Aug
3

31 Days to Build a Better Blog Days 8-10


Hey there, welcome to Work At Home Wednesday!  I’m in the midst of learning from ProBlogger Darren Rowse on how to build a better blog in 31 days.  Of course, I’m taking longer than 31 days and working to incorporate what I’m learning into my regular posts.

In the long run, the benefits of this will be increased skill sets in the area of blogging which is what I’m after!  If you’d like the same, I encourage you to follow along with the key concepts and discussion questions.  I’m sharing it to you raw, as in these are my direct answers to the questions.  Probably the best way for you to get the most out of following along is to ask these discussion questions of yourself and your blog…Let’s begin!

Day 8 – Interlink Your Old Blog Posts

Key Concepts:

Interlinking posts within your blog on a regular basis is a good practice to get into.  It helps to make your blog more user friendly to readers, it can help with search engine page rankings and it encourages readers to visit other parts of your blog.  Adding internal links to old posts is a way to feed them into updated versions.  They can also provide further reading to relevant older posts.

Questions:

1) How do you go about interlinking your posts?

I don’t interlink my posts often enough to have a rhythm yet.  The one time I sat down to do this, I pinpointed a post that was getting some search engine traffic – and from that post I linked to other less-read posts.  I’m not sure if I did it correctly but it was fun!

2) How often do you find yourself providing internal links and will you go back to older posts to add new links?

Not often enough, but after this task, I will!

If you have written a post for this task or would like to share one from your archives in which you have utilized internal links, share the post with the rest of us.

Here’s my interlinked post:  Dare I Help Someone Out Of A Pit?

Day 9 – Join a Forum and Start Participating

Here are today’s questions! (Okay, they’re more like essay prompts…)

1) What forums, here or elsewhere, do you like to frequent or which did you join for this task? What do you like/dislike about them?

For whatever reason, I haven’t made forums a part of my routine.  On many of the ones I’d visited in the past, I saw so many ads and didn’t know how to get past all the ads to build relationships with people.  For this task, I’m joining Stay At Home Mompreneurs and keeping an open mind.

2) If you’ve successfully driven traffic to your site from forums, what do you think contributed to your success?  Please share your secrets!  If you’ve just started participating or you’ve never really gotten traffic from forums, what would lead you to follow a link off a forum post? What do you think about incorporating them in your blog?

What would lead me to follow a link off a forum post would be if that link answers a question I have, poses a good question, or has an intriguing title.  I’m open to incorporating forums into my blog.

Day 10 – Set Up Alerts to Monitor What is Happening in Your Niche

Key Concepts:

  • In addition to writing actual blog posts; watching, monitoring, reading and listening to what others are saying are important activities.
  • Reasons to be aware of what others are talking about in your niche include getting ideas for new posts, being aware of breaking news, profile building, networking, and managing your reputation.
  • You can set up alerts through different sources including Twitter Alerts and Google News and Blog Alerts.
  • Types of alerts to set up include words relevant to your blog’s niche or your industry ie “wedding dress” if you blog about weddings and ‘vanity alerts’, which are keywords like your name, blog name, or company name.

Questions:

1) Have you ever used alerts for your blog or otherwise?  How was it useful?

No I haven’t.  I didn’t know they existed…

2) What keywords did you use to set up alerts for today’s task?

stay at home moms, appreciating, encouraging, better friendships, deeper relationships, meaningful relationships, jinnia low, making business personal, relational artistry

There you have it, my friend!  If you answer these questions and make a post out of it, I’d love to stop by and visit! Be sure to grab my button and link up!

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  • http://jcmfamily.blogspot.com casey

    I use the link within feature too and only just recently learned how to add that. To be honest it's actually been fun for me to see my old posts beneath a new one and I have gotten sucked into going from post to post like going through an old diary! hehe. I also have a counter on the side of my page that helps me monitor daily traffic flow a bit better. Otherwise I have a long ways to go to get to where you are:). I think it's awesome that you are doing this 30 day challenge! Looking forward to hearing more!

  • http://jinnialow.com Jinnia

    Cool! That is fun to see your old posts beneath a new one! I too recently began using it, after going through Day 8. Isn't it fun to go through an old diary/journal? It's amazing cuz some of the old posts that I hardly see come up for easy viewing. Thanks for your encouraging words for the 30 day challenge! I'm beginning to lose steam and will pick up again. Great that you have a counter too! I also see you added pages! How exciting!!

  • TVs Take

    Great tips Jinnia! Thanks for sharing

  • http://jinnialow.com Jinnia

    Thanks TV! Hope you have a great evening.

  • Dio

    Hi! Thanks for visiting my blog today and commenting. I thought I'd stop and visit as well and I'm glad I did! I learned a lot by reading this this post. ~ I look forward to reading more of your posts.

  • http://jinnialow.com Jinnia

    Hi! Absolutely, I enjoyed meeting you briefly and look forward to getting to know you :) I'm glad you learned something from this post! It's a great challenge!