Blog better every day: My daily blog tips from February 2011

Throughout 2011, I share a daily blog tip via my Twitter account, @WadeOnTweets, at 6 a.m. CST.

You can …

• Ask follow-up questions in the comments.
• Tweet out your favorites.
• Follow #DailyBlogTip on Twitter.
• And follow me on Twitter at @WadeOnTweets.

•

The tips for February …

1. Include the entire post in the RSS feed. Make it easy for readers to see your content.
2. Comments are love. Respond to your commenters in a timely and meaningful fashion.
3. “What keeps your customers up at night? THAT’S what your blog needs to be about!” -@juntajoe
4. Think of your blog as a work in progress. You should always have things to fix, ideas to implement.
5. Tell me a story with your post. Draw me in with surprise and misdirection. Leave me wanting more.
6. Super Bowl teams and successful blogs both practice, adjust, fail big and win bigger.
7. Rename your photos from generic filenames to descriptive keywords for better SEO.
8. Back up your blog regularly. Better: Find a way to automate it, but check on backups every month.
9. Domain names make for inexpensive branding. Grab a few, try them out.
10. If you copyright your blog, stand up for it. Copyright protection begins and ends with vigilance.
11. Why link to a PDF when you can show it off with Box.net, SlideShare or another embedded viewer?
12. If you don’t know your blog’s focus, blog more. The focus will come.
13. Take time to edit your posts before hitting send. Reading it aloud helps tremendously.
14. Send a Valentine to your readers by telling them how much you love them.
15. Make sure your podcasts are feed into iTunes for another free channel of distribution.
16. Consider Creative Commons licensing to spread your work while maintaining your ownership rights.
17. Write the headline first. It can guide you in writing a tight, focused post.
18. Reach out to other bloggers you read with a kind e-mail. Build your network.
19. Check your blog for branding consistency. That includes social media, e-mails, RSS feed and promos.
20. It’s not, “How can I get more blog readers?” It’s “How can I be more interesting on my blog?”
21. Who would you like to write a guest post for your site? What’s in it for them? Time to ask them.
22. Optimize your site’s look for phones, so they can see it quickly and easily.
23. Include your site URL in every video, so viewers know where to go next.
24. Plugin/widget checkup: Take out every plugin not needed. Slim down your site.
25. Tag every post. Great for SEO, and helps with finding related content on your site.
26. I love the blogs that show off their commenters’ most recent blog post. Good karma.
27. Get business cards made for your blog. And hand them out.
28. Some get fired up by blogging all the time, others get burnt out. Which are you?

•

See more Daily Blog Tips.

• • •

Want to learn more without leaving your Inbox?
Sign up for our e-newsletter today!