Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Getting More Traffic to Your Blog, Part Eleven: Start a Series

One of the best ways to ensure that you get new and returning traffic to your blog is to start a series. Simple, huh? After all, chances are that you've come back to this blog to read this series yourself as it has progressed!

Here are some tips:

1. Come up with something interesting. If it interests you, it likely will interest others. Think about research topics or resources, interviews of other bloggers or researchers, or expand about a family line or brickwall ancestor you're researching.

2. Think how the topic could be extended over several blog posts. Start off small, maybe with three or four parts. As you get comfortable, you can write longer series.

3. Pre-write to keep the flow of your writing consistent with each part, and then schedule the posts to auto-publish ahead of time.

4. Don't be like me Be consistent with your posting! Post each part of the series on a regular basis, whether it is daily, weekly or monthly.

5. If you do stop mid-series for some reason, come back and finish.

Readers and other bloggers love series! We recognize the hard work and research a writer must go through to create one, and we always enjoy anticipating the next "episode."

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I hope you've enjoyed my latest Tuesday Tips series, "Getting More Traffic to Your Blog." As always, I appreciate your comments. Please let me know what you liked about (or wished I done with) this series.  Next week, I will begin a new series, "Frugal Genealogy," based on my much-requested presentation for other genealogical societies.

Happy Blogging!

Other posts in this series:
Part One: Get Listed
Part Two: Participate
Part Three: Comment and Allow Comments
Part Four: Create a Profile
Part Five: Join Social Networking Sites
Part Six: The Redux
Part Seven: Check It
Part Eight: Learn

Part Nine: Bookmarks, Feeds, and Subscriptions
Part Ten: Using Your E-Mail to Advertise

6 comments:

Janet Iles said...

Miriam. This series has been very useful. I like how you provide links to the other postings in the series. This way someone who comes in part way through the series can go and read the rest. Even when we subscribe we can't always read everything when it is first posted but a particular posting might get your reading the whole series.

Breaking down a topic in series can be useful when you have lots to say on a topic. If you put it all in one blog posting, it may just be too long for someone to read at one sitting.

Miriam Robbins said...

Thank you, Janet!

Dr. Bill (William L.) Smith said...

Thanks for another great post... and Janet's comment was 'right on' as well!

Keep these ancestor stories coming!

Bill ;-)

http://drbilltellsancestorstories.blogspot.com/
Author of "13 Ways to Tell Your Ancestor Stories"

Miriam Robbins said...

Thanks, Bill!

Tracy said...

I found this whole series to be quite helpful. I only wish I had read the first five parts before I started blogging last April. It took me a while but I figured out most of those things over time on my own, but I did pick up a couple things about getting listed. Your summary will help the next newcomer right from the get-go! Thanks for putting this series together.

Miriam Robbins said...

Thank you, Tracy, for letting me know this was helpful. I love giving tips to others, whether it be genealogy or blogging. Thanks for dropping by!