Might sound like a crazy question.
Mommy Blogging is in the news a lot lately. Why do we all do it? Some of us blog to keep up with family and friends. Others want to build a community that they can interact with from home while their kids are sleeping. Others express creativity through their blogs. And some of us try to combine a hobby or talent with earning extra income! (Yes, that would be me.)
Depending on your goal for your blog, increasing readership might not be important to you.
If it is, however, what is the number one way to get new readers? Create and promote great content. And everyone can do this! Really!
How did you find Texas Chicks Blogs and Pics? My guess is that you came from Digital Photography for Moms or CoffeeShop. And how did you get to those sites? You wanted fabulous free actions for Photoshop Elements, or you wanted to learn how to install them. I bet that’s true for a large majority of the Texas Chick readers. Hopefully, once you got to those sites you decided that there was plenty of information that you wanted to come back for, so you subscribed.
Instructions for installing actions, actions, tutorials – all these types of content are the pillars of information that support websites. Lots of different types of info are suitable for content pillars:
- recipes for a specific type of food
- current sales at a specific type of store
- ideas to keep your kids busy when they are home from school
- how to anything
- reviewing products related to your hobbies or interests
- local guides to kids activities where you live, or good grocery stores, post offices with the shortest lines (ok, maybe that’s stretching it a bit!)
We are all experts about something. But how do we translate our expertise into a great blog? Your knowledge has to be unique. There is something about your perspective that makes what you have to write about uncharted territory in the blogosphere. This unique perspective defines your blogging niche. As long as your niche overlaps with someone else’s interests or needs, you have a potential audience.
Once you have your content identified and created, you can promote it whenever you find a need for it on the internet. Where do people who might be interested in what you have to offer hang out, virtually speaking? Become active by commenting or participating in forums.
Anytime someone asks a question that you can answer, you have to be like the proverbial duck on a june bug. Or should I say Texas Chick on a june bug?
Coming up are a couple of articles to help you after you’ve identified your unique blogging niche.
- How to determine where your unique perspective overlaps others interests and needs – quickly, easily and almost scientifically.
- How to become a Texas Chick on a june bug to find people and bring them to your blog.
Until then, what are your blogging pillars of information? Use the comments to describe them. And remember that the comments on this site will automatically link back to your most recent post, so we can show off ideas and methods for how we are all creating and promoting our knowledge.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I like the design of your thesis themed blog. Thesis makes it easy to change the design elements of my blog but I’ve been having some problems using it effectively. Would you be willing to share what you did to get your Thesis themed blog “just right”?
Absolutely, Khurt. I have some Thesis tutorials in the works. Is there any feature in particular you would like help with?
Wow! Quick response.
I like the layout of your blog. I want to have one sidebar on the right and I want the blog posting to appear similarly to yours. Somehow I ended up with one main posting with the remaining posting appearing in two columns below that. I would prefer is the postings all appeared similar to the main posting.
I’m on the DIYThemes web site now trying to find out where I went wrong.
Thanks! Just happened to be on the internet. Everything I did to this blog, I found in that awesome Thesis forum. This is the code, I believe, for having just one column of posts:
/*
One Teaser Across Instead of Two*/
.custom .teaser {
width: 100%;
margin-top: 2em;
padding-top: 2em;
border-top: 1px dotted #bbb;
text-align: justify;
}
I found out what I needed. I increased the number of featured posts from 1 to 4.
Oh, we cross-posted. I see what you did. Looks great!
Oh.. the custom teaser code will work better. Thanks!
Very good information! My problem is that I never seem to stick to writing a blog. I’ve had about five of them! I always end up deleting them because I think they’re boring.
.-= Amy´s last blog ..What was I going to do for 30 days? =-.
I have started a food blog. Three reasons: store my recipes(hope to print family cookbook eventually), excuse to practice food photography and a place to show it, and most of all, share my secrets for staying skinny despite cooking and baking all the time. Is that too broad? Or not broad enough?
.-= Romaine of wwww.Salad-in-a-jar.com´s last blog ..Sweet and Sour Sausage =-.
Hello Mrs. Romaine! I think you’re on to something and I love your salad-in-a-jar idea. I don’t think your topic is too broad – you might just refine the way you think of it. Basically, you are sharing your skinny secrets – your photography makes your healthy food look beautifully appealing, and your recipes are a major building block of your secrets. And I love what you did with Thesis!