I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with a local chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) in Minneapolis called MN NICE (Minnesota Novelists Inspiring Christian Excellence). The topic was blogging, and the general consensus was that authors benefit when they blog. Blogging is a key ingredient to build a tribe of people who follow you and are the same people who are more likely to buy a book that you write.
Courtesy of stock.xchng.com and jaylopez
The group facilitators did a nice job presenting a list of tips for both new and experienced bloggers to consider.
Here is a short list:
- Blog regularly
- Create a schedule and stick to it
- Your blog should have a focus…people will expect certain things when they come to read it
- Create posts with intriguing titles that capture people’s attention
- Write quality content
- Allow people to subscribe to your posts
- Do not rant about the publishing business
- Find links that also draw people into the website
- Tag each post with key words for the search engines
- Use your social media to promote your blogs
- Highlight links within the posts
- Keep your page simple
- Keep your blogs short – between 500-600 words
- Comment on other writer’s blogs
- Participate in the conversation with people who are commenting on your posts
- Include pictures in the blog post
- Use easy to read fonts
- Host giveaways. Be unique
- Use analytics to gauge what works
- Use unique techniques like vlogging (video blogging) to create unique content
You may also be interested in some aspirational blog numbers posted by Amanda Luedeke, who is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. In her post, she says that authors should have 30,000 unique visitors every month on their blog. In addition, authors should have 5,000 Twitter followers; 5,000 Facebook followers; and if you are public speaker – you should be speaking at least 30 times a year to at least 10,000 people.
It only takes a spark, to get a fire going, and if you don’t start with something, you will also end up at the same place. Nowhere.
What other blogging ideas or suggestions do you have?
