It seems like I’ve been working weeks on making my blog better with minimal improvement. I have been researching extras, installing (or at least trying to install) widgets, and otherwise making writing and using my blog a better experience.
Fortunately, I recently purchased a new book which helps clarify a lot of the clutter and makes sound recommendations to upgrade my blog. I haven’t finished it yet but the book contains all types of social media recommendations including how to improve your Facebook page, how to Twitter effectively, etc.
The book is called “Everything You Want To Know About Social Media” by Hilary Topper. Hilary is a marketing and social media expert and her blog (which garners 15,000 hits a month) was even nominated for a Stevie last year. This is a great read for anyone interested in social media (beginner or experienced).
I will discuss here some great blogging things that I learned (but the book contains much more).
The first tip I want to discuss is a program called Zemanta. This application makes it easier to locate and include images, links and related article links to your post. It also supposedly enhances your search-engine friendliness for Google, Yahoo, etc. Once installed (it works with most blog sites), you just click on various suggestions that Zemanta provides.
Hilary uses and now I do too. I honestly didn’t like the images which were suggested (and therefore added my own). There give you 32 suggestions but, in my view, it is “hit or miss” regarding whether they capture the essence of what your blog is about.
I was impressed by the tagging and related article suggestion features. Zemanta suggests tags and related articles to include and you can add each one with just one click. What do you think?
I also followed Hilary’s recommendation and added a stat counter to receive more metrics about my blog than WordPress currently provides. Other than a stat counter tag, I made these metrics only viewable on the administrative side.
Finally, the easiest and potentially most impactful addition I made was using Pingomatic which updates various search engines that your blog has been updated. By “pinging”, you get greater exposure for your blog.
Thanks Hilary for all the great tips.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Zemanta – Great Blogging Tool (thetechscoop.net)
4 Comments. Leave new
thank you! I really liked this post!
Hello. Thank you for this great info! Keep up the good job!
Hey Matthew, I’m glad you felt like you learned something! I really think these tools will help increase readership of your blog. Thanks for sharing this and a special thanks for endorsing my book…. If anyone is interested in ordering the book, it’s on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online….
[…] blogs by people talking about the same things I am talking about. This morning I found this blog: Traffic Lawyer. What a discovery! I immediately downloaded Zemanta. This is a very cool blog tool. If you are […]