many people use blogs like a journal of ideas and as someone who kept a personal journal for many years it seems to me that having somewhere to put ideas is a valuable one. I enjoy writing my own blog posts because it does give me some focus for my ideas, and I do kind of concentrate on the things that strike me as particularly interesting and maybe not widely known. I think blogging should be about getting new ideas and thoughts, questions, etc etc out into the space. Whether people read it or not is another matter. As with many things some ideas will be of interest to a small but interested group, or may be only one or two individuals with whom conversations and relationships will be established. Blogging of ideas then becomes almost collaborative innovation in relation to ideas. So I’d suggest more writing of your own ideas and thoughts rather than just stuff that you think other people are interested in.
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