31 Days to a Better Blog- Days 1-4

Darren Rowse from ProBlogger issued a challenge to spend time each day for 31 days to improve your blog. Michele Martin from The Bamboo Project asked her readers to join her in sharing the experience of applying the daily tips. I accepted the challenge from Michele to look at how I can improve the VisualsSpeak blog and the ASTD-Cascadia blog that I also administer and write for.

First impressions of the first four days- this is not going to be quick fixes and tips to transform your blog in five minutes or less. Like anything else, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be hard to be really good at it, so I shouldn’t be surprised. How to find the time to improve and continue to write for two blogs at the same time will be the first challenge.

Day One

Day one was about sending an email to each person who is a new commenter on your blog. What I realized about this suggestion is that I am inconsistent. I always try to respond, but sometimes I answer in the comments, and sometimes I email. I know most of our customers aren’t bloggers, and neither are most of the ASTD members, so I cannot assume they would know to check back into the comments to see if there was a reply. This made me realize I need to email every time as well as respond in the comments.

Day Two

Day two is to get a first time reader to read your blog and watch to see how they do it. Michele used her husband, which I realized could also be a good idea since it would also serve to actually get him to see what I have been doing. I’m still waiting for him to find the time. One of the hazards of being married to another small business owner. The promise is for this weekend.

I have learned things from reading the other accounts of the process. Michele’s husband reminded me to take the time to find images. Since we are an image-based company that should be easy. However, the server with all our photos is in the office, and I usually blog from home at night. I’m seeing that this blog improvement process is going to be a lot about organization systems and process improvement. He also had a really great idea about creating visual maps showing the posts. I would love that.

Laura’s Notebook talked about this process leading to exploring why she blogs. From that, I started thinking about where the appropriate place to post this challenge was. This blog is ‘supposed’ to be about inspiring communication through visuals. How does this relate? On the other blog I write for I am serving an organzation. Is this relevant for the membership? Ultimately, I settled here because I know many of our customers are consultants, facilitators, and trainers and would benefit from blogging. Even if you aren’t doing it yet, perhaps you’ll remember some of this sharing when you start.

Day Three

Day three is to search for and join forums in your niche. I already belong to several lists focusing on different topics. My challenge is finding ways to meaningfully participate. I don’t want to write something just to be able to include my signature line. On the rare occasion I have posted, I have seen increase in traffic to my site, so I know it can work. I suspect asking good questions could have a similar effect? Anyone have any ideas?

Day Four

Day four is about linking related content on your blogs together by going back into old posts to add links to new content. I am really glad I am seeing this suggestion now while the blogs are new and I don’t have a huge number of posts yet. I’m seeing the need for a blog maintenance strategy developing. Another thing to add to the to-do list. Wow, I hope this 31 days to a better blog doesn’t lead to 31 more things to worry about!

In the original post, Darren suggested updating your internal links every six months. I suspect that would be something I would find overwhelming and put off, but I liked this suggestion from Rob Malon

Instead of doing it every six months, I find it easier to do it after each new post. Just do a search on your own site to find the post you might want to consider. Generally I don’t forget what I wrote about in the past so I have a pretty good idea of 2-3 posts that I might want to mention my brand new post on.