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Resuscitate Your Blog: Recap

Sandra De Freitas — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:58:09 +0000

This is the end of our blog series “Resuscitate Your Blog. I hope you have enjoyed it.

Here’s a recap of everything we have covered this month! What were your favourite posts? What did you get out of the series? What actions did you take? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 26: Guest Bloggers

Sandra De Freitas — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:13:49 +0000

While blogging is fun and allows you to be creative you may want to consider asking someone else to be a guest blogger.

What they get out of being a guest blogger:

Exposure to your audience
SEO (links from your site to theirs)
Ability to help your audience with their expertise
Increase their list (ie. newsletter, twitter, rss)

What you get out of having guest bloggers:

A break from blogging I know you were thinking that.
Allowing someone else to get exposure to your audience
Content on your site that complements your expertise
Good karma

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits does this fabulously. He has guest bloggers a number of times a week. Leo’s blog is VERY popular (over 156,000 people subscribe to his blog). His guest bloggers gain tremendous exposure each time they are published on his blog. And Leo is so generous, he links to their blog and their twitter profile so that his readers can follow these fabulous guest bloggers ongoing. Leo rocks!

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 25: Remember Why You Blog

Sandra De Freitas — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:47:14 +0000

While you have been resuscitating your blog it’s important to remind yourself why you are blogging to keep you going. Some of the popular reasons my clients blog are:

visibility
promoting their products and services
journaling
creating content for a future book
building an audience
creating a tribe
increasing their web traffic
educating their market
affiliate income
testing a new market

Why do you blog? Remind yourself why you do and keep doing it.

I have to laugh at this point, because I remember someone once said to me “You know Sandra, I have a blog but it doesn’t do anything for my business”, to which I asked “How often are you blogging?” He replied “I have only blogged a few times.” If Olympians only trained a few times, do you think any of us would tune into the Olympics? They wouldn’t bother televising it would they?

This person didn’t blog because he didn’t have a good enough reason to. He didn’t know why he blogged. He did it cause he thought he should. Find your reason for blogging and your passion for blogging will expand.

Happy blogging!

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 24: Show Off Your Blog Series

Sandra De Freitas — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:02:15 +0000

If you have been writing a blog series, like I have all month, why not show it off? You’ve been working so hard on this series why not bring your visitor’s attention to it?

I have found this wonderful plugin that lists the posts in your blog series on your sidebar. (Click here to check out Series plugin.)

Simply install it, activate it then configure the settings in the “Series: List Posts” widget.

There is another widget that comes along with this plugin that lists any posts related to the current post on single-post views.

Enjoy! If you plan to write a number of series keep this plugin handy!

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 23: Ask Your Audience Part 2

Sandra De Freitas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:33:08 +0000

Yesterday we talked about asking your audience what they want you to blog about. Don’t stop there. People love to give their opinion so why not create polls and publish them on your blog often?

Once you have gathered their opinions write another blog post about the results. What was shocking about the results? What option got the most votes? What do the results mean? There’s plenty of content you can create from your poll results and your audience will love that they get to contribute.

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 22: Ask Your Audience

Sandra De Freitas — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:00:25 +0000

It’s easier to know what your audience wants if you do one simple thing, ask them! Have you noticed how people love being asked for their opinion? So ask them what it is they want you to blog about.

For example, I am asking you, what do you want me to cover in February’s blog series in the poll below (go ahead and have your say now.)

You can create your own polls with PollDaddy. Visit PollDaddy.com, create your free account then install the PollDaddy Polls & Ratings plugin to create and manage your polls within WordPress. You can view your poll results while in your WordPress account. Pretty snazzy!

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 21: Let Them Know What’s Coming

Sandra De Freitas — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:34:04 +0000

One way to get visitor’s to come back to your site is by letting them know what they can look forward to on your blog. If you schedule posts to be published in the future then consider using this plugin which will list your upcoming posts along with the dates in which they will be published.

The plugin is SubZane Upcoming Post Widget. All you need to do is install it, activate it then use the widget to configure your settings and save.

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 20: The Dip

Sandra De Freitas — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:22:19 +0000

Three weeks ago I started this blog series, Resuscitate Your Blog, in hopes to inspire others and to build a habit of publishing a blog post each day. Today, I’m feeling blah. You know when you have one of those days? It has been raining all day and I have had little energy today. I thought about what I could write about today as I’ve got a few ideas for upcoming posts but I thought I’d pause here for a moment and just embrace this “dip” I’m feeling.

You see, the dip is natural. Have you ever embrassed a new fitness regime? Chances are you were pumped the first few days or even weeks, then one day your brain and your body agree: “We are not going to the gym today! Forget it.”

I think it’s only natural for us to feel this dip, but it’s a great test. You can only go one of two ways after a dip, either push forward or sit back down into your old habits.

So for the days that you begin to feel your dip, stand up and push forward.

Tip: Try writing your blog post while standing up. You’ll experience more energy standing up then sluggishly sitting in your chair.

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 19: Ask The Expert

Sandra De Freitas — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:43:53 +0000

Yesterday we talked about looking at your outbox for blog content ideas. Another thing you can do is create a page called “Ask The Expert” or “Ask [Your Name Here]“. Give your visitors the opportunity to ask you a question to be possibly answered on your blog in the future. Make it clear that you may answer their question, not you will answer their question.

This page will simply house the above and a form with just a few fields: name, email address and question.

Be sure to let people know about this form by telling them in a blog post, at the end of all your blog posts, on Twitter or in your newsletter.

Then begin answering these questions in blog posts, one Q&A per blog post. It’s upto you how often you want to publish these. You may want to create a “day” for it such as “Ask The Expert Wednesday’s”

Resuscitate Your Blog Day 18: Check Your Outbox For Ideas

Sandra De Freitas — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:11:39 +0000

If you are stuck and don’t know what to blog about look in your email outbox.

Your email outbox is a gold mine for blog ideas. When your clients email you questions your answers can be turned into a blog post. If you do a quick scan of your outbox you will find great content that you have already created. All you have to do is copy, paste, edit, remove your client’s name/website/email address etc and pretty it up.