I’m winding down on my second day of the I_Blog Conference for the Midwest (yes, folks from Nebraska and Wisconsin actually blog – and they rock at it). I digest material by seeing it, so I figured typing out some tips I’ve learned today will not only help ingrain it into my mind, but hopefully help to serve others as well.
For this post, I’ll pass along some tips I learned from Melanie Nelson, who runs Blogging Basics 101. Most of these fall under the “common mistakes” category, so I’m not sure what that says about me, but I found them the most helpful.
- Choose a blog title that will grow with you. “Baby Time” will be outdated when your kid is a toddler, or worse yet, a teen
- Avoid overused words in your title, like “musings,” “ramblings,” and “reflections”
- DO NOT put auto-play music on your blog. Seriously, does anyone enjoy being startled?
- Type out the name of a site when you link to it, don’t just type “Read more *here*” – it will boost the SEO if you type out the name of the site
- Set up a Google alert for trends, categories, products, or key words that you write about – it will give you ideas and know what’s buzzing
Melanie also passed along some great sites for finding free stock photos (because, as we ALL KNOW, you can’t take stuff from the internet). Here are a few cool sites to check out:
Many thanks for the great tips and the well-done presentation. You can find more tips from Melanie by following her on Twitter.
If I’m not too tired tonight (I’m an old soul…I go to bed early, people) I’ll share what I captured during a photography class with the great couple-team Darcy and Randy Milder, from His and Hers Photography.
Sunbeams. That’s all I will say right now.
~Emily
Love it! Thanks, Emily.
Emily, thanks for the mention! It was wonderful to meet you and have some time to talk to you at I_Blog this weekend. Those photos you took on the photo walk are phenomenal. :)