Welcome to another edition of Blog Tipping. I’m your host, Kestrel, subbing for Anna this week.
Many of us blog because we read other blogs, thought “I can do that!” and started blogging. Eventually, because most of us are inveterate link-clickers, we visit other blogs—even non-WoW blogs.
If you’re like me, you look at a few of these and start to wonder, “How do they do it? How do they get 50 comments per article? How do they get thousands of subscribers to their RSS feed?” Clearly, some of these other bloggers are true professionals: mainstream authors or journalists who blog. Others are just very, very good amateurs.
What I want to do today is introduce you to some resources that can help to give you, and your blog, more polish, more “professionalism,” and (we hope!) more readers. Yes, Virginia, there are people “out there” who simply want to help you become a better blogger. So why not use those people and their wisdom?
Lorelle on WordPress: Lorelle Van Fossen is one of the most prolific, most respected, and most widely-read “professional bloggers.” While her focus with respect to platforms is obviously WordPress (she uses wordpress.com hosting, you’ll notice), the focus of her blog really has more to do with blogging in general. To fully appreciate the breadth of Lorelle’s work would take much more space than I have; suffice to say, if you only read one blogging resource, you won’t go wrong if Lorelle on WordPress is that one.
Another outstanding resource is ProBlogger, written by Australian Darren Rowse. The tagline for the site is “Blog Tips to Help You Make
Money,” but don’t be put off by that. While the site certainly has plenty of information on how to use your blog as an income stream, there are also myriad articles on how to make a better blog and how to become a better blogger. Darren also publishes “breaking news” of interest to bloggers, and writes on the integration of blogging into social networking.
Finally, for WordPress users, a resource I read every day is Weblog Tools Collection. This is an invaluable resource to stay up-to-date on the latest WordPress happenings, news, tips, plug-in releases, and new WordPress themes. I appreciate that the articles are short and sweet, yet give a lot of information in an easy-to-digest form.
The great thing about all three of these resources is they are simply portals to even more destinations, through blogrolls and links, all of which are intended to make you a better blogger, and yours a better blog.
Till next time, happy blogging, and enjoy this week’s blogcast!
WOOT! Thanks Kes! I already had Lorelle on my reader, but will be putting the other two as soon as possible!
Great tip.