How many mistakes have I made since I started blogging? Do you really want to know? Alright then…here’s 5 blog writing mistakes I’ve made: Ending blog post titles with periods. Gack! I did this all the time. I debated whether it made sense or not, but apparently it doesn’t. So let me ask you this […]

Short of yelling or begging, let’s take a look at 5 blog writing tips to get more comments:

1. End blog posts with questions. Make the question as specific as possible. “What do you think?” might not be inspiring enough to get someone to comment. Re-iterate the point or argument of the blog post in the question, to make it as direct and pointed as possible.
2. Take a stand. If you wiffle-waffle in a post, or present too many sides to an argument, no one will bother commenting. Take a stand, stick with it, argue as persuasively as you can, and then let the “yays” and “nays” battle it out in the comments.
3. Controversial headlines. Write a headline that’s opposite of what people would expect. Write a headline that takes an obviously controversial or bizarre stance. Or, write a headline that asks a very direct question, or a question that’s bound to ruffle feathers. The most popular post I’ve ever written was titled, “What Do Real Estate Agents Do Exactly? Where’s The Value And Innovation?”
4. Keep posts short. There’s a time and place for long posts, but if you want to generate comments, keep your posts as short as possible. I’m not recommending that you exclude information from your arguments, but the longer a post goes, the more people skim, and the less likely they are to get the information they really want; that’s going to get them to comment.
5. Put a kicker inside. It’s understood that the start and end of a blog post need to pack a punch. People read the intro, skim…skim some more, and read the end right? Well, some people do read the middle. And you may be able to nab someone into commenting by putting some kind of kicker in the middle. Give ’em something meaty to chew on, and they might even skim the rest of the post so they can comment right away. If the middle is drab, people will be less inspired by the end anyway, so shock ’em on the inside.

Blogs live and die by the number of great inbound links they have. An inbound link is very simply a link from another website or blog coming to your blog. Not all links are created equal. Some will be from junk sites, sblogs (spam blogs) or sites that have little to no relevance to your […]

One of the advantages of using WordPress is the vast assortment of plugins available. You want to do something with your blog…there’s a plugin. If there isn’t, someone’s working on it. It’s easy to get carried away with setting up plugins, and truth be told there aren’t many that are absolutely critical for most blogs. […]

There’s absolutely no reason to exclude contact information from your blog. It just doesn’t make any sense. Yet…it’s rampant throughout the blogosphere. I recently participated in the BlogDay festivities by seeking out 5 blogs I had never visited before, linking to them and emailing their owners to let them know. I was amazed at how […]

Here are 6 basic tips for using WordPress. They include: (1) Find a good theme (2) Edit your theme carefully (3) Create a list of categories (4) Use plugins judiciously (5) Change the permalink structure and (6) Change the height of the post box. With these tips and the bonus tip on archiving through the use of optional excerpts you’ll be able to get the basics of a blog going in no time!

Thinking of using WordPress for your blog? Then you’ll need to pick a theme. And picking a theme isn’t easy! There are hundreds and hundreds of them. It’s amazing actually… The theme you pick is critical, because it will represent a significant part of people’s first impressions when visiting your blog. And we all know […]

I really should write these things down, but I’m fairly certain it was at Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger where he mentioned something about posting early in the morning to get more traffic. Or was it post about your morning? It’s early in the morning, I’m without coffee, so who can really say? Well after thinking about […]