Published February 27th, 2008 in Blogging
Maintaining an active blog has been one of the best decisions I ever made in terms of my career. I feel that every designer could greatly benefit from running a blog if they have the desire to share their thoughts with others. Here is my list of 10 reasons for designers to blog.
1. Increased Exposure
Vandelay Website Design gets far more exposure as a result of this blog than it would from any other method, outside of spending a ton of money on advertisements. Without the blog, 99% of those who have heard of us probably never would have. There’s obviously no shortage of designers and design firms out there, so we all need to stand out in one way or another. In my opinion, a blog is as good a way as any.
Published February 13th, 2008 in Blogging
Some of the biggest decisions bloggers face involve their blog theme. Should you change your theme? Should you pay for a premium theme or a custom theme? What should you look for in a new theme ?
With so many free themes readily available (especially for WordPress users) you could literally change you theme everyday if you wanted to. While the availability of themes is a major plus for WordPress users, it can also make some of these decisions more difficult.
Published February 3rd, 2008 in Blogging
I’m happy to announce that today I launched a new blog that focuses on internet marketing and social media marketing, Traffikd. The reason behind the new blog is a desire to write more about some different topics that aren’t covered as frequently here. I don’t anticipate that it will in any way affect the content or frequency of posting here, as this blog remains my priority. There will probably be about 3 or 4 posts per week at Traffikd, so if the topic interests you, I would love to have you as a subscriber (you can click here for the feed).
Published December 26th, 2007 in Blogging
For bloggers and website owners building a strong network is crucial. In order to be a great networker, you need to make yourself valuable for others. Fortunately, there are many ways to do so, even if you are brand new to blogging and internet marketing.
8 Keys to Making Yourself Valuable:
Know Your Role
Know what you have to offer, and how you can help others. Try to look at yourself from the perspective of others. What would they want from you? Go a step further and think about what you have to offer that others may not even know about. Focus on fulfilling your role, and doing what you do to the best of your ability.
Published December 16th, 2007 in Blogging
A few weeks ago I wrote about several factors that influence the first impression of visitors to your website. Because first impressions are so powerful, you should always be trying to improve the experience for new visitors in a way that will encourage repeat visits. As a blogger, your visitors will come from all over. They’ll arrive through links from other websites and blogs, search engines, comments on other blogs, social media, etc. The majority of visitors will not arrive at your blog through your front page, but rather through a particular blog post.
It’s easy to sometimes forget about new visitors while you are trying to improve your blog by serving your subscribers, but in order to maximize the growth of your blog, you’ll also need to consider the needs of the first-time visitor.
What Will New Visitors to Your Blog Want to See?
1. What is your blog about?
Many first-time visitors will want to find an About page to find out more about the blog. Your blog should not only include an About page, but it should also be very easy for visitors to find. Using descriptive categories for your posts can also help new visitors to see the focus of your blog.
Published December 12th, 2007 in Blogging
It amazes me how some blogs take off and grow a very large and loyal audience so quickly. The rest of us can learn a lot from observing the success of others and evaluating what they are doing. There are any number of ways to build a blog, but most of them take more time than we would like.
There are 3 elements that can come together to drastically improve your growth, whether it’s a new blog or an existing one. Individually, these elements are powerful and important, but together they can help build on each other and create exponential growth.
CONTENT
Regardless of what strategy you use to grow your blog, quality content is essential. Even if you’re able to drive large volumes of traffic to your blog, visitors won’t stay on your blog or return later without high quality content. As a result, it is probably the most significant factor for long-term blogging success.
The quality of content involves factors like captivating headlines, readability of posts, the uniqueness of your writing, consistency, and more.
Published December 5th, 2007 in Blogging
A lot of times we throw websites and blogs into two separate categories. While blogs do have several characteristics, as well as different functionality, that distinguish them from standard websites, the two can be used together to create an even stronger and more effective web presence.
There are a number of websites that use blogs as a supplement to the primary content of the site. In fact, this website is an example. The primary purpose of the site is to offer design services and the blog helps to accomplish the overall objectives by driving more traffic to the site and increasing the exposure of the design services.
Published December 2nd, 2007 in Blogging
During the 5 months or so that I’ve been actively blogging I have certainly learned a lot. I’ve learned that content is king and the importance of unique blog posts, the need for consistency, the value of social media marketing, and the need for reliable hosting. But the most valuable lesson I have learned is the importance of networking for bloggers.
Why is Networking Important for Bloggers?
1. New readers – Many of the people that you network with on social media sites, forums and at other blogs will sooner or later visit your blog and become regular readers. Best of all, these will be some of your most consistent, most loyal readers.
Published November 29th, 2007 in Blogging
All bloggers have room for improvement. Obviously, those who are new to blogging will typically have more to learn than those who have several years of experience, but we can all benefit by improving in these 5 areas.
1. Know What Your Readers Really Want.
Successful blogs satisfy their readers. In order to do so, you’ll first need to know specifically what it is that your readers want from you. You should have a good idea of what subjects and topics they would like to see you cover, as well as how frequently they would like new content to be added. Each audience will also prefer certain writing styles or types of posts.
Published November 28th, 2007 in Blogging
There are a lot of different ranking systems currently being used for blogs. Google’s PageRank has been the subject of more than its share of blog discussions recently. In addition to PageRank, there’s always Technorati and Alexa rankings, and recently IZEA (the parent company of PayPerPost) has decided to move away from PageRank and create its own RealRank. (For information on RealRank, see Courtney Tuttle’s Real Rank Doesn’t Solve Anything for Bloggers.
