3
Oct

Build A Better Blog In 31 Days

Posted by Thom Allen

In August Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net ran a series of articles called 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. He encouraged readers to implement his tips and also submit their own. I’ve never taken on a project as aggressive as this. I’m trying to learn more about successful blogging techniques and I want to learn from others. So while I’m implementing Darren’s tips, I’ll be presenting my own.
Here is ProBlogger’s day one tip: Email a New Reader of Your Blog

My day one tip is this; reduce, if not cut out, your blogroll. Most of you may tell me I’m insane and that’s ok, but have you looked at your blogroll lately? I try and click on blogroll links when I’m visiting a website. The site owner must have felt at one time the link was important to them and they wanted to share it. But all too often the links are dead or go to a site I’m sure wasn’t intended.

Honestly, I’m not even sure what the value of a blogroll is anymore. I would rather cut out the blogroll, write blog posts about really cool sites I find, and create a category of BlogRoll. Then if someone is interested in seeing your blogroll, they only need to click on the category and start reading. Plus, link backs in a blog post get more mileage than a static link in your sidebar. That’s what I’m doing for day one, ditching the blogroll.

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Category : Build A Better Blog In 31 Days

Comments

Tawny Press September 22, 2008

I attended a presentation on SEO, a topic I am very familiar, and the topic of blogrolls came up. Blogging is new to us and we have considered putting one on our new blog. Maintaining such a list would require time as we each read different sites, add new links daily and remove older links that we don’t find of interest or value.

This presentation brought up some valid points as why not to add a blogroll, which completely made sense, at least to me. Why invest time on research, content and building relationships with visitors, to lead them to a BlogRoll and lose their attention. It is difficult to interactive with people, when you send them off before you have interaction.

Why would anyone care what blogs we as a group or I as an individual read? I look around to see what the blogger(s) all about. I look for their personality, content and their passion.

Thom Allen September 22, 2008

Hey Tawny, great response. I never thought about it that way, but then when I wrote this series I wasn’t all that much into social networking, at least through blogs and social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

For me its the time factor. At first it was like a badge of honor. But then, I had to maintain the list, and honestly I wanted to display something other than more links to other sites.

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