a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
‘Do you want more eyes on your words?’
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To build better connections for your blog, it’s far more expedient to spend a little time a day to read and comment on several blogs that you follow, than going through hundreds of them leaving your likes and Gravatar on a consistent basis like a sticker.
Your comments leave a more valid impression behind. It’s a painstaking and time-consuming affair, but worthwhile in the long-term.
Remember that people follow people – they essentially follow the perceived personality behind the blog, even when the blogger is anonymous – and not necessarily the website. It’s the connections that form the backbone of your blog and those few minutes spent commenting builds a bridge to networking.
Networking means doing a whole gamut of things that I have written about here before such as; Read More…
Can you explain the purpose of your blog in two split seconds? You must wonder why I ask this question?
Except you are blogging incognito, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if people ask you what your blog is all about when you introduce it to them.
The last thing you want is to do is to mumble garbled thoughts that leave them wondering if your orange juice is spiked.
Your intention is to sound brilliant, concise, engaging and with a twinkle in your eyes when you speak about your blogging passion. Your little snippet should make them want to visit and capture some of your magical dust 😉
People have various reasons for blogging; from blogging for personal pleasure to blogging for business reasons.
With my tongue in my cheek, I dare to point out that if you are blogging just for your personal pleasure and entertainment then you should probably skip this post.
However, if per chance you are trying to engage others with your content, then it’s time to take a deep breath and ponder on your purpose for a few minutes. Read More…
Do you believe that your voice has power and that it could make a difference?
Your voice is the most important tool that you have. A lot of power lies in your words and communication and the failure to use your voice, to Your Life Speak especially in today’s world is a waste. It’s essential to find ways of expressing ourselves as unique people with our own personal styles and experiences.
There are many ways that you could amplify your voice to enhance your creativity and explore the possibilities that lie before you in the Spoken word.
We may not all be gifted with the decibel to sing but we can talk and literally inspire and influence others with our words. The power to shape your own image lies with you and you have to find and embrace the voice that is completely yours.
Your writing is your inner voice speaking to you, through the outpouring of your words. Write as if no one else will read what you are writing, that way, your thoughts remain focused.
Your words/writing would flow far easier when you focus on how to put your own thoughts, your own opinions, and ideas into words without distractions over who would read it.
Think of your writing as a conversation that you are having (yes we bloggers/writers speak to ourselves often, it’s all those muses you’ve got running around in your head) with yourself. You hardly run out of words when having a conversation with your favourite person – you. Read More…
So, you are wondering what the next goals for your blog are and where to start from? You ran the blogging race through last year and would love to see some distinctive growth this year. Well, let’s take it from the top, you need to audit your blog.
Like every business, to run a successful blog requires auditing and doctoring your blog periodically.
Based on your desired goals, the process of auditing your blog effectively could be simple or intensive.
Looking at what you achieved over the past year no matter how big or small helps you to make a concise plan on the way forward for your blog.
If you don’t know where you’ve been, how are you going to know precisely where you are heading to?
Having a blanket wish of wanting your website to grow popular or hoping that you would have a better blogging year without taking into account previous fails, successes and the reasons for those results is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
You are bound to repeat the same mistakes. Find the faults and fix them.
A good old-fashioned notepad and pen, word editor or Google spreadsheet would do. Read More…
Your blogs’ unique voice will strengthen your brand and focus. Your voice is that feeling, thoughts, emotions, reactions, that your writing evokes in your readers’ which causes them to internalize and personalize the content that they’ve read while trying to build a persona behind the author of the blog.
To find your voice is something that certainly takes time. It’s not a rush job. There will be many oscillations, but with practice, you will get better at it and it will flow far more naturally.
In order to truly connect with your readers’ and to build your desired community, you’ve got to do it your own way, in your own style but bearing your readers’ in mind.
Your blog is not all about you. If it’s just about you, then you wouldn’t be thinking of how to grow your audience. You’ll be just fine writing your thoughts on your bedside journal for no one else to read. In as much as your blog may represent many aspects of your thoughts and life, it by no means has all the nuances of your complicated persona which is why it’s also a separate and unique entity.
For the long-term growth of your blog, you’ve got to set a solid foundation. Blog your passion with purpose, with clarity and in your own voice.
No, not everyone knows this because we do have a lot of beginner bloggers popping up every day in our midst and they do value such information as they try to find their footing in the blogosphere and if you look to the right at the Gravatar images below, there are a some that
have the WordPress default image on them.
Gravatar means Globally Recognized Avatar. It’s that little box where you add your photo or the icon that your website is recognized with and it follows you from one site to the other when you comment on people’s blogs.
Your Gravatar gives you an identity across the humongous world-wide-web and it makes your comment stand out as against an empty one with the default WordPress Gravatar. Your Gravatar also serves as your calling card especially when you link it up properly to your website. I can’t recall how many times I tried to follow a comment back to their site only to hit a dead-end because their link is not connected. Read More
There’s a reason why businesses run periodic polls/surveys because it helps them understand the demographics of their customer base and needs and ultimately helps them make strategic business decisions. Polling could save them from certain vulnerabilities, prevent threats to their business and boost their business immensely. It delivers valued feedback.
You might be wondering what your blog has to do with running a survey or poll if you are not selling any product? To state it succinctly, from the onset, you should think and treat your blog/site as your business even when you are not yet selling any tangible item. You are trading your words for attention/readership of an audience.
You are also showcasing your words perhaps for talent hunters and when you think of it from this perspective, it helps you refocus your thoughts on the significant ideas that could be the building blocks of your blog, it could also help you to know the weak links on your blog. The responses of your readers from a poll could yield many leads to topics to look into or write about. As a matter of fact, this post on polls emanates from a question asked by a reader – so, I’m taking a cue from that, thank you, Idle Muser 🙂 READ MORE
a cooking pot and twisted tales 