Blogging 101 ~ Lesson #12: Final Acquaintance with Blogger & Tips on Posting

I think this is the last lesson in the Blogging 101 series.  I very well may find I missed something and return with another lesson, but for now we will finish up and move on to Blogging 201 as we enter the blogging community.



15 Minutes:  Finish Browsing the Tabs on the Design Page

We became acquainted with many of the options available to bloggers in the tabs found on the design page I Blogging 101 Lesson #1 and some of the individual offerings in other lessons.  Today we will finish viewing them.  Either thru the Blogger dashboard or your navbar go to your design page and we will walk thru the tabs at the top.

• Posting:  We have gone over the posting options in Blogging 101 Lesson #2 How to Publish a Page on Blogger and #3 How to Publish a Post on Blogger.
•  Comments:  All comments left on the blog are archived under this tab in three different categories—Published, Awaiting Moderation & Spam.  You can deal with all of your comments here thru deleting or publishing them.
•  Settings:  Most of these we have handled in earlier lessons.  You may want to take a moment to click thru them all to be sure you are familiar where to find the information if you have a desire to change them in the future.
•  Design:  These options were covered in depth in Blogging 101 Lessons four, five and six.
•  Monetize:   Where you can sign up to advertise with Adsense and Amazon (in some states) and to check reports when you have it active on your blog.  We will be covering this in Blogging 301:  Monetizing Your Blog.
•  Stats:  Information about your blog’s visitors and viewing habits.

15 Minutes:  Study Tips on Posting & Begin Writing

• Make your content interesting by giving it your own writing style or applying your personality to your posts.  Let your unique style be your signature and it will draw return readers.
• Be sure your content is original.  Make it your own. 
• If you see something on another blog or site that you want to share, re-write it in your own words and give a link back to the original source—either to the site’s homepage or to the post itself (example:  “Thanks to Elizabeth at Nurturing Cuisine for the idea of the Super Bowl Party Sub).  If it is an item that you cannot really retell in your own words, you can tell about it with a link back to the original content, or you can contact the author and ask if they would like to guest post on your blog.
• Post on a regular schedule.  Whether it is morning, noon and night, daily, every other day or weekly.  Be consistent with your content so readers know what to expect.  
• The more active a blog is the more traffic it will generate, so posting more often can be beneficial. 
• If you are going to post more than once a day, posting at consistent, yet varied times, will help keep readers returning and give returning visitors fresh material each time they visit. 
• Repeat posts should be scheduled for the same day of the week. If you are going to be posting once a week on a certain topic, posting it on a certain day of the week builds continuity in your blog and your readers know when to expect the post in the series to be up (example, at Simply CVS each Saturday afternoon I post a $5 & $10 Out of Pocket Scenarios post for the next week’s deals).
• Remember posts can be easily edited in the future if you need to change or add anything.
• Include links in your post to other posts on your blog that add interest to or more information on the subject. 
•  Edit older posts to include links to your new content.  
• Make the links part of the flow of the content (example:  “As I told you earlier in the month, the fire in the pasture shorted out the electric fence, so James had to..."—you would make the orange part the link).  
• The more material that is easily available for readers to access on your blog, the more they will read.
• Use pictures in your posts.  There are places on the web where you can get free photos and clip art to use if you do not want to take the pictures personally.  
• Do not steal pictures from other blogs or sites.  They are owned by them and are not to be used.  
• Also, a reminder, the more photos you have the longer the page will take to load.
• Keep your posts as short as possible while still providing the information needed.  People are busy today and you don’t want to turn them away because they do not have the time to read your full post.  Learn to write concisely:  say lots with few words.  Abraham Lincoln was known for this.  The Gettysburg Address only had 272 words in it and another fellow who spoke that day spoke for quite a long while, yet no one remembers him or what his speech was about.
• Use good grammar and spelling.
• Make use of bullets or numbers to break up long posts.
• Consider using the page jump option to have only the first paragraph show on the home page of your blog so readers can scroll down thru several in a short time and choose which they want to read more about.
• Remember to use good tags (labels) for your blog's navigation and for search engine optimization.

You are now on a journey of publishing your thoughts, dreams and/or ideas to the world.  Enjoy yourself and begin writing.  Mostly, remember to enjoy yourself. Blogging is hard work, but it can be such a joy if we allow it to be.