dandelionblog.com

The internet is the great equalizer–and women are taking advantage of its power like never before, attracting huge audiences and influencing opinions. And often, they’re doing it right from home, speaking out on issues that matter to women and making their voices heard. Big or small, as bloggers we all have the same shot at that platform, but there are a few core elements you’ll find across the board on blogs like Dooce, Pioneer Woman, CuteOverload, and Amalah, among others. Want to make your blog one of those great women’s blogs? Here’s how:

Regularity. Not every big blogger posts daily, but most of them do, and if they don’t post daily, they at least post regularly, five out of seven days a week. Be there–or lose your audience. People generally read blogs as part of their routine. Fit into their routine without fail and watch your traffic grow.

Dependability. Readers know what they’re going to get when they click on one of their favorite big women’s blogs. Dooce is going to be telling brutally frank stories about her life, her daughter, her experiences with depression. Pioneer Woman is probably going to give you a shot of a cowboy’s backside. At CuteOverload, whatever it is, it’s bound to be cute, and Amalah is going to give you honest and touching stories about her struggles with pregnancy and her young son. When you visit a great women’s blog, you don’t reach into a bag of Doritos and find an Oreo. You get what you came for, and when your traffic knows they can trust you that way, they’ll be back.

Voice. The tone of the blog, found in the blogger’s voice, is dependability on another level. We know Dooce will be sarcastic. We know Pioneer Woman will be silly. We know CuteOverload is going to be, well, cute, and that Amalah is going to be bittersweet. Great women bloggers speak from the heart, and that’s the only way you can reach an audience. Be real.

Humor. The big blogs are funny, whether it’s dry like Dooce. sassy like Pioneer Woman, adorable like CuteOverload, or wrenching like Amalah, these bloggers make us laugh in the midst of their struggles with ordinary life. And who can’t go back after that?

Commitment. Great women bloggers like Dooce, Pioneer Woman, CuteOverload, and Amalah are in it for the long haul, and their audience knows it. Remember that TV show you loved that got the cut at the end of the first season? Viewers hate that, and so do blog readers. Make a commitment to your readers, and your readers will make a commitment to you.

Along with regularity, dependability, voice, humor, and commitment, another hallmark of the big women’s blogs is often stunning photography, so don’t forget the pictures. Put it all together and you’ve got a package that blog readers are hungry to discover. Make your blog the next great women’s blog! I dare you!

Let me know what you think, and tell me who some of your favorite women bloggers are–and why.

Tags: How to Blog // 2 Comments »

Okay, I’m sure you’re all aware that Suzanne and I suggest using a self hosted Wordpress for your blog.

But what if you just can’t make yourself do that?

Blogger is a popular option. If you do go that route, lets talk about things you can do to make your Blogger blog more user friendly.

First off, do you really need the 10 digits of word verification before someone posts? We have to enter that EVERY TIME WE COMMENT on your blog. It makes it easy for the reader to just think, nah, I’m not going to bother to comment. Turn off the word verification option.

Let anonymous commenters leave a comment. Turn on the option for allowing anonymous comments for your blog. Not everyone has a Blogger account, nor do they want one. The reader wants to leave a comment on your blog and link back to their own website. It’s annoying enough that Blogger makes the reader enter their information, over and over, every time they want to leave a comment. (Blogger, if you’re reading this, get a clue. Wordpress, Typepad, and other blogging platforms save our information so we only enter it the first time we comment on a blog.)

Font size: I’ve seen a lot of Blogger blogs with small type size. Give your readers a break. That’s really hard to read, especially on laptop screens. Up your font size a few sizes. We’ll thank you.

That’s it. My quick suggestions for making your Blogger blog more reader friendly.

Tags: How to Blog, Website Tips // 2 Comments »

My name is Suzanne and I’m obsessed with stats.  Are you?  It can make you crazy sometimes, but it’s not all bad!  While an addiction to stats can lead to the occasional bout with insanity, like wondering why your
traffic is lower on Thursdays (traffic patterns vary widely and sometimes mysteriously), a fascination with website statistics is worth cultivating.  A thorough knowledge of your site’s traffic patterns and behaviors can help you understand what’s working, and what’s not, on your site.  What is your traffic most interested in?  Where does your traffic come from?   What pages do they hit most frequently?  If you use affiliate advertising, you can even figure out which advertising draws the most clicks and follow through by placing more of like ads on your site to pull in more clicks–and therefore more potential purchases.

How to best follow your stats leaves you facing a maze of analytic tools, all of which seem to yield different numbers for the very same site.  Google Analytics (through Google), Awstats (through your cpanel), and Short Stat (a WordPress plugin) are just a few of your decent options–and I use them all–but the absolute favorite now in my stats-obsessing arsenal is Mint.  Mint was developed by the creators of Short Stat and is considered the “pro” version of Short Stat.  Unlike Short Stat, it isn’t a plugin installed in your WordPress admin so it doesn’t slow your site down, hogging resources.  Mint is installed directly through your domain.  It isn’t free–there’s a $30 charge to sign up (additional plugins, called Pepper, to extend your Mint program’s capabilities, are free.)  In my opinion, Mint is well worth the fee.

Mint’s flexible dashboard, configured to your preferences, gives you everything you could possibly want to know to know at a single glance.  Check your visits by past day, past week, past month, past year, totals, uniques, even by the hour.  Watch referrers–newest unique, most recent, repeat, domains.  Keep up with pageviews by the past hour up to the past 72 hours, as well as by most popular, most recent, and most watched.  You can hook your Feedburner right in there to read those stats by past week, past month, past year, subscribers and hits, and most popular Feedburner items.  Get your Technorati ranking, along with inbound blog and other inbound links.  See your searches–how people find your site–by most recent and most popular, and find out what links people use to leave your site.

Install Mint yourself using their easy installation guide and FAQs.  (There’s also a Mint forum for further assistance.)  Or, have your designer install Mint.

What I love about Mint–the attractive, user-friendly, at-a-glance display all on one page and, most of all, its real-time function.  If you love stats, you’ll be head-over-heels for Mint.  So go have a Mint, and don’t forget the Pepper.  Me, I’ve got to go look at my Mint again and see what’s been going on at my site in the past five minutes…..

Tags: Spotlight // 2 Comments »

In our last article Suzanne explained WHY you should advertise your blog, and some advertising companies you can use to place your ads. They offer the advantage that the advertising companies provide the statistics for how the blog is doing. They list the traffic and pageviews of the blogs.

I’m going to look at another option. Blogs that offer advertising directly through the blogger. No middleman. Which sometimes means you’ll get the same traffic exposure for lower prices. These blogs usually have a link to “advertise here” or “advertising rates” or something similar. Some will have a page and post their rates. Some will list off their statistics such as visitors or pageviews per week. While you can take them at their word, you should do some other research on your own regarding the popularity of their website.

Things to consider:

1) Do they have an active blog? Do they post daily or at least regularly?

2) Do they have a comment section with a lot of activity? How many comments do they get on their posts?
[Read more →]

Tags: How to Blog, Marketing // Add Comment »

Just the title of this post stuns some of you, right?  Advertise your blog?  Yes, advertise your blog.  Why? 

Advertising your blog brings readers to your website!  Once at your website, readers take their time, poke around, check out your excerpts, get to know your name, and buy your book.  It’s back-door promotion that works–and is less expensive than you think.  Pull new readers in with an active, entertaining daily blog and those readers will stick around long enough to be drawn to your books far more than a straightforward advertisement for the book.

Now you know the why, here’s the where, the when, the what, and the how.

Where:  Choose blogs that attract an audience that is similar to the type of audience that enjoys your books.  In most cases, this will mean a blog that attracts women.  If you write inspirational romances or books with rural settings, you might want to choose blogs with a Christian slant or country living blogs.  If you write comedies, look for humorous blogs.  If you write family-centered stories, advertise on a mommy blog.  If you write suspense and adventure, you might choose a blog with a contemporary edge to the writing.  And so on.  Analyze the writing style on the blog, the audience it attracts, and advertise accordingly.  Look at a blog’s traffic.  The more traffic a blog has, the more response (click-throughs) you’ll get, but the more traffic a blog has also tends to increase the price.  Advertising on a major blog is one way to go for high click-throughs, but another strategy is to put the same money into advertising on multiple smaller blogs for less money per blog.  Either way, you’ll reach a big audience for the same price.

When:  Anytime, but especially around the time of a book’s release.

What:  There are many types of advertising platforms.  Some I’ve used have included Adbrite, Federated Media, and BlogAds.  Visit their sites and use their systems to narrow your blog searches by categories that complement your writing style. 

How:  All of the above-mentioned platforms accept text ads, which are the simplest ads to create.  An example of a text ad I’ve used with great success is: “Visit a writer’s daily farmhouse journal for recipes, crafts, fun and country living.”  Notice I don’t advertise a book!  I’m advertising entertainment–free entertainment–to get them in the door.  BlogAds also offers the option of adding an image, which I find preferable in increasing click-throughs as images attract attention.  I use the image of a barn with chickens, alternating with an image of a funny sheep.  These images are designed to capture interest and reflect my Chickens in the Road country living blog.  (And I write stories in “country” settings, so this also attracts an audience geared toward my books.)

You can see examples of BlogAds on numerous sites including Crazy Aunt Purl and Biblical Womanhood Online.  You can also see BlogAds in action on my own website, Chickens in the Road, where I publish BlogAds as a side income.  See the “Become a Sponsor” links in my sidebar?  I offer three ad positions at varying price points for any budget.  You can find host blogs for BlogAds either through similar links in their sidebars or by visiting the BlogAds website and searching for blogs.

Promoting your blog instead of or in conjunction with your book, and using blogs as an advertising strategy, is the newest, smartest way to fast-track your traffic and your sales outside the box and bring in readers who might never hear about you otherwise.  Have fun–and let me know what you think!

Tags: Marketing // 7 Comments »